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6ae871c
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That life -- whatever else it is -- is short.
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Donna Tartt |
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0c083a9
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And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn't touch.
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Donna Tartt |
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7465353
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Who knew it was in my power to make anyone so happy? Or that I could ever be so happy myself? My moods were a slingshot; after being locked-down and anesthetized for years my heart was zinging and slamming itself around like a bee under a glass, everything bright, sharp, confusing, wrong - but it was a clean pain as opposed to the dull misery that had plagued me for years under the drugs like a rotten tooth, the sick dirty ache of something..
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love
inspirational
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Donna Tartt |
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24a917e
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She was beautiful, too. That's almost secondary; but still, she was.
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Donna Tartt |
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a0dfcf4
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And the heart-shock of believing, for only a moment, that you might just have what could never be yours.
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Donna Tartt |
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4a31956
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a scrap of seventeenth-century sunlight compressed into dots and pixels,
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Donna Tartt |
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be2dc7d
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As vezes voce tem que perder pra ganhar.
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Donna Tartt |
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5937b3c
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Ninguem nunca, jamais, vai conseguir me convencer de que a vida e uma coisa incrivel e gratificante. Porque, esta e a verdade: a vida e catastrofe.
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Donna Tartt |
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1a531eb
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As vezes queremos o que queremos mesmo sabendo que isso vai nos matar. Nao podemos escapar de quem somos.
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Donna Tartt |
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719f2a7
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She was a masterpeace of composure; nothing ever ruffled her or made her upset, and though she was not beatiful her calmness had the magnetic pull of beauty - a stillness so powerful that the molecules realigned themselves around her when she came into a room.
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Donna Tartt |
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019be1a
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Over and over, I kept thinking I've got to go home and then, for the millionth time, I can't.
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Donna Tartt |
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7064589
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It's crazy," she'd said, "but I'd be perfectly happy if I could sit looking at the same half dozen paintings for the rest of my life. I can't think of a better"
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Donna Tartt |
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daa1c83
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Every new event - everything I did for the rest of my life - would only separate us more and more: days she was no longer a part of, an ever-growing distance between us. Every single day for the rest of my life, she would only be further away.
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Donna Tartt |
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ece2c24
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when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what's right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: "Be yourself." "Follow your heart." Only here's what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can't be trusted--? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, ..
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Donna Tartt |
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55e65a7
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rain--was grappling for her wallet. "Maybe" --
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Donna Tartt |
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cb322a6
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I see you are philosopher by nature.
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Donna Tartt |
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56bb1a9
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what mattered most, as I came to realize, was who'd lived in Vegas the longest, which was why the knock-down Mexican beauties and itinerant construction heirs sat alone at lunch while the bland, middling children of local realtors and car dealers were the cheerleaders and class presidents, the unchallenged elite of the school.
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Donna Tartt |
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7d6040b
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Strange, I thought, as I jumped a sheet of water at the curb, how a few hours could change everything--or rather, how strange to find that the present contained such a bright shard of the living past, damaged and eroded but not destroyed.
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Donna Tartt |
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eef3fbd
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III. We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end, we become disguised to ourselves. --FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
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Donna Tartt |
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f3cb51a
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a gunpowder factory exploded at Delft in the 1600s, that the painter had been so haunted and obsessed by the destruction of his city that he painted it over and over.
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Donna Tartt |
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13b275f
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You'd be surprised, Theo." she said, leaning back in her shawl-shaped chair, "what small, everyday things can lift us out of despair. But nobody can do it for you. You're the one who has to watch for the open door."
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Donna Tartt |
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90cb583
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Even on the highest levels it was smoke and mirrors; everyone was furnishing a stage set.
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Donna Tartt |
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65560cc
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Angrily, I concentrated on her flaws, willfully studying the photographs that caught her at awkward ages and less flattering angles - long nose, thin cheeks, her eyes (despite their heartbreaking color) naked-looking with their pale lashes - Huck-Finn plain. Yet all these aspects were - to me - so tender and particular they moved to despair.
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Donna Tartt |
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eecbd0f
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Raviv and Avi, and--my favorite--a Russian Jew named Grisha. (" 'Russian Jew' contradiction in terms," he explained, in a lavish plume of menthol smoke. "To Russian mind anyway. Since 'Jew' to antisemite mind is not the same as true Russian--Russia is notorious of this fact.") Grisha had been born in Sevastopol, which he claimed to remember ("black water,"
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Donna Tartt |
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e5bca87
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And, lying on my bed in some biscuit-colored hotel room in Nice, with a balcony facing the Promenade des Anglais, I watch the clouds reflected on sliding panes and marvel even how my sadness can make me happy . . .
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sadness
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Donna Tartt |
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2614ff9
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You could grasp it in an instant, you could live in it forever.
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Donna Tartt |
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d0b2eef
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I see you're taking French. The French Club meets once a week, in a French restaurant on University Place. And on Tuesdays they go up to the Alliance Francaise and watch French-language movies.
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Donna Tartt |
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d916889
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MIGHT HAVE LIKED Xandra in other circumstances--which, I guess, is sort of like saying I might have liked the kid who beat me up if he hadn't beat me up.
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Donna Tartt |
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cf6a9c2
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it would be a long, long time before I heard anything from Boris again.
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Donna Tartt |
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f559a9b
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No--wait. I'm coming back.
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Donna Tartt |
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e2c8e15
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Was ist, wenn einer zufallig von einem Herzen besessen ist, dem nicht zu trauen ist? Wenn dein tiefstes Inneres dich singend zum Scheiterhaufen lockt, sollst du dich dann lieber abwenden, dir die Ohren mit Wachs verstopfen, den perversen Glanz ignorieren, von dem dein Herz dir zubrullt? [...] Oder ist es besser, dich - wie Boris - kopfuber und lachend in das heilige Wuten zu sturzen, das deinen Namen ruft?
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selbstzerstörung
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Donna Tartt |
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9dabef4
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Und so gern ich an eine Wahrheit jenseits der Illusion glauben wurde, glaube ich doch inzwischen, dass es sie nicht gibt, denn zwischen der Realitat auf der einen Seite und dem Punkt, an dem der Geist die Realitat trifft, gibt es eine mittlere Zone, einen Regenbogenrand, wo die Schonheit ins Dasein kommt, wo zwei sehr unterschiedliche Oberflachen sich mischen und verwischen und bereitstellen, was das Leben nicht bietet. Und das ist der Raum..
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Donna Tartt |
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3801c0d
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basketball courts ringed with barbed-wire fence.
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Donna Tartt |
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be19c4b
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Worse: the thought of returning to any kind of normal routine seemed disloyal, wrong. It kept being a shock every time I remembered it, a fresh slap: she was gone. Every new event--everything I did for the rest of my life--would only separate us more and more: days she was no longer a part
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Donna Tartt |
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86716db
|
though the darkness sometimes lifted just enough so I could construe my surroundings, familiar shapes solidifying like bedroom furniture at dawn, my relief was never more than temporary because somehow the full morning never came, things always went black before I could orient myself and there I was again with ink poured in my eyes, guttering around in the dark.
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Donna Tartt |
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9dfdd5c
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back there or maybe even taken an actual shit, and then tried to cover it up with a bunch of coconut air freshener that smelled like suntan lotion. The seats were greasy, and patched with duct tape, and the shocks were nearly gone. Whenever we struck a
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Donna Tartt |
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615ee2a
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Nature red in tooth and claw.' Perhaps she doesn't
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Donna Tartt |
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cd51626
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There had been a trapped thought about to emerge, something essential and unspeakable, released by the mention of those blank-faced soldiers. Now it was all gone but the image: dead boys with limbs akimbo, staring into the sky.
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Donna Tartt |
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7ed4819
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With mahogany in particular, it's so tightly grained,
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Donna Tartt |
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e7c6dfe
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Another trick--calculated to lure a different, more sophisticated customer--was to bury a piece in the back of the store, reverse the vacuum cleaner over it (instant antiquity!) and allow the nosy customer to ferret it out on his or her own--look,
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Donna Tartt |
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d6c79ee
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throw up his hands and say, 'Who, me? I had nothing to do with it.'
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Donna Tartt |
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74868c1
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Janet who said excellent! in answer to everything and drank coffee from a pink mug that said Janet.
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Donna Tartt |
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55f66f9
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maybe good luck was like bad luck in that it took a while to sink in. You didn't feel anything at first. The feeling came later on.
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Donna Tartt |
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3617938
|
we don't get to choose our own hearts. We can't make ourselves want what's good for us or what's good for other people. We don't get to choose the people we are.
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Donna Tartt |