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f50db59
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Doesn't every love express itself this way, with the seeds of both its flowering and its ruin in the very first words, the first breath, the first though?
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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b550af8
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Do you think artists are supposed to be happy? -Everyone is supposed to be. -I said staunchly,and I knew that I was indeed an idiot and that was my destiny and I didn't mind it
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happiness
inspirational
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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3ac0ecf
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A shame that these images had become iconic, a tune we were all tired of humming.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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d55c635
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If there is any good in life, in history, in my own past, I invoke it now. I invoke it with all the passion with which I have lived.
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goodness
history
life
passion
past
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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a7245ab
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It's a shame for a woman's history to be all about men-first boys, then other boys, then men, men, men. It reminds me of the way our school history textbooks were all about wars and elections, one war after another, with the dull periods of peace skimmed over when they happened.
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growing-up
history
men-and-women
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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d0cae07
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Obey and hate yourself, survive. Disobey, redeem yourself, perish. I thought later how simply and quickly they had introduced that concept to me, as easily as breaking a little finger. For some reason they had decided not to beat me.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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c0ed540
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Then draw everything. Do a hundred drawings a day,' he said fiercely. 'And remember that it's a hellish life.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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7ca28ee
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It is a fact that we historians are interested in what is partly a reflection of ourselves, perhaps a part of ourselves we would rather not examine except through the medium of scholarship; it is also true that as we steep ourselves in our interests, they become more and more a part of us.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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b81b4ce
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It gave me a feeling of temporary acceptance into that elite community, to stroll across the quad at his side. It also gave me my first faint quiver of sexual belonging, the elusive feeling that if I slipped my hand into his as we walked along, a door would fall open somewhere in the long wall of reality as I knew it, never to be closed again.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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7eb0bac
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For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth. And once you've seen that truth--really seen it--you can't look away.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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89d6500
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I lay awake for hours in my twin bed next to the other, empty bed, feeling and hearing the spruces, the hemlocks, the rhododendron scraping at the partly open window, the verdant mountain out there in the night, the burgeoning of nature that did not seem to include me. And when, my restless body asked my teeming brain, had I agreed to be excluded?
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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1979fc8
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That is the beauty of the solid Marxist education you did not have the privilege of receiving. Believe me, you can find labor issues in any topic if you look hard enough.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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5baddfe
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The past is very useful, but only for what if can teach us about the present. The present is the rich thing. But I am very fond of the past.
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Elizabeth kostova |
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3d527b5
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The station was crowded by the time the express pulled up. I felt then, as I do now, that there is no joy like the arrival of a train [...] particularly a European train that will carry you south.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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4cf6d5b
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Imagine, Dracula a pawn in the hands of the infidel. I wasted no time there-I learned everything I could about them, so that I might surpass them all. That was when I vowed to make history, not to be its victim.
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historians
history
infidel
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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091ff70
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In your country you don't care about history, and in my country we cannot recover from it.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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b02200f
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Ich verstehe mit achtzig was ich mit siebzig noch nicht verstehen konnte, naemlich dass man am Ende so gut wie allen vergibt, nur sich selbst nicht.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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8eb350e
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It was strange, I reflected, as we went out into the golden evening of the Byzantine streets, that even in the weirdest circumstances, the most troubling episodes of one's life, the greatest divides from home and familiarity, there were these moments of undeniable joy.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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1e56574
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She ate like a polite wolf.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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57e77c6
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Strangers are strange to each other.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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20005c3
|
Si tuvieras que elegir entre la cordura, tu vida tal como la recuerdas, antes que la verdadera inestabilidad, ?que elegirias como manera adecuada para vivir de un estudioso?
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novel
research
vampires
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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2656364
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I remembered some of what I'd read in the past: the small group of the original Impressionists, including one woman-Berthe Morisot- who'd first banded together in 1874 to exhibit works in a style that the Paris Salon found too experimental for inclusion. We postmoderns take them for granted, or disdain them, or love them too easily.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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9d88109
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Hay cosas menores, pero aun asi muy importantes. No es amable. No sabe cuando ha de decir algo que consuele y cuando hay que callar. La historia le importa un pimiento. No tiene ojos grises dulces ni cejas pobladas, ni se sube las mangas hasta los codos. --La mire fijamente, y ahora me miro con valentia decidida--. En suma, el mayor problema de el es que no es tu.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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b3f1993
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He reminded her of the way male lions look sad, as if their nobility is a terrible weight.
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nobility
sadness
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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b57b946
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Manchmal gibt es kaum etwas Schwierigeres, als zu jemandem zu sprechen, der ueber die Macht des Schweigens verfuegt.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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f00dc4b
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I grant you that anyone who pokes around in history long enough may well go mad.
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sanity
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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f90c4fc
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It's the reward of the business (historian), to look history in the eye & say, 'I know who you are. You can't fool me.
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history
knowing
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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691f767
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Then he said a strange thing, but to himself. `They lived, didn't they?' And I said yes, that when one reads old letters one understands that people in the past really did live, and it is very touching.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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c9aab39
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People seem to believe that despair is the same as anguish, but it is not. It's true that despair is surrounded by anguish, but at its core, despair is silent, a blank page.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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38f8d53
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I would not allow anyone into the center of myself; I would make myself a place to go, deep inside, no matter what happened.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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4b7cb43
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We couldn't be sure of anything except the power of love...and we are under no requirement to believe in a particular source of that love as long as we could keep giving and receiving some in our own lives.
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religion-and-philoshophy
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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1e26148
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Der Glaube ist das, was fuer uns real ist.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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9d6fc7a
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But when you accept an intruder for too long, you invite him back later as a guest.
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government-quotes
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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222956c
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Above all, he encourages her to paint, nodding with approval at even her most unusual experiments with color, light, rough brushwork [...]. She explains to him that she believes painting should reflect nature and life [...]. He nods, although he adds cautiously that he wouldn't want her to know too much about life - nature is a fine subject, but life is grimmer than she can understand. He thinks it is good for her to have something satisfyi..
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painting
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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847f0a8
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I felt sure, glaring at the children as they settled onto the sand with their shovels, that these creatures were never threatened by the grimness of history, either. Then, looking down on their glossy heads, I realized that they were indeed threatened; they were simply unaware of it. We were all vulnerable.
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dracula
history
vlad-the-impaler
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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c0a3ab1
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It was as if she could hear music, where there was no music.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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cd7f612
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when the sun rose at the quarry it turned the world lavender and gold. After
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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0728445
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perhaps when you live your entire life among such scenes, they do not register as beauty but as the world itself--
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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9137fcb
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Politicians who talk about purity usually end up deciding who is pure and who is not.
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politics
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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31585dd
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Didn't Catholicism deal with blood and resurrected flesh on a daily basis? Wasn't it expert in superstition? I somehow doubted that the hospitable plain Protestant chapels that dotted the university could be much help; they didn't look qualified to wrestle with the undead. I felt sure those big square Puritan churches on the town green would be helpless in the face of a European vampire. A little witch burning was more in their line--someth..
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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de41461
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Besides, there are things you have to do for yourself, even if everyone else thinks you're crazy.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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cc34df9
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akimbo,
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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fe6178f
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Her lack of maidenly scruple would have amused me at another moment, but just now her face was so grimly determined that I could only wonder what she had in mind. Nothing could have been less seductive, anyway, than her expression at that moment.
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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10b8abf
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And I always return to the illusion that we are still together, and then -unwillingly- to the knowledge that you have made a hostage of my memory...
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Elizabeth Kostova |