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d0a3ffe
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People gave you a hard time about being a kid at twelve. They didn't want to give you Halloween candy anymore. They said things like, "If this was the Middle Ages, you'd be married and you'd own a farm with a million chickens on it." They were trying to kick you out of childhood. Once you were gone, there was no going back, so you had to hold on as long as you could. Marika was beckoning from the other side."
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loss
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Heather O'Neill |
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4c4a6c6
|
You feel as if everybody has been given an instruction manual on how to be likable, but you didn't get it. And they are all sold out now. And if you are what you eat, then you must have surely spent the last few years of your life eating dog food and cat shit. Because when you look in the mirror, it is all that you see.
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feelings
life
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Heather O'Neill |
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e22db71
|
Jules and I were tiny people. We were delicate. We were almost destroyed. We were vulnerable. Like nerds in a school yard of bullies, we could have traded our stamps and cards of extinct animals. That's the kind of people we would be if our situation were different.
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Heather O'Neill |
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e0e1e4e
|
I closed my eyes and the roof was gone. I could see the stars while the piano tinkled. I could see Jupiter and it was blue, and Neptune was silver like a tennis ball sprayed silver. I could reach out and touch it, like cold water.
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Heather O'Neill |
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d3119a3
|
I'm a terrible person,' Pierrot said to her. 'I'm quite wicked too', Rose said, and she smiled at him. Pierrot knew that Rose was punished every time she spoke to him. All her words were contraband, treasured items from the black market. A sentence from her was like a pot of jam during wartime.
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Heather O'Neill |
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16f8cad
|
In the temporary illumination of the headlights, the insects were scribbling out messages from God that we couldn't get.
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Heather O'Neill |
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cf50410
|
Men were taught to have so much pride, to go out into the world and make something of themselves. This Depression was deeply humiliating. Since women were taught that they were worthless, they took poverty and hardship less personally.
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Heather O'Neill |
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fce9388
|
She liked the idea of being ruined. She was curious to see what would happen to her if no man would marry her. It seemed like the most likely way to have an adventure.
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Heather O'Neill |
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31c36cd
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Fireflies danced around her like embers after someone has thrown a log into the stove.
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Heather O'Neill |
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9c44a2a
|
You have to know that the life you have is completely yours
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Heather O'Neill |
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6c39042
|
The smallest a family can be is two members, and that was Jules and me.
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Heather O'Neill |
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e75f70d
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Linus Lucas was fourteen years old, a number that made the spoons fall right out of our mouths.
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Heather O'Neill |
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3b6b496
|
The piano was just now telling me how it feels so odd when it rains. The rain can cause you to suddently feel guilty for all the tiny crimes you have committed, like not telling your friend that you love her.
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Heather O'Neill |
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5e04386
|
She had fat arms, the type of arms that held sailors and soldiers and thieves. The kind of arms that held someone who was going away to jail for ten years. They were the arms of a woman who had eaten a hundred delicious cakes and pastries to get them this comfortable.
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Heather O'Neill |
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679242b
|
In Moscow there were a hundred different words for sadness, and one of them was joy.
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Heather O'Neill |
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476a982
|
Whenever things were going well, I started to feel vain.
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Heather O'Neill |
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279800a
|
When I opened a book now, I was seized with desperation. I felt as if I was madly in love. It was as if I were in a confession booth and the characters in the book were on the other side telling me their most intimate secrets. When I read, I was a philosopher and it was up to me to figure out the meaning of things. Reading made me feel as if I were the center of the universe.
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Heather O'Neill |
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ae2a262
|
As a kid, you have nothing to do with the way the world is run; you just have to hurry to catch up with it.
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Heather O'Neill |
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8145b6c
|
There is no real dignity in any of these costumes. If I'm a maid, I do what the owner of the house tells me to do. If I'm a nurse, I do whatever the doctor tells me to do. What are we as women, other than barnacles that attach themselves to higher life forms in some pathetic attempt to clean up messes? Tidy up what men have left behind- make the world a lovelier, better place for men. I would like to play a part in which I don't have a supe..
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Heather O'Neill |
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27bce21
|
He had intense gravitational force. He was like Saturn because Saturn has so many moons. If I kicked my shoes up in the air, they would go into orbit around him.
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|
Heather O'Neill |
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dfa4aef
|
Pierrot knew that everything in the world was alive. Everything was composed of molecules that shook and vibrated and hummed. There was no such thing as permanence. Even the most stalwart object--such as a statue in the park--was struggling to keep itself together.
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Heather O'Neill |
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48d6738
|
I was trying my best to straighten out my life, but I always ended up in the middle of some festive waste of time.
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Heather O'Neill |
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f821e00
|
We confused the indoors with intimacy and electric heating with connection. Every night seemed like the last night because we would all freeze to death shortly.
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Heather O'Neill |
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7f350cd
|
There are things that are permissible in sex that aren't permissible elsewhere. You can smack each other and tie one another up and pee on them and strangle them. That's when love shows its face. When love takes off its clothes and has a drink. It sometimes takes the most appalling forms. It made the night seem like it was going to last forever.
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Heather O'Neill |
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4105c05
|
Mothers took your problems from you and fretted about them for you, even if there was no reason on earth why they should, even if you had done everything to create your own mess.
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Heather O'Neill |
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a670cb9
|
A beige cat came down the stairs like caramel seeping out of a Caramilk bar.
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Heather O'Neill |
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ce5c2c0
|
The soft sound of the rain on the rooftop sounded like young girls sneaking off in stockings to elope. She felt lonesome for Pierrot.
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Heather O'Neill |
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9a7b8a5
|
A cat's tail waved above the arm of the couch like an elegant hand in a black glove waving goodbye.
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Heather O'Neill |
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0f86a33
|
They don't know. It's not their fault. What are they supposed to do when they've been told their whole lives not to believe in fairy tales?
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Heather O'Neill |
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7d0bf48
|
She certainly seemed crazy. But she simultaneously made them think that there was nothing in the world wrong with being a crazy girl. And that maybe the world needed a couple more crazy girls.
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Heather O'Neill |
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b2b8ffa
|
But although she interacted with so many people during the day, no one could actually say that they were close to her. There is an aloofness to the permanently heartbroken, a secrecy. There was something impenetrable about her. There was a door that she had closed, which no one could get in.
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Heather O'Neill |
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b577b27
|
My body never belonged to me. You must have felt that too. If someone wanted to beat me, they could beat me. If someone wanted to lock me in the closet, they could. Childhood is such a perverse injustice, I don't know how anyone survives it without going crazy. But I have a chance to turn the tables. I have a chance to run the streets and be a wealthy woman. No one is ever, ever, ever going to treat me with disrespect again.
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Heather O'Neill |
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5353598
|
Poor people knew that all good times had to be paid for.
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Heather O'Neill |
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4e81c43
|
Is there a difference between acting like a really intelligent person and being a really intelligent person?
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Heather O'Neill |
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ac34b8a
|
If we all knew that we were all perverts, we might be a lot happier.
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|
lovers
sex-drive
shyness
lust
|
Heather O'Neill |
|
13fc84e
|
We had started thinking of ourselves not in terms of things that we had done, but in terms of what we were going to do.
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|
|
Heather O'Neill |
|
15f32f0
|
Being a woman was a trap. Something would bring you down before you were twenty-three. The only time the world shows you any favor, or cuts you any slack, is during that very brief period of courtship where the world is trying to fuck you for the first time.
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|
olden-days
womens-rights
gender-stereotypes
|
Heather O'Neill |
|
0e171cb
|
There was a scent called Five Minutes Before It Rains. If you put it on your neck, whoever kissed you would cry.
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|
|
Heather O'Neill |
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5f07e80
|
She went around reading men's minds. She went inside them as though they were bureaus and she were opening their drawers. She looked underneath folded articles of clothing. She found their dirty postcards. She pulled them out and had a look at them. And what lovely things she did find there.
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|
|
Heather O'Neill |
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de61940
|
I was always moved when mean people were suddenly nice to me. It was a weakness that would lead me into some bad relationships later in life.
|
|
relationships
life
love
montréal
pg-76
thirteen
canada
bad
weakness
|
Heather O'Neill |
|
93c15e9
|
She didn't know what it meant to always want to be close to someone. She wanted to have the same experiences as him. She wanted to hit him and have a bruise appear on her body.
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|
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Heather O'Neill |
|
0da2aa2
|
Why had this good-looking moll chosen this effeminate buffoon, they all wanted to know. But Jimmy understood why immediately. Because he allowed her to be free.
|
|
love
|
Heather O'Neill |
|
e9f1720
|
What the hell is that?" he asked. "Magic mushrooms." "I've always wanted to try those," he exclaimed. "They sound so cute."
|
|
foster-care
pg-85
felix
addicts
drug-addiction
orphan
drugs
|
Heather O'Neill |
|
6ce81e4
|
A girl's desire is like a pretty butterfly. And a man's desire is like a butterfly net. His desire captures and kills her. He turns her into an object to be pinned on a corkboard. I don't think I'm interested in the tyranny of the couple. I'm more interested in what a person does when they're forced to be by themselves.
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Heather O'Neill |