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ccd607a
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Sometimes you are aware when your great moments are happening, and sometimes they rise from the past. Perhaps it's the same with people.
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James Salter |
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172161d
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They lay silently. She was staring at something across the room. She was making him feel uncomfortable. 'It wouldn't work. It's the attraction of opposites,' he said.
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relationships
women
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James Salter |
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b46e2ed
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Women fall in love when they get to know you. Men are just the opposite. When they finally know you they're ready to leave
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women
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James Salter |
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cf14ff7
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Their life is mysterious, it is like a forest; from far off it seems a unity, it can be comprehended, described, but closer it begins to separate, to break into light and shadow, the density blinds one. Within there is no form, only prodigious detail that reaches everywhere: exotic sounds, spills of sunlight, foliage, fallen trees, small beasts that flee at the sound of a twig-snap, insects, silence, flowers. And all of this, dependent, clo..
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metaphor
people
forest
trees
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James Salter |
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01ee0a4
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The book was in her lap; she had read no further. The power to change one's life comes from a paragraph, a lone remark. The lines that penetrate us are slender, like the flukes that live in river water and enter the bodies of swimmers. She was excited, filled with strength. The polished sentences had arrived, it seemed, like so many other things, at just the right time. How can we imagine what our lives should be without the illumination of..
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words
literature
reading
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James Salter |
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a4abdf9
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I'm tired of my life, my clothes, the things I say. I'm hacking away at the surface, as at some kind of gray ice, trying to break through to what is underneath or I am dead. I can feel the surface trembling--it seems ready to give but it never does. I am uninterested in current events. How can I justify this? How can I explain it? I don't want to have the same vocabulary I've always had. I want something richer, broader, more penetrating an..
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James Salter |
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1a34a14
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One should not believe too strongly in a life which can easily vanish.
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relationship
life
love
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James Salter |
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d51e2cd
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He liked to read with the silence and the golden color of the whiskey as his companions. He liked food, people, talk, but reading was an inexhaustible pleasure. What the joys of music were to others, words on a page were to him.
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solitude
reading
spiritual-needs
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James Salter |
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d03ed55
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There is no complete life. There are only fragments. We are born to have nothing, to have it pour through our hands.
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life
transience
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James Salter |
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e08a2d6
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You must go further than I did," Nedra said. "You know that." "Further?" "With your life. You must become free." She did not explain it; she could not. It was not a matter of living alone, though in her case this had been necessary. The freedom she meant was self-conquest. It was not a natural state. It was meant only for those who would risk everything for it, who were aware that without it life is only appetites until the teeth are gone."
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risk
women
mothers-and-daughters
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James Salter |
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0f8d15c
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But knowledge does not protect one. Life is contemptuous of knowledge; it forces it to sit in the anterooms, to wait outside. Passion, energy, lies: these are what life admires.
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lies
passion
life
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James Salter |
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d7c046d
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As I look back, I see that life is like a game of solitaire and every once in a while there is a move.
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James Salter |
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54b0157
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There comes a time when you realize that everything is a dream, and only those things preserved in writing have any possibility of being real.
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James Salter |
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4f16d43
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Certain things I remember exactly as they were. They are merely discolored a bit by time, like coins in the pocket of a forgotten suit. Most of the details, though, have long since been transformed or rearranged to bring others of them forward. Some, in fact, are obviously counterfeit; they are no less important. One alters the past to form the future.
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James Salter |
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c206f4c
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Now they are lovers. The first, wild courses are ended. They have founded their domain. A satanic happiness follows.
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sex
love
knowing
sin
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James Salter |
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9816fbb
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Do you know what it is to be really intimate, to feel safe with someone who will never betray you, will never force you to act unlike yourself? That was what we had.
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James Salter |
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a69e3ee
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It is always an accident that saves us. It is someone we have never seen.
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James Salter |
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7ca66f2
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ONE OF THE LAST GREAT REALIZATIONS is that life will not be what you dreamed.
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James Salter |
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adabc67
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alone in this city, alone on this sea. The days were strewn about him, he was a drunkard of days. He had achieved nothing. He had his life--it was not worth much--not like a life that, though ended, had truly been something. If I had had courage,he thought, if I had had faith. We preserve ourselves as if that were important, and always at the expense of others. We hoard ourselves. We succeed if they fail, we are wise if they are foolish, an..
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loneliness
faith
selfishness
regret
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James Salter |
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85f155c
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Of them all, it was the true love. Of them all, it was the best. That other sumptuous love which made one drunk, which one longed for, envied, believed in, that was not life. It was what life was seeking; it was a suspension of life. But to be close to a child, for whom one spent everything, whose life was protected and nourished by one's own, to have that child beside one, at peace, was the real, the deepest, the only joy.
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love
parental-love
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James Salter |
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1e17be5
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Age doesn't arrive slowly, it comes in a rush. One day nothing has changed, a week later, everything has. A week may be too long a time, it can happen overnight. You are the same and still the same and suddenly one morning two distinct lines, ineradicable, have appeared at the corners of your mouth.
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James Salter |
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a78b02b
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Children are our crop, our fields, our earth. They are birds let loose into darkness. They are errors renewed. Still, they are the only source from which may be drawn a life more successful, more knowing than our own. Somehow they will do one thing, take one step further, they will see the summit. We believe in it, the radiance that streams from the future, from days we will not see. Children must live, must triumph. Children must die; that..
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James Salter |
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7eda08b
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One should not believe too easily in a life which can easily vanish.
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relationships
life
love
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James Salter |
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ee9a927
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Jivan: You think when you have love that love is easy to find, that everyone has it. It's not true. It's very hard to find. Nedra: I haven't been looking for it. Jivan: It's like a tree...It takes a long time to grow. It has roots very deep, and these roots stretch out a long way, farther than you know. You can't cut it, just like that.
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love
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James Salter |
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ce87ead
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I am creating him out of my own inadequacies, you must remember that
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James Salter |
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e3ac24b
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You're so American. You believe everything is possible, everything will come. I know differently.
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James Salter |
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58128ce
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Why is it so difficult to assemble those things that really matter in life and to dwell among them only? I am referring to certain landscapes, persons, beasts, books, rooms, meteorological conditions, fruits.
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James Salter |
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11ffdfb
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He was reaching that age, he was at the edge of it, when the world becomes suddenly more beautiful, when it reveals itself in a special way, in every detail, roof and wall, in the leaves of trees fluttering faintly before the rain. The world was opening itself, as if to allow, now that life was shortening, one long, passionate look, and all that had been withheld would finally be given.
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James Salter |
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4f4a0c7
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One is seduced and battered in turn. The result is presumably wisdom. Wisdom! We are clinging to life like lizards. Why is it so difficult to assemble those things that really matter in life and to dwell among them only? I am referring to certain landscapes, persons, beasts, books, rooms, meteorological conditions, fruits. In fact, I insist on it. A letter is like a poem, it leaps into life and shows very clearly the marks, perhaps I should..
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writing
living
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James Salter |
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c661d1a
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It was love, the furnace into which everything was dropped.
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James Salter |
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2f6168d
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We were moderate, we will never know what it is to spill out our lives...
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James Salter |
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ed4da16
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None of this is true. I've said Autun, but it could easily have been Auxerre. I'm sure you'll come to realize that. I am only putting down details which entered me, fragments that were able to part my flesh. It's a story of things that never existed although even the faintest doubt of that, the smallest possibility, plunges everything into darkness. I only want whoever reads this to be as resigned as I am. There's enough passion in the worl..
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James Salter |
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64a64bd
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THERE ARE THINGS I LOVE ABOUT marriage. I love the familiarity of it," Nedra said. "It's like a tattoo. You wanted it at the time, you have it, it's implanted in your skin, you can't get rid of it. You're hardly even aware of it any more. I suppose I'm very conventional," she decided."
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James Salter |
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41a4e2f
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Suddenly I like him. Cristina can't take her eyes away. She asks when he was born, and it turns out he's a Sagittarius which is a very good sign. 'Really?' 'It's one of the best for me,' she says. 'Scorpio is the worst.
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James Salter |
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08185af
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But knowledge does not protect one. Life is contemptuous of knowledge; it forces it to sit in the anterooms, to wait outside. Passion, energy, lies: these are what life admires. Still, anything can be endured if all humanity is watching. The martyrs prove it. We live in the attention of others. We turn to it as flowers to the sun.
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James Salter |
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bd2355d
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Love must wait; it must break one's bones.
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James Salter |
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7d97e84
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As Rilke says, there are no classes for beginners in life, the most difficult thing is always asked of one right away.
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James Salter |
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9937553
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Art, in a sense, is life brought to a standstill, rescued from time. The secret of making it is simple: discard everything that is good enough.
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writing
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James Salter |
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d82844a
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Summer mornings, the light of the world pouring in and the silence. It was a barefoot life, the cool of the night on the floorboards, the green trees if you stepped outside, the first faint cries of the birds. He arrived in a suit and didn't put it on again until he went back to the city.
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James Salter |
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64e7a7b
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He was the friend of my life. You know, you only have one friend like that; there can't be two.
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friendship
epigraph
once-in-a-lifetime
tender
bittersweet
friend
poignant
sad
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James Salter |
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34544a7
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How can we imagine what our lives should be without the illumination of the lives of others?
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James Salter |
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3c8b20d
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She comes to life with a soft exhausted sound, like someone saved from drowning.
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James Salter |
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152373a
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WE DASH THE BLACK RIVER, ITS flats smooth as stone. Not a ship, not a dinghy, not one cry of white. The water lies broken, cracked from the wind. This great estuary is wide, endless. The river is brackish, blue with the cold. It passes beneath us blurring. The sea birds hang above it, they wheel, disappear. We flash the wide river, a dream of the past. The deeps fall behind, the bottom is paling the surface, we rush by the shallows, boats b..
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James Salter |
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c4b1d83
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For those we are born to speak to we need prepare nothing, the lines are ready, everything is there.
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James Salter |