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ffff29b
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For several seconds, they stand there, ...just four feet apart now, but separated by a thick granite counter, by fifty years and two fully lived lives. No one speaks. No one breathes.
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Jess Walter |
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1abd069
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Technology may have shrunk the epic journey to a couple of short car rides and regional jet legs--four states and twelve hundred miles traversed in an afternoon--but true quests aren't measured in time or distance anyway, so much as in hope.
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Jess Walter |
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a731c27
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Pasquale's eyes felt heavy and he thought it might be the most intimate thing possible, to fall asleep next to someone in the afternoon.
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Jess Walter |
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80fd88a
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In the waves of layoffs that accompanied these paroxysmal death-throes, this bearded shit-in-a-suit whacked the newspapers most profitable sections and bureaus and its best writers and shooters, all to protect his ring of beholden pets , a phalanx of talent-challenged ass-sniffers and the cadre of bulbous interns that he hired from his Midwest alma mater and it's pretentiously name H--School of Journalism (there are two things that should n..
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wordsmith
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Jess Walter |
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b39841b
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Weren't movies his generation's faith anyway--its true religion? Wasn't the theater our temple, the one place we enter separately but emerge from two hours later together, with the same experience, same guided emotions, same moral? A million schools taught ten million curricula, a million churches featured ten thousand sects with a billion sermons--but the same movie showed in every mall in the country. And we all saw it! That summer, the o..
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Jess Walter |
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ddb0978
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And when our lives do begin? I mean, the exciting part, the action? It's all so fast.
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Jess Walter |
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655ee4c
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Go with it. Be confident and the world responds to your confidence, rewards your faith.
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Jess Walter |
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34749a7
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God, this life is a cold, brittle thing. And yet it's all there is.
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Jess Walter |
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0862718
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We want what we want
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Jess Walter |
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779d5b7
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All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character-what we believe-none of it is real; it's all part of the story we tell.
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story
life-and-living
telling
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Jess Walter |
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be13bf2
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But aren't all great quests folly? El Dorado and the Fountain of Youth and the search for intelligent life in the cosmos--we know what's out there. It's what isn't that truly compels us. Technology may have shrunk the epic journey to a couple of short car rides and regional jet legs--four states and twelve hundred miles traversed in an afternoon--but true quests aren't measured in time or distance anyway, so much as in hope. There are only ..
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Jess Walter |
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12b6ae0
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But I think some people wait forever, and only at the end of their lives do they realize that their life has happened while they were waiting for it to start. Do you know what I mean, Pasquale?" He did know what she meant! It was just how he felt--like someone sitting in the cinema waiting for the film to start."
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Jess Walter |
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4bf661e
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Bir yazar yucelige ulasmak icin dort seye ihtiyac duyar Pasquale: Arzu, husran ve deniz." "Uc etti ama." Alvis sarabini bitirdi. "Husrani iki kere sayacaksin."
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Jess Walter |
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f7b84e5
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as if ye have faith and it shall be given to you.
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Jess Walter |
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1cca091
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the scramble to get higher, to be seen, the cycle of creation and rebellion, everyone assuming they were saying something new or doing something new, something profound--when the truth was that it had all been done a million billion times.
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Jess Walter |
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12deada
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Pasquale considered his friend's face. It had such an open quality, was such a clearly American face, like Dee's face, like Michael Deane's face. He believed he could spot an American anywhere by that quality--that openness, that stubborn belief in possibility, a quality that, in his estimation, even the youngest Italians lacked. Perhaps it was the difference in age between the countries--America with its expansive youth, building all those..
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Jess Walter |
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a6a9334
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Words and emotions are simple currencies. If we inflate them, they lose their value, just like money. They begin to mean nothing. Use 'beautiful' to describe a sandwich and the word means nothing. Since the war, there is no more room for inflated language. Words and feelings are small now--clear and precise. Humble like dreams.
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Jess Walter |
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6e65156
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After she disappeared inside the hotel, Pasquale entertained the unwieldy thought that he'd somehow summoned her, that after years of living in this place, after months of grief and loneliness and waiting for Americans, he'd created this woman from old bits of cinema and books, from the lost artifacts and ruins of his dreams, from his epic, enduring solitude. He glanced over at Orenzio, who was carrying someone's bags, and the whole world s..
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Jess Walter |
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80a14fb
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I remembered his saying that I really only lived in the perceptions of others, and suddenly it seemed painfully true. I couldn't think of a time when I'd acted on my own, when I wasn't driven by my grief
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Jess Walter |
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6a6d01a
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Words and emotions are simple currencies. If we inflate them, they lose their value, just like money. They begin to mean nothing.
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Jess Walter |
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3c5cce5
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I wondered if I even had a self. "I miss you," I said aloud. Surprised at myself, I looked around to see if anyone had heard, but no one was n"
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Jess Walter |
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9c6aed5
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Here she was, barely twenty-eight, working on a studio lot, not doing what she'd dreamed, exactly, but doing what people did in this business: taking meetings, reading scripts, and hearing pitches--pretending to like everything while finding myriad reasons to make nothing.
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Jess Walter |
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efb4990
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He puts his ear closer, against the door. Shit. Marvin Gaye. Marvin Gaye + Do Not Disturb = middle-aged people having sex.
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Jess Walter |
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4dc30dc
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The truth hurts only if you're comforted by lies.
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Jess Walter |
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cf36832
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And thus the sewer is man's greatest achievement, Carlo, the disposal of shit the apex of all this inventing and fighting and copulating).
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Jess Walter |
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074f24e
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buried by random events, ruined by confusion and grief.
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Jess Walter |
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3295a40
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In fact, he talked about his painful and insidious cancer so plainly and without affect that to this day, I consider matter-of-factness a form of courage.
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Jess Walter |
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9e04584
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Shit. Claire riffles through worst-case scenarios: The pay is in cocaine;
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Jess Walter |
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5d56ec3
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If I looked like you, Debra, I'd masturbate all the time"
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Jess Walter |
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956e1fa
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On the bright side, I have figured out how to fix the American educational system. End it at sixth grade." "Brilliant. Then what?" "Lock them up in empty factories, give them all the Red Bull, condoms, and nachos they want, pipe in club music, and check back when they're twenty-five. Anyone still alive, we send to grad school." Wade pushed his glass forward. "How's that for a campaign platform?"
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Jess Walter |
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6a53438
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Everyone sees the same movie, but every reader experiences a different book, because reading involves you in hours of active, creative work, the characters, their movements and thoughts re-created in your own mind, their struggles and triumphs connecting to your own until a book becomes like a piece of music you've played--and sometimes mastered--over a period of days, or weeks.
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Jess Walter |
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fd353a7
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Spokane is old, and it is beautiful like old things are, lit from within by nostalgia and hard times.
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Jess Walter |
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f984a53
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How can you not feel like a whole city of people waiting for it to finally be over, a whole city tending a parent's slow death?
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Jess Walter |
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f41e656
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Guterak looked over. "Hey, you got your hair cut." "Yeah." Remy put the cap back on. "What made you do that?" "I shot myself in the head last night." "Well." Paul drove quietly for a moment, staring straight ahead. "It looks good."
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Jess Walter |
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60b7191
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Stories are people. I'm a story, you're a story . . . Your father is a story. Our stories go in every direction, but sometimes, if we're lucky, our stories join into one, and for a while, we're less alone.
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Jess Walter |
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1a1fe12
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The first impression one gets of Michael Deane is of a man constructed of wax, or perhaps prematurely embalmed. After all these years, it may be impossible to trace the sequence of facials, spa treatments, mud baths, cosmetic procedures, lifts and staples, collagen implants, outpatient touch-ups, tannings, Botox injections, cyst and growth removals, and stem-cell injections that have caused a seventy-two-year-old man to have the face of a n..
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Jess Walter |