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cd52d7e
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Thinking about myself as a crazy, independent old woman made me feel almost happy.
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Katherine Paterson |
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5f03242
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If you wanted to greet him or get his attention, you had to say: "Oh, Mr. Forest-Ranger-who-stands-in-the-tower-watching-out-for-forest fires!" If you abbreviated it, or, heaven help us, addressed him simply as "David," you would get no response."
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Katherine Paterson |
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298fbdc
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Cows...weren't like people, with feelings of lonesomeness and worrying about what might happen next. That was just people, wasn't it? Sure, you could scare a cow, but wouldn't they get over it as soon as you let them be? They didn't stand around fretting about the next scare and the next and the next.
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Katherine Paterson |
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0cf31b4
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Corre um boato por ai, que a linda menina que vem hoje, pode ser a rainha que eles estao esperando.
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Katherine Paterson |
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ac6f0d5
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Corria como si para ella fuera algo natural. Recordo el vuelo de los patos salvajes en otono. Igual de fluido y uniforme. Le vino a la cabeza la palabra <> pero la rechazo y apresuro el paso hacia casa.
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Katherine Paterson |
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780cb3d
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She jerked to life, her eyes wide open. "Why did that woman give me away?" Then it all began to pour out. Why had she been given away? We'd never told her she was a foundling."
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Katherine Paterson |
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14925f8
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No," I said primly, I had no intention of being a writer because "I wouldn't want to add another mediocre writer to the world."
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Katherine Paterson |
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0f8c1ba
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One of the young men she had just met had obviously paid for her ride. Her face was red when he came down the aisle. "I guess," he said, grinning, "if I pay your fare I can sit by you."
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Katherine Paterson |
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6688ef1
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St. Faith's, as she called her compound, was financed entirely by donations, some from friends abroad and some from admiring Chinese benefactors.
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Katherine Paterson |
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1d20206
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Handle with care - everything - even the predators.
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Katherine Paterson |
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5367071
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watched in horror until Walter Cronkite finally announced the news that Kennedy was dead. The boys didn't try to argue about the stupidity of the ancient Hebrews again.
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Katherine Paterson |
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4d08578
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Win was flabbergasted when he heard me say to the dog: "We don't put our paws on the table while folks are eating, Manch."
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Katherine Paterson |
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c6c26b5
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For the only time in my life I would be living with a chain-smoking semi-invalid whose chief point of pride in life was his membership in the Ku Klux Clan.
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Katherine Paterson |
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c1d4da3
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We must have received our share of startled looks from the crew and other passengers--this seven-member family emerging from their third-class lower deck and climbing into a waiting chauffeur-driven limousine.
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Katherine Paterson |
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bc3577e
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Mother put it like this: "Besides taking out my misplaced appendix, he put all my other insides just where they should have been."
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Katherine Paterson |
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2b0be2e
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when I am in a foreign city and feel even the slightest bit disoriented, I can feel the panic of that day on the Hong Kong street begin to rise in my chest. My story of being lost ended quickly and happily, but it still haunts me.
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Katherine Paterson |
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cf4a327
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She had nothing against any of the other guests, but once she started she saw no way to stop. There was nothing to do but turn the hose against every arriving guest. No one coming out of the house to reason with her was safe either.
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Katherine Paterson |
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6263c28
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John softened, and many years later he said to me, "You know, if we were ever to divorce, I get the cat." There is a"
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Katherine Paterson |
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81e0d47
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to my father's amazement, was an ancient but clearly recognizable painting of Marco Polo, who must have visited Huai'an during his thirteenth-century travels about China. The priest asked my father to donate a picture of Jesus for his collection, and, after thinking about it, Daddy did.
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Katherine Paterson |
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be14b40
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was appalled that I was heading across the world for four years, asked me: "How could you do this to your mother?" "Well," I answered, "she did it to her mother." But when my parents went to China it was different."
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Katherine Paterson |
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1edc3d4
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My father loved peanuts and bought quantities of them to take along, only to find to his chagrin that peanuts were one of China's leading exports. They also went to Chinatown, feeling that since they were headed for China, they should try Chinese food. The only thing on the menu that they recognized was chicken, but when it came the bones were black, so they were afraid to eat it.
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Katherine Paterson |
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361192c
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To blame were two young radicals, a country bumpkin named Mao Tse-tung and a disillusioned intellectual by the name of Zhou En Lai. These two had had the nerve to ask the owners of the mills to install safety devices so that the children and old people who worked long hours would no longer in their weariness lose fingers and even hands in the machinery.
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Katherine Paterson |
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2ca4187
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Are you tired, Mary?" I asked. She raised her weary gaze to me. "My socks are tired," she said. "And my shoes won't even walk." To this day whenever in our family we want to express complete exhaustion, we employ Mary's eloquent description of her socks."
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Katherine Paterson |
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fd847a0
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daredevil nature as a young man. When I read what William Roth had written, I sighed. So that was where my own two boys had gotten the trait that was turning their mother's hair gray.
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Katherine Paterson |
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4b4e689
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A colleague of hers had discovered that the Biblical sentence found in John 4:7 contained all the sounds in nearly every known language.
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Katherine Paterson |
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6732ffc
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one day when I was changing her diapers she took my hand and put it on her tummy, so I tickled her. My reward was her first smile.
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Katherine Paterson |
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0896dfa
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I stood there and watched thirty-five children disappear in almost as many different directions and was suddenly horrified by what I'd done. What if someone got lost or hurt? Suppose they didn't come back on time? What would I do then?
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Katherine Paterson |
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05c1834
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I got up the nerve to ask her if she remembered that first visit and my terrible faux pas. She pretended, in true Japanese fashion, that it had never happened.
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Katherine Paterson |
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a0aec32
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all my ancestors were from the South and some even fought and died for the losing side. Perhaps that's why I was long resigned to my failure to publish.
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Katherine Paterson |
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0f304de
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In each of the separate sections Mother would put a different treat--sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, watermelon seeds, sesame cookies, and peanuts.
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Katherine Paterson |
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a47401a
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I had so looked forward to her walking." Maud carried her thirteen-month-old sister a few steps away and put her down on her feet. "Walk to Daddy," Maud said, and the baby threw out her arms and took the few steps across the space to her father's chair."
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Katherine Paterson |
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0735afc
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The idea of living in the same house for all your childhood and having the same knot of devoted friends seemed magical to me, who had lived in thirteen different places by the time I was thirteen.
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Katherine Paterson |
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4b4b787
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The infamous "Rape of Nanking" that occurred not long afterward, just 102 miles farther north, tells a story of what might have happened at my childhood home were it not for that commander."
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Katherine Paterson |
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562ed9a
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My dearest Friend, As I am urging our students to write a note to their mothers away from Shanghai, I think of you as a mother to so many of our Chinese girls. The greatness and depth of your love only God knows how to measure and reward you. Thinking of you has always been an inspiration to me. I love you. Lovingly yours, Tszo-Sing Chen
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Katherine Paterson |
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4601d8d
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There are no guarantees of success, much less of quality. If you don't dare to be a mediocre writer, you'll never be a writer at all.
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Katherine Paterson |
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671925f
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I knew that day that as long as I lived I would remember that my mother had cared more about how her child felt than any cherished antique, and I resolved that if I ever had any children I would remember that scene. I must never forget that a child's feelings are always more important than any possession.
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Katherine Paterson |
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a8ad067
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This story is about John, who was a private in the 2nd Georgia Battalion Infantry. I had always been told that John had taken part in Pickett's Charge, the bloody assault on Cemetery Ridge on July 3, 1863. Actually he was mortally wounded very close to Cemetery Hill on July 2 the day before that tragic charge.
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Katherine Paterson |
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e603384
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The Womeldorf family loved music, and one of Daddy's happiest memories was of the day his father came home from town bearing a morning glory horn Edison phonograph with round cylinder records. "How on earth could that contraption sing and play lovely music?" he remembered marveling. The family considered it the wonder of the age and loved listening to it."
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Katherine Paterson |
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210fa52
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In the Book of Genesis, Abraham believes that God is commanding him to sacrifice his beloved son as proof of his love and obedience. But just as Abraham is about to thrust the knife into his terrified child, an angel grasps his hand and there in the thicket is a sheep that God has provided for the sacrifice. Most people find this story horrifying, but what my father taught me that day was this: No matter how sacred the calling appears, it i..
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Katherine Paterson |
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d5d43e2
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a frightening number of whom had IQ scores in the low 70s? I stopped reading and just stuck the records out of sight in a bottom drawer of my desk, and never thought of them again until the end of the year when I was throwing away the accumulation of papers in my desk. I was furious with those scores. My kids were not dumb! I've never trusted standardized tests since.
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Katherine Paterson |
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2d57386
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He lived long enough to give the chaplain his name--John Goetchius--but died before he could tell the kind man where his home was.
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Katherine Paterson |
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6357a4c
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So we children must be thankful to the imperious Dr. Young for making it possible for our parents to meet and our subsequent births.
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Katherine Paterson |
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e319230
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One of the novels that was hardest for me to write had to deal with the horrible slaughter of war. I almost didn't finish Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom for just that reason.
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Katherine Paterson |
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f98f540
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Once there, the chaplain closed the door and threw his arms around her. Alarmed, she jammed the heel of her pump into his foot. He let go with a howl and she fled. The incident was never spoken of again until she had daughters of her own. I can remember at about thirteen staring wide-eyed at my proper mother when she thought it time to tell me this cautionary tale.
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Katherine Paterson |