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e88575f
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Psipsina emerged from inside the tunic, and jumped up on the table in order to curl up inside the cap, which had been her favourite resting place ever since she discovered the joys of contortionism; she filled it and overflowed from it in such a tangle and jumble of whiskers, ears, tail and paws that it was impossible to tell which part of her was which, and she slept in it because it reminded her of gifts of salami and chicken skins.
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humour
pets
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Louis de Bernières |
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0e47b43
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Pelagia put her hands on her hips, taking advantage of the superiority implicit in the fact that she was standing and he lying down.
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women
witty
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Louis de Bernières |
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a7c81b2
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she understood that nothing is less obvious in a man than that which seems unquestionable.
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human-nature
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Louis de Bernières |
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484c65f
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a few sagging houses whose stones had lost their mortar and were held together only by gravity and habit,
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Louis de Bernières |
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77c961e
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It seems that age folds the heart in on itself.
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Louis de Bernières |
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182bbbb
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Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away
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Louis de Bernières |
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e0a1334
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Symmetry is only a property of dead things.
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Louis de Bernières |
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79cea27
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this spirit rebels against the prison that my body has become, and my spirit is like a chrysalis that is ready to burst its shell, and when the shell bursts, it longs to be reborn in paradise,
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Louis de Bernières |
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eeec288
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Britain really is an immense lunatic asylum. That is one of the things that distinguishes us among the nations. We have a very flexible conception of normality.
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Louis de Bernières |
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966acfe
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The world is bulging with desirable women, as you have no doubt noticed already, but there are some who have a special presence, as if the space they occupy has more intrinsic depth and reality than that of others. These ones are surreptitiously incandescent, they glow with an invisible light reminiscent of mountains, shortly after dawn, in a tropical land. When I encounter one of these, it is like being in a clearing in the Amazon when a j..
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women
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Louis de Bernières |
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784e61c
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Monogamy was an invention of men who wished to reduce the power of women over them.
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Louis de Bernières |
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17f5342
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Quando morrem aqueles que amamos, temos de viver por eles. Temos de ver as coisas pelos seus olhos. Temos de lembrar como e que eles costumavam dizer as coisas, e usar as palavras que eles usavam. Temos de agradecer o facto de podermos fazer coisas que eles ja nao podem fazer, e tambem de sentir uma grande tristeza por isso acontecer.
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Louis de Bernières |
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6cce15d
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A pesar de su incalculable riqueza y poder marchaba hacia la muerte con el convencimiento de que moriria sin ser amado ni respetado, y que nadie lloraria por el; que su muerte ya estaba siendo precedida por una reunion de buitres, que finalmente su vida habia sido mas absurda y menos satisfactoria que la de un retrasado mental congenito sin extremidades ni organos de reproduccion.
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Louis de Bernières |
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e7c1f95
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entailment of the family estates, but envisaged for himself
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Louis de Bernières |
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81f2bdc
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He noticed that a bedraggled and desiccated pink poppy was growing out of a crack where the wall of the teacher's house intersected with the cobbles of the street.
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Louis de Bernières |
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eef3e13
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A todo o momento vejo coisas que gostaria que visses, gostaria que estivesses aqui para as veres com os teus proprios olhos. Procuro ver coisas para ti, e guarda-las na minha memoria, e tenho a fantasia de que se me concentrar mesmo muito, posso faze-las chegar a ti, para que tu as vejas nos teus sonhos. Como se a vida pudesse ser assim.
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Louis de Bernières |
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69beb98
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I would say to the priest that God made me as I am, that I had no choice, that He must have made me like this for a purpose, that He knows the ultimate reasons for all things and that therefore it must be all to the good that I am as I am, even if we cannot know what that good is. I can say to the priest that if God is the reason for all things, then God is to blame and I should not be condemned.
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Louis de Bernières |
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e6d15ad
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This rule is that people always think that if they are very expert at something, that thing must therefore be extremely important.
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Louis de Bernières |
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c5461f1
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I am no philosopher, but I know this. Your religions cause wars and prevent marriages. There will be no peace on earth until every synagogue, every mosque, every church, and every temple is razed to the ground or made into a barn, and when that happens, no one will be happier than the Lord God Himself.
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Louis de Bernières |
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a7e416a
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Families embraced more than had been the habit; fathers who expected to be beaten to death stroked the hair of pretty daughters who expected to be raped.
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Louis de Bernières |
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6068488
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There was once a painter who traveled into the cordillera in order to paint an invisible picture of Christ. When he finished, the local Indians scrambled up the rocks to examine it and found that it was, in fact, a picture of Viracocha. A Chinaman passing by went up to see what it was that was causing such excitement and found to his surprise that on the rock was a picture of the Buddha. The painter stuck to his assertion that it was Christ..
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Louis de Bernières |
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d9c23ff
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Luisa pointed up at the crucifix on the wall and asked, 'Do you believe in all that?' 'I would like to,' he replied, 'but it is too difficult.' She nodded in agreement and said, 'If the person hanging on it were a woman, then I would believe it.
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Louis de Bernières |
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40048af
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I have often thought about this, and I have come to the conclusion that everything that I am is owed to you. You were like a gun that fired me a long way off, but the aim was yours. If you are proud of me it is because your aim was true." The General smiled. "I could have trusted you to come up with a metaphor that I would have understood. Did you know that a shell when it comes out of the barrel wobbles badly for the first part of its traj..
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Louis de Bernières |
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4441291
|
Sergeant Pietro Oliva was a good Catholic. He liked to go into a church and cross himself, genuflect to the alter, and then settle down to a little prayer and contemplation, savouring the coolness, the heavy odours, the darkness, and the sensation of being soaked in the atmosphere of centuries' worth of devotion that hung in the tenebrous and golden air of churches.
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prayer
greek-orthodox
devotion
greece
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Louis de Bernières |
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4c886c1
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We soldiers knew next to nothing about what was going on in the centres of power. We received so many orders and counter-orders that there were times when we did not obey any of them at all, knowing that they were likely to be countermanded almost immediately.
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war
ww2-books
ww2
soldiers
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Louis de Bernières |
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a72930c
|
out the effects of the former. Do you think I don't understand economics? How many times do I have to
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Louis de Bernières |
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cd39906
|
bottles and ate the glass? Maria, who thought that she was
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Louis de Bernières |
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baed85c
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half Scottish, respectable, and imbued with the powerful emotional restraint that those races have inherited somehow (via God knows what route) from the Spartans. It was a matter of self-conquest, refusal to show weakness, refusal to become a burden to others. This inheritance does not diminish one's natural sympathies, it merely makes them harder to express and to receive, and it is a legacy which it is extremely hard to unlearn.
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Louis de Bernières |
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c678904
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He does not know that the ultimate truth is that history ought to consist only of the anecdotes of the little people who are caught up in it.
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Louis de Bernières |
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29f0820
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Milestiba ir parejoss arprats, ta izverd ka vulkans un pec tam norimst. Un, kad ta norimusies, ir japienem lemums. Tad ir jaizdoma, vai jusu abu saknes ir savijusas kopa tik ciesi, ka par skirsanos nespejat pat iedomaties. Jo tada ir milestiba. Milestiba nav elpas trukums, ta nav satraukums, ta nav nebeidzamas kaisles solijumu neapturama plusma, ta nav velesanas katru milu bridi paroties, ta nav gulesana nakti nomoda un iztelosanas, ka vins..
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Louis de Bernières |
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0d27da9
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Visiem zinams, ka gimenes gods ir atkarigs no tas sieviesu uzvedibas.
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Louis de Bernières |
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84554ba
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Neapgazami ir morales principi, nevis zinatniski fakti.
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Louis de Bernières |
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55054e0
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If I teach you reading and writing, I'm warning you I've got to hit you on the head and call you bad names when you're stupid, because that's how you do teaching.
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Louis de Bernières |
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5409cf7
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Ta ir mana morale. Es piespiezu sevi iedomaties, ka tas attiecas uz mani personigi.
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Louis de Bernières |
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a22db87
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Dzive ir cietums, kas buvets no nabadzibas un nepiepilditiem sapniem, ta ir lena virzisanas uz manu vietu zem zemes, ta ir Dieva viltiba, lai liktu mums vilties miesa, ta ir tikai isu bridi degosa liesmina ellas trauka starp vienu tumsu un citu, kas ir tas gala.
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Louis de Bernières |
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97d2743
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The only thing more pitiful than a middle-aged punk is a white Rastafarian. I did meet one of those once, and he was lonelier than I was.
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people
humor
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Louis de Bernières |
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47ba18c
|
Roza didn't want to go, and she made the woman promise to let her ride the horse again. It was apparently called "Russia" because it was very big, a complete liability, and always going where it wasn't wanted."
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russia
|
Louis de Bernières |
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b16dcbe
|
The truth is that the mountains are a place where you can find whatever you want just by looking, as long as you remember that they do not suffer fools gladly and particularly dislike those with preconceived ideas.
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Louis de Bernières |