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69080ba
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I am not a well educated man except that I have educated myself, and, because I have educated myself, what I say will not stand up, for lack of recognized authority. This in turn leaves me free to say what I will, in the hope that, like those small forces that do not threaten empires and are thus not fully pursued, the things in which I believe can survive in some high and forgotten place until the power of empire subsides.
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Mark Helprin |
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0e19c19
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You believe in entropy, which postulates that all phenomena tend to sink to lower levels of organization and energy, and in evolution, which postulates that the history of life has been just the opposite. People like you credit both theories. It's . Is that reason rational? I say, f*ck off.
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Mark Helprin |
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f60d923
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Truth is no rounder than a horse's eye.
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Mark Helprin |
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ddaccff
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I saw how greatly he suffered the requirement of being clever. It separated him from his soul, and it didn't get him anything other than a living.
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soul
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Mark Helprin |
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9fc5fe6
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No one ever said that you would live to see the repercussions of everything you do, or that you have guarantees, or that you are not obliged to wander in the dark, or that everything will be proved to you and neatly verified like something in science. Nothing is: at least nothing that is worthwhile.
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Mark Helprin |
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f40814e
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Justice came from a fight amid complexities, and required all the virtues in the world merely to be perceived.
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virtues
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Mark Helprin |
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6d5f407
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It was a good speech, but the reaction was due to the fact that politics are madness, and even if one does not know it, a country in electoral season experiences flares of lunacy like the great storms that sometimes march across the golden surface of the sun.
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Mark Helprin |
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663349a
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their powerlessness, innocence, and imagination fused to enable them to turn time inside out, travel on the wind, and enter the souls of animals.
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inspiring
teaching
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Mark Helprin |
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4265049
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In the same way that certain sections of the city were mortal battlegrounds, some parts of the calendar were always more warlike than others, and during the days between Christmas and the new year all elements seemed to conspire to subdue the soul. Fire, rain, sickness, cold, and death were everywhere spread through the dark as in a painting of hell. People struggled until exhaustion, giving everything they had, and the days were packed wit..
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Mark Helprin |
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5ae2d98
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But you won't abdicate." Of course not. It's my duty to go on, to maintain the line. I can't possibly fail in that. It's as if you and I were throwing a ball back and forth to establish a record, and had been doing so for a millennium. You cannot drop a ball that has remained airborne through good effort for most of a thousand years. You cannot stop an unlikely heart that has been beating for so long. I would rather die than betray continui..
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Mark Helprin |
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68f4faf
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this marvelous graceful thing, this joy of physics, this perfect balance between rebellion and obedience, is God's own signature on earth.
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Mark Helprin |
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cfa6aa2
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Though Mrs. Gamely was by all measures prescientific and illiterate, she did know words. Where she got them was anyone's guess, but she certainly had them. Virginia speculated that the people on the north side of the lake, steeped in variations of English both tender and precise, had made with their language a tool with which to garden a perfect landscape. Those who are isolated in small settlements may not know of the complexities common t..
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Mark Helprin |
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0e51f29
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Then the bow orchestra began to play an apocalyptically beautiful canon, one of those pieces in which, surely, the composer simply transcribed what was given, and trembled in awe of the hand that was guiding him.
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Mark Helprin |
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2d85a9a
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Whatever I do I've always done not because I want something but to compensate for a loss, to bring about a balance, to create amends, to make things right.
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Mark Helprin |
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374db82
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One thing you will discover is that life is based less than you think on what you've learned and much more than you think on what you have inside you from the beginning.
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Mark Helprin |
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532d872
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Music was a chain forged half of silences and half of sound, love was nothing without longing and loss, and were time not to have at its end the absence of time, and the absence of time not to have been preceded by time, neither would be of any consequence.
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Mark Helprin |
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b8391c0
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You'll join me sooner than you know in a place with . . . no illusions, where the truth is the only architecture, the only color, the only sound--where that which we sense merely on occasion, and which takes us up and gives us the rare and beautiful glimpses of the things we truly love, flows in deep rivers and tumbles about like clouds in the sky.
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Mark Helprin |
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b3c01dd
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There is justice in the world, Peter Lake, but it cannot be had without mystery.
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mystery
philosophical
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Mark Helprin |
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a8dc983
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The horse could not do without Manhattan. It drew him like a magnet, like a vacuum, like oats, or a mare, or an open, never-ending, tree-lined road.
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Mark Helprin |
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6192933
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Souls, like rays of light, exist in perfect, parallel equality, always. But for when infinitely short a time they pass through the rough and delaying mechanism of life, they separate and disentangle, encountering different obstacles, traveling at different rates, like light refracted by the friction of things in its path. Emerging on the other side, they run together once more, in perfection. For the short and difficult span when confounded..
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Mark Helprin |
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16801fe
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what argument is left with someone you love if she is willing to break your heart?
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love
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Mark Helprin |
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2cf2d32
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We launch our souls from the cannons of art and discipline, and on any one night, hovering over the chimney tops of Europe, halfway to the stars, there are armies of brightly spinning spirits that have risen like fireworks, tethered to the souls of those men and women who, by reflection, mortification, and devotion, effortlessly outdazzle kings.
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Mark Helprin |
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67be496
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When your parents die, Alessandro, you feel that you have betrayed them." "Why?" Luciana asked. "Because you come to love your children more. I lost my mother and father to images in photographs and handwriting on letters, and as I abandoned them for you, the saddest thing was that they made no protest. "Even now that I'm going back to them, I regret above all that I must leave you." "You're not going back to anybody," Alessandro told him...
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Mark Helprin |
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7be5528
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How just it would be if for our final reward we were to be made the masters of time, and if those we love could come alive again not just in memory, but in truth.
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Mark Helprin |
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6cb8895
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And then I went out to the ocean. Do you know what it was like? The waves broke, and each time they did, as they slapped against the sand, I could feel it all through my body. And each time they broke, and each time they thudded down, they said, you have only one life, you have only one life.
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Mark Helprin |
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61ed60e
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The rich died, too, disappointing all those who thought that somehow they didn't. Peter Lakes had no illusions about mortality. He knew that it made everyone perfectly equal, and that the treasures of the earth were movement, courage, laughter, and love. The wealthy could not buy these things. On the contrary they were for the taking.
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Mark Helprin |
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6d6b350
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Why do you think great leaders and great orations are coincident with wars, revolutions, and the founding or ending of governments and states? Common interests then are so clear that speeches are effortlessly drawn, but at present neither the facts nor the consequences are sufficiently clear to make oratory legitimate. This is the kind of war that will wind on and make fools of its partisans and opponents both.
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Mark Helprin |
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9945d32
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The intellect is of no use unless it's disciplined by the mortification of the flesh, so that it may serve the soul. That's all. The intellect thinks. The body dances. And the spirit sings. A song, a simple song. When love and memory are overwhelming, and the soul, though crushed, takes flight, it does so in a simple song.
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Mark Helprin |
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32a7ef3
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Breathing, for example, was never taken for granted, since, half the time, thanks to the many chemical works and refineries, it was nearly impossible.
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Mark Helprin |
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f6d457e
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There's something about rushing water that I can watch for hours and feel as if I need to do nothing more. It's alive in a way that's greater than any description of it...
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Mark Helprin |
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1508858
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What could be more lovely than writing a book about something you love?
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Mark Helprin |
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36193e8
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How far do you have to go before you forgive yourself for how you were born?
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Mark Helprin |
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ba7d20c
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It soon got so cold that the men rushed to close the doors. When they had shut them and the room was again silent, they saw that several women had begun to cry. The women said it was because of the numbing air that had washed over their bare shoulders, but even strangers embraced sadly as they coasted into the new year and felt its strength commencing. They cried because of the magic and the contradictions; because time had passed and time ..
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Mark Helprin |
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846896e
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All you need do is refrain from smoking, drinking and the use of drugs. Eat only wholesome,low-fat foods, with the emphasis on vegetables, grains and fish. Seek work. Work hard. Show up on time. Do more than is expected. Think of ways to make the job efficient. Don't complain. Shave, bathe and wear clean clothes. Be cheerful. Don't gamble. Live within your means. Save. And then, when you have all this in balance, study things of substance. ..
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Mark Helprin |
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928ff12
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What would happen if we took everything that exists in the universe, and divided it by one? I'll tell you. It would remain the same. So, therefore, how do we know that someone isn't doing that right now, at this very instant? It makes me shudder to think of it. We might be constantly divided by one, or multiplied by one for that matter, and we wouldn't even know it!
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Mark Helprin |
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8c12dc6
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In fact, one might make the case that New York would not have shone without its legions of contrary devils polishing the lights of goodness with their inexplicable opposition and resistance.
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Mark Helprin |
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e791910
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We ate simply, we were healthy, and we were uninterested in those things that should be called possessions not because they are possessed but because they possess. Those ten years were the happiest of my life save the first ten, the years in which I had neither position nor success, and no one took notice of me. Those were the years of the parent holding the child in his arms, lifting him high in the air, and pulling him close. As I held my..
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Mark Helprin |
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d0a56be
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I like the race, rather than the winning.
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Mark Helprin |
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606dc0f
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Just the two of us. We're in it together. The pleasure will be ours alone. For the rest of our lives.
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Mark Helprin |
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2a24139
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A horse is a beautiful animal, but it is perhaps most remarkable because it moves as if it always hears music.
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Mark Helprin |
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7dc1330
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Only bad actors memorize lines. Good actors are perpetually writing them as they act.
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Mark Helprin |
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6d8cdcf
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And Peter Lake knew that these things were nothing in themselves but the means by which to remember those he had loved, and to remind him that the power of the love he had known was repeated a million times a million times over, from one soul to another--all worthy, all holy, none ever lost. He glided through the illusions that flashed bravely on the smoke, and he was touched very deeply by the will of things to live in the light.
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Mark Helprin |
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b43f59e
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The perfect simplicity of salvation is broken up upon these rocks that we have built, and scattered for us to ponder and piece together in a test that tries our patience and understanding. We learn that justice may not always follow a just act, that justice can sleep for years and awaken when it is least expected, that a miracle is nothing more than dormant justice from another time arriving to compensate those it has cruelly abandoned. Who..
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Mark Helprin |
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ca8b8ba
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TO BE mad is to feel with excruciating intensity the sadness and joy of a time which has not arrived or has already been.
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Mark Helprin |