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36d75d4
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thooid
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Mark Helprin |
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361061c
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Several fireboat men were trying to board the burning ferry. They had no apparent reason to do so, for all the passengers were either dead or saved and the firemen could not hope to extinguish the flames simply by being closer to them. Why then were they working their way hand over hand on an alternately slack and taut rope that had started to burn, and dipped them now and then into the freezing river as the crowd took in its breath all at ..
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Mark Helprin |
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8f3710f
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but, as we know, even when the silver wears away and you're left with copper, if you attend to it every day it has a gleam all its own.
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Mark Helprin |
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df3b776
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I think it would be vain to imagine that we could be favored without effort. As I understand it, miracles come to those who risk defeat in seeking them. They come to those who have exhausted themselves completely in a struggle to accomplish the impossible.
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Mark Helprin |
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680e0aa
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Though he had spoken of the subject many times, in the silence of his room he added the powerful kind of phrasing that would not have occurred to him as he spoke, because it's origins were in the collaboration of hand and pen.
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writing
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Mark Helprin |
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04cf39e
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win. "Spit in their eye," Evelyn had said, cheerfully but with the tranquil acceptance of her own fate. "Defiance, Catherine, is a gift of God, who is superior to nature. When nature comes to get you, honor God by treating it, as He would, with neither fear nor respect."
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Mark Helprin |
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b5a92b8
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As powerful a figure as this man was, still, he was more vulnerable than the slight little girl next to Alessandro. Even Alessandro knew, even at this moment, that the world had worn down the attorney Giuliani in ways that his son simply could not understand. The little ones, the delicate ones of nine or eleven, had all the strength, really.
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Mark Helprin |
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1108534
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What a place to put a city, right on the front line of absolute zero. No wonder a cow burned it down.
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chicago-winter
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Mark Helprin |
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dfa7db9
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We are like poor people, who have nothing but each other, and are happy.
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gratitude
happiness-quotes
humble
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Mark Helprin |
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c2e4329
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Better a bird in hand than hell knows what in the bush.
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Mark Helprin |
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5592b16
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When you're in what seems like an impossible situation and it looks sure that you're going to be overrun, you have to keep in mind that only half of what the enemy does is actually going to put him in a position to overrun you. The other half is to communicate this so you'll do his work for him.
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Mark Helprin |
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07f2144
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people who lived in the mountains knew that all the truly great things had already been accomplished. They did not need to imagine ladders that would lead to heaven, or things of massive size that would astound the heart, because they had them in such profusion that it was difficult to get from town to town, and because of them the sun itself often was denied a chance to shine, or forced to break in gold through opaque ridges of ice and sno..
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Mark Helprin |
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341dfaf
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Isn't Mr. Cecil Wooley the fattest, slittiest-eyed thing you've ever seen? And don't you suppose that being called Reverend Doctor Mootfowl is not a common phenomenon, and never has been?
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Mark Helprin |
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0d5447c
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Truth is not anchored to the ground by driven piles. It can float and take to the air; it is light and lovely and delicate. It is feminine as well as masculine. It is often gentle, and sometimes it can even make a fool of itself--but when it does it calls down God (who protects weak creatures), and suddenly its foolishness becomes a blazing, piercing light.
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Mark Helprin |
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f69676a
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You see," the attorney Giuliani said, "not only is there no comfort in unanimity, but they cannot even achieve it." "I could unify them." "That's silly, Alessandro. If they supported you, or even listened, it would be because you flattened yourself and your ideas until everything that once was steep and noble was gone."
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Mark Helprin |
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d37e69f
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Mr. de Pinto, the dog who protects sheep quickly learns how to direct them, and it becomes a habit. The people have been trained by their 'watchmen' to jump, and to trample what the 'watchmen' want trampled. "I have found, that those who would guard the people are their governors. The government admits that it is a government. The press pretends that it is not. But what a pretense! You orchestrate entire populations. And who elected you? No..
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press
privacy
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Mark Helprin |
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42dd0c6
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Evidently, rigging cables is therapy for the Swiss: or part of their theology. What was it that he used to say? A balanced arc between mountain rows / as servant to his master shows / the power of besieged belief / in something something something, something something something-something to do with ducks, or rainbows.
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Mark Helprin |
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a6c5077
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What's the difference what you watch?" Praeger shot back. "When that stream of hypnotic electrons starts winging into your brain, you're finished, good-as-gone, condemned to hell. No matter what it is, if you don't move your eyes and set the pace yourself, your intellect is sentenced to death. The mind, you see, is like a muscle. For it to remain agile and strong, it must work."
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Mark Helprin |
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26cb4ae
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Resurrection, he thought, comes not by plan or effort, and should the past ever come alive, it will be a great surprise, in which images and ritual memory will pale.
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Mark Helprin |
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a3918e5
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They had taken to the movement unlike anything he had ever seen, and he thought that should this venture of the Jews prove successful, the new state would be filled with dancers and musicians, but especially dancers, for dancing like nothing else says: I am still alive.
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music
survival
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Mark Helprin |
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e365e7c
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Though he was scared even to look up, much less down, he raised his hands and caught the side of the gondola. With a stream of curse words known principally to the fourth class of the Accademia San Pietro in Rome, he pulled himself back.
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Mark Helprin |
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4e15545
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Fear, delight, and being twenty were made for each other:
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Mark Helprin |
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21ad6e5
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Alessandro said, "Most people don't do this, but it's what saves you. It tests you in the right way." "Only for war," Rafi added. "We'll almost certainly never have to go to war. It's unlikely that a war will break out in Europe, and even if it did it's less likely that Italy would be included, but I want to be prepared. And this is not just for war, you see, it's for everything."
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Mark Helprin |
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c76dd7c
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The Parthenon is a pleasing building, and Mozart's Fifth Piano Concerto a pleasing work, because each makes use of proportions, relations, and variations that go beyond subjective preference, education, and culture into the realm of universal appeal conditioned by universal human requirements and constraints. A life lived with these understood, even if vaguely, will have the grace that a life lived unaware of them will lack.
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Mark Helprin |
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206a29f
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That she intended to swim alone, and had ridden alone to such a deserted place, puzzled him. Though the countryside around Rome was neither Sicily nor Calabria, it was not safe for an unaccompanied woman, it never had been, and it never would be. He turned almost blue with the thought that she might have--indeed, must have--met a lover on the road, in which case his triple race would have been for nothing, and his shame would drive him to e..
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Mark Helprin |
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4d1298f
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Papa," Alessandro said, his eyes closing. "She swims nude in the sea. She carries a pistol. And she wears perfume that makes me dizzy. Sometimes I go to the garden gate and smell the handle, because, when she touches it, the perfume stays."
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Mark Helprin |
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72b0816
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Magnetyzm barw zmuszal go do kradzenia obrazow.
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Mark Helprin |
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b2efb98
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You can come back," his father had said. "Why leave if I'll come back?" Alessandro had asked, and then had quoted Horace. "'New skies the exile finds, but the heart is still the same."
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Mark Helprin |
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65a6ff4
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Don't tell anyone, but when he reads something that he likes he gets real happy, turns on the music, and dances by himself, or with a broom sometimes. Mum's the word." "I suppose it's because his wife's dead," said Christiana, "that he dances with a broom." "I don't think so," said Boonya. "He dances with a mop, too." "Maybe he had a mistress." "He did, but she had short hairs. I also got short-haired mops."
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Mark Helprin |
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809dd75
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She was exquisite, and he feared that he was blinded to everything else, that he was drawn to her by weakness, that his passion for her was incomplete. Know ing all too well the deeply religious love of the Italian poets for women they had merely seen on the street, he feared that his infatuation for Lia could never be compared to the elemental union that can occur between men and women when God is present and light surrounds them.
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Mark Helprin |
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b951919
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Najbardziej zafrapowalo ja to, w jaki sposob miasto sie porusza. Z oddali wszystkie jego ruchome elementy wydawaly sie podlegac jednemu prawu, niewidocznemu dla zadnego z osobna. Rzecznymi statkami poruszal mocny kontrapunkt, mocny jak magnetyczna sila, wyczuwalo sie go tak wyraznie, jak widzialo sie ich sylwetki. Ich zawile kursy byly jak niewidzialne nici.
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Mark Helprin |
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58f6f4c
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Zrobimy to, co zawsze robie w takich sytuacjach, co robilem juz sto razy, co automatycznie robi kazdy, kto naprawde zna gory. - To znaczy? - Katapulte.
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Mark Helprin |
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6249937
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We have been so enthusiastic in our welcome as to be obsequious--to machines.
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Mark Helprin |
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27d7460
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I knew even before I had desire that it would be gnarled and knotted, black and hard, a tree that would never bear fruit, a fish that would never jump, a cat that would never meow. All my life, bitterness and regret, bitterness, and regret. "And yet," he said, briefly closing his eyes, "I was able to imagine the softness and sweetness of love, for a time." He rested his head upon his right hand, in a gesture worthy of a classical actor, and..
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Mark Helprin |
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6ad6820
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The smell of hot bread came from underneath the tent walls, and Perseus said that the ovens had just been opened. "You haven't eaten in three days. You'd better strengthen yourself." "How can I eat," Alessandro answered, pointing his nose to his padded hands. "Don't be ridiculous, they're perfect for holding a hot loaf of bread. You'll look like a kangaroo, but you'll be able to eat all you want. Now you can pick up a bowl of boiling soup a..
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Mark Helprin |
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58fc38c
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Quite clearly, Europe had come apart and millions had died not because of the shifting of great historical forces or the accidents of fate or destiny, the several bullets of Sarajevo, colonial competition, or anything else. It was because Orfeo had slipped from his seat in the office of the attorney Giuliani and been carried upon the flood, like a corked bottle full of shit, until he had lodged upon a platform at the Ministry of War, where ..
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Mark Helprin |
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dbe0edc
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Life is so quick that it's all played out at the gates of death, and the value of resolution is that it quickens life.
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Mark Helprin |
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f609587
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to cite Montaigne, "Nature always gives us happier laws than those we give ourselves."125"
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Mark Helprin |
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9016b23
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Guariglia, what happens when you let go, when your strength leaves you and you sink into darkness, when there's nothing that you or anyone else can do, no matter how desperate you are, no matter how you try? Perhaps it's then, when you have neither pride nor power, that you are saved, brought to an unimaginably great reward.
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Mark Helprin |
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114ce78
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No," De Roos said. "You mustn't thank me. The relatives of patients thank the physician as if the physician were God. It's no good, and if the patient dies it turns to ash--not just for them, but, as you can imagine, for me. I'll see you later."
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Mark Helprin |
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6c69f9d
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Humanity requires for its understanding and governance not science but art,
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Mark Helprin |
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7c55066
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Real power is with those who are forever still, and I want to join them." "Good God. Why?" "Because I love them." "You mean like Hamlet jumping into the grave?" "Yes." "You can't do that!" Arturo screamed. "This is the twentieth century. And, besides, he jumped out." "He climbed out." "All right, he climbed out. Better that your soul should be on fire. It is on fire, and when you give it air it will flare like the sun. Even I ... My soul is..
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Mark Helprin |
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dc7f59f
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Somewhat unnerved by what he felt were Germanic currents in a man whom he had taken to be just an Italian intellectual who ate flowers, Strassnitzky cautiously argued that "the records are secret, part of the War Office. How do you expect to match the number with the man?" "I haven't the slightest idea," Alessandro said, almost arrogantly, "but God is directly in charge of all things relating to life and death. That I've learned in the war...
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Mark Helprin |
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9c8b5be
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No one knows better than I that it's all here, and need not be explained or interpreted--just seized.
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Mark Helprin |