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065159f
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After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language?
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inspirational
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Russell Hoban |
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8432807
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Who is Alice?" asked mother. "Alice is somebody that nobody can see," said Frances. "And that is why she does not have a birthday. So I am singing Happy Thursday to her." - Frances the badger" --
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Russell Hoban |
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ef0d0a4
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There is a tiger in my room,' said Frances. 'Did he bite you?' said Father. 'No,' said Frances. 'Did he scratch you?' said Mother. 'No,' said Frances. 'Then he is a friendly tiger,' said Father. 'He will not hurt you. Go back to sleep.
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humor
children-s-literature
tigers
stalling
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Russell Hoban |
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a7c4295
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The worl is ful of things waiting to happen. Thats the meat and boan of it right there. You myt think you can jus go here and there doing nothing. Happening nothing. You cant tho you bleeding cant. You put your self on any road and some thing wil show its self to you. Wanting to happen. Waiting to happen. You myt say, 'I dont want to know.' But 1ce its showt its self to you you wil know wont you. You cant not know no mor. There it is and wo..
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Russell Hoban |
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498772d
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O yes youwl want to think on that you dont want your mouf to walk you where your feet dont want to go.
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pause
thoughtlessness
foot-in-mouth
speaking
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Russell Hoban |
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29833f3
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I cud feal some thing growing in me it wer like a grean sea surging in me it wer saying, LOSE IT. Saying, LET GO. Saying, THE ONLYES POWER IS NO POWER
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Russell Hoban |
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0b14f46
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A turtle doesn't have to decide every morning whether to keep on bothering, it just carries on. Maybe that's why man kills everything: envy.
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Russell Hoban |
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c9f4602
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I think of the turtles swimming steadily against the current all the way to Ascension. I think of them swimming through all that golden-green water over the dark, over the chill of the deeps and the jaws of the dark. And I think of the sun over the water, the sun through the water, the eye holding the sun, being held by it with no thought and only the rhythm of the going, the steady wing-strokes of the flippers in the water. Then it doesn't..
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Russell Hoban |
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3e184a5
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Have you paused to consider that there is no way out? Each way out of one situation necessarily being the way into another situation.
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Russell Hoban |
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52a7a2e
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Too-lateness, I realized, has nothing to do with age. Too-lateness is potentially every moment. Or not, depending on the person and the moment. Perhaps there even comes a time when it's no longer too late for anything. Perhaps, even, most times are too early for most things, and most of life has to go by before it's time for almost anything and too late for almost nothing. Nothing to lose, the present moment to gain, the integration with lo..
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Russell Hoban |
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86bfa87
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Trubba not.
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Russell Hoban |
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3b6891f
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Ready to cry ready to dy ready for any thing is how I come to it now. In fear and tremmering only not running a way. In emtyness and ready to be fult. Not to lern no body nothing I cant even lern my oan self all I can do is try not to get in front of whats coming. Jus try to keap out of the way of it.
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Russell Hoban |
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3369504
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An ordinary mirror is silvered at the back but the window of the night train has darkness behind the glass. My face and the faces of other travellers were now mirrored on this darkness in a succession of stillnesses. Consider this, said the darkness: any motion at any speed is a succession of stillnesses; any section through an action will show just such a plane of stillness as this dark window in which your seeking face is mirrored. And in..
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philosophy
reflection
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Russell Hoban |
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48f808d
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Every body knows Aunty. Stoan boans and iron tits and teef be twean her legs plus she has a iron willy for the ladys it gets red hot. When your time comes you have to do the juicy with her like it or not. She rides a girt big rat with red eyes it can see in the dark and it can smel whos ready for Aunty. Even if they dont know it ther selfs the rat can smel if theyre ready.
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Russell Hoban |
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e4fb2df
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Sometimes I think that the biggest difference between men and women is that more men need to seek out some terrible lurking thing in existence and hurl themselves upon it like Ahab with the White Whale. Women know where it lives but they can let it alone. Even in matriarchal societies I doubt that there were ever female Beowulfs. Women lie with gods and demons but they don't go looking for monsters to fight with. Ariadne gave Theseus a clew..
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Russell Hoban |
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36bbb90
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He was thinking what a long and wide thing time is, to have so many happenings in it.
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Russell Hoban |
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22d5260
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Where are we?' the mouse child asked his father. His voice was tiny in the stillness of the night. 'I don't know' the father replied. 'What are we Papa?'. 'I don't know. We must wait and see'.
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Russell Hoban |
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2325ea0
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Frances has gotten out of bed again and come to her parents' room...) 'How can the wind have a job?' asked Frances. ' has a job,' said Father. 'I have to go to my office every morning at nine o'clock. That is my job. You have to go to sleep so you can be wide awake for school tomorrow. That is job.' Frances said, 'I know, but...' Father said, 'I have not finished. If the wind does not blow the curtains, he will be out of a job. If I do ..
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humor
spanking
stalling
jobs
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Russell Hoban |
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948c50e
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It was the sort of situation that would be ever so charming and warmly human in a film with Peter Ustinov and Maggie Smith but that sort of film is only charming because they leave out so many details, and real life is all the details they leave out.
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Russell Hoban |
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d2adba2
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A frightening thought had been growing in me. I'd always assumed that I was the central character in my own story but now it occurred to me that I might in fact be only a minor character in someone else's.
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Russell Hoban |
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83e69dc
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There were no lions any more. There had been lions once. Sometimes in the shimmer of the heat on the plains the motion of their running still flickered on the dry wind -- tawny, great, and quickly gone. Sometimes the honey-colored moon shivered to the silence of a ghost-roar on the rising air.
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Russell Hoban |
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c451170
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I had a salad. If I were to say that today's tomatoes were an index of the decline of Western man I should be thought a crank but nations do not, I think, ascend on such tomatoes.
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Russell Hoban |
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2c4af6e
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Looking at them words going down on this paper right this minim I know there aint no such thing there aint no only my self you all ways have every 1 and every thing on your back.
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Russell Hoban |
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f48d505
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Iyther you dont know nothing or you know too much it dont seam like theres any thing in be twean.
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Russell Hoban |
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0307895
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Its some kynd of thing it aint us but yet its in us. Its looking out thru our eye hoals. May be you dont take no noatis of it only some times. Say you get woak up suddn in the middl of the nite. 1 minim youre a sleap and the nex youre on your feet with a spear in your han. Wel it werent you put that spear in your han it wer that other thing whats looking out thru your eye hoals. It aint you nor it dont even know your name. Its in us lorn an..
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Russell Hoban |
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a89b506
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O what we ben! And what we come to!
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progress
human-condition
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Russell Hoban |
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d68f92a
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When I was a child I had a fishless aquarium. My father set it up for me with gravel and plants and pebbles before he'd got the fish and I asked him to leave it as it was for a while. The pump kept up a charming burble, the green-gold light was wondrous when the room was dark. I put in a china mermaid and a tin horseman who maintained a relationship like that of the figures on Keat's Grecian urn except that the horseman grew rusty. Eventual..
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fish
grecian-urn
mermaid
child
keats
father
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Russell Hoban |
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115708b
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Sometimes I think that this whole thing, this whole business of a world that keeps waking itself up and bothering to go on every day, is necessary only as a manifestation of the intolerable. The intolerable is like H.G. Wells's invisible man, it has to put on clothes in order to be seen. So it dresses itself up in a world. Possibly it looks in a mirror but my imagination doesn't go that far.
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Russell Hoban |
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dea5b16
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Wel you know 1ce the kids start singing at you thats a cern kynd of track youre on nor there aint too much you can do about it. Making the kids stop singing wont help its too late by then youve jus got to clinch your teef and get on with it.
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Russell Hoban |
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1735065
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The mouse and his child, who had learned so much and had prevailed against such overwhelming odds, never could be persuaded to teach a success course... The whole secret of the thing, they insisted, was simply and at all costs to move steadily ahead, and that, they said, could not be taught.
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Russell Hoban |
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a35e8f9
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I said, 'Yes theres a lot to look a head to. Like croaking iron at Widders Dump. We do the croaking and they get the iron.' He said, 'Riddley theres other things to do as wel.' I said, 'Yes and they all smel of cow shit dont they?
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Russell Hoban |
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3cecec9
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Our woal life is a idear we dint think of nor we dont know what it is.
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Russell Hoban |
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067ea23
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What do you do when you're wound up?' she asked. 'Do you play that drum?'. 'No,' said the child. 'We used to dance.' 'But now we walk,' said the father. 'And behind us an enemy walks faster.' 'That's life,' said Euterpe.
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Russell Hoban |
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0a7412c
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I was on South Bank one day by the Royal Festival Hall. It was a sunny day with a bright blue sky. I was looking up at a train crossing the Hungerford Bridge. Through the train I could see the sky successively framed by each window as the carriage passed. Each window moving quickly forward and away held briefly a rectangle of blue. The windows passing, the blue remained.
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Russell Hoban |
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44bb560
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There must be a lot of people in the world being wondered about by people who don't see them any more.
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Russell Hoban |
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0ca3207
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Love me or I will kick you very hard.
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Russell Hoban |
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cc784f1
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Mark you that and noat you wel.
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Russell Hoban |
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8edaf7e
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Raining agen it wer nex morning. Theres rains and rains. This 1 wer coming down in a way as took the hart and hoap out of you there wer a kynd of brilyants in the grey it wer too hard it wer too else it made you feal like all the tracks in the worl wer out paths nor not a 1 to bring you back. Wel of coarse they are but it dont all ways feal that way. It wer that kynd of morning when peopl wernt jus falling in to what they done naturel they ..
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rain
paths
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Russell Hoban |
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fcc6e9a
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All roads, whether long or short, are hard," said Frog. "Come, you have begun your journey, and all else necessarily follows from that act. Be of good cheer. The sun is bright. The sky is blue. The world lies before you."
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Russell Hoban |
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615d9a8
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If we'd been edible we'd never have lasted this long.
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Russell Hoban |
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3e0d081
|
Oh, yes," said Mother, "you may be sure that there will always be plenty of chocolate cake around here."
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Russell Hoban |
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84c7071
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Am I doomed? Flashing darkness is pretty much the same as flashing light really. Fear isn't at all the same as courage but after a certain point perhaps being afraid of everything is the same as being afraid of nothing.
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fear
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Russell Hoban |
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387b02a
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What is all this talk of elephants and seals?' asked Frog. 'It's nonsense', said the father, 'and yet it's not the child's fault. Our motor is in me. He fills the empty space inside himself with foolish dreams that cannot possibly come true'.
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Russell Hoban |
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f9a570c
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Seed of the little Seed of the wyld Seed of the berning is Hart of the chyld . . . Out goes the candl Out goes the lite Out goes my story And so Good Nite
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Russell Hoban |