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Annie Dillard: I am a...

Annie Dillard: I am a...

I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my...

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Amy Tan: I did not...

Amy Tan: I did not...

I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on...

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Shirley Hazzard: Sometimes, surely, truth...

Shirley Hazzard: Sometimes, surely, truth...

Sometimes, surely, truth is closer to imagination or to intelligence, to love than to fact? To be accurate is not to...

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Lois McMaster Bujold: Reputation is what...

Lois McMaster Bujold: Reputation is what...

Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.

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Sylvia Ashton-Warner: God, the illogic!...

Sylvia Ashton-Warner: God, the illogic!...

God, the illogic! The impossibility of communication in this house. The sheer operation alone of getting something...

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Annie Dillard: I startled a...

Annie Dillard: I startled a...

I startled a weasel who startled me, and we exchanged a long glance. . . . Our eyes locked, and someone threw away the...

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Gertrude Stein: Everybody knows if...

Gertrude Stein: Everybody knows if...

Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over...

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Djuna Barnes: What is a...

Djuna Barnes: What is a...

What is a ruin but time easing itself of endurance?

Source: Selected Works of Djuna...

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Mary McCarthy: There are no...

Mary McCarthy: There are no...

There are no new truths, but only truths that have not been recognized by those who have perceived them without...

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Mary McCarthy: Understanding is often...

Mary McCarthy: Understanding is often...

Understanding is often a prelude to forgiveness, but they are not the same, and we often forgive what we cannot...

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Lillian Smith: Education is a...

Lillian Smith: Education is a...

Education is a private matter between the person and the world of knowledge and experience, and has little to do with...

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Rose Tremain: There is something...

Rose Tremain: There is something...

There is something about the unexpected that moves us. As if the whole of existence is paid for in some way, except...

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Emily Blackwell: . . ....

Emily Blackwell: . . ....

. . . every advance in social progress removes us more and more from the guidance of instinct, obliging us to depend...

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Fawn M Brodie: Show me a...

Fawn M Brodie: Show me a...

Show me a character whose life arouses my curiosity, and my flesh begins crawling with...

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Jean Ingelow: A healthful hunger...

Jean Ingelow: A healthful hunger...

A healthful hunger for a great idea is the beauty and blessedness of life.

Source:...

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Nella Larsen: She wished to...

Nella Larsen: She wished to...

She wished to find out about this hazardous business of passing, this breaking away from all that was familiar and...

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Louisa May Alcott: People don't have...

Louisa May Alcott: People don't have...

People don't have fortunes left them in that style nowadays; men have to work and women to marry for money. It's a...

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Annie Dillard: Every book has...

Annie Dillard: Every book has...

Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement...

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Eudora Welty: What I do...

Eudora Welty: What I do...

What I do in the writing of any character is to try to enter into the mind, heart and skin of a human being who is not...

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Mae West: It is better...

Mae West: It is better...

It is better to be looked over than overlooked.

Source: The Wit and Wisdom of Mae...

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