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You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

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I think and think and think, I‘ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.

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What’s the kindest thing you almost did? Is your fear of insomnia stronger than your fear of what awoke you? Are bonsai cruel? Do you love what you lo...more

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I want an infinitely blank book and the rest of time......why didn't I learn to treat everything like it was the last time, my greatest regret is how ...more

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It has shown me that everything is illuminated in the light of the past. It is always along the side of us...on the inside, looking out.

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When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A cal...more

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Time was passing like a hand waving from a train I wanted to be on. I hope you never have to think about anything as much as I think about you.

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Why does watching a dog be a dog fill one with happiness?

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I'm sorry for my inability to let unimportant things go, for my inability to hold on to the important things.

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Food for her is not food, it is terror, dignity, gratitude, vengeance, joyfulness, humiliation, religion, history, and, of course, love. As if the fru...more

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If we were to one day encounter a form of life more powerful and intelligent than our own, and it regarded us as we regard fish, what would be our arg...more

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It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.

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Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat...more

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The disgraced Usurer Yankel D took the baby girl home that evening... He made a bed of crumpled newspaper in a deep baking pan and gently tucked it in...more

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I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others—the...more