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One of the things he had learned in life, and which he hoped he could rely on, was that a greater pain drives out a lesser one. A strained muscle disa...more

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He always thought that Touie's long illness would somehow prepare him for her death. He always imagined that grief anf guilt, if they followed, would ...more

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Arthur was frequently baffled by the complacency with which people went on with what they insouciantly called their lives, as if both the word and the...more

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He feared me as many men fear women: because their mistresses (or their wives) understand them. They are scarcely adult, some men: they wish women to ...more

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Altitude reduces all things to their relative proportions, and to the truth. Cares, remorse, disgust become strangers: How easily indifference, contem...more

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Cut privet still smells of sour apples, as it did when I was sixteen; but this is a rare, lingering exception. At that age, everything seemed more ope...more

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Love is just a system for getting someone to call you Darling after sex.

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It had been a slow and painful business, discovering that the theory of love did not match the reality of life. It was like expecting to be able to wr...more

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Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person,...more

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Later on in life, you expect a bit of rest, don't you? You think you deserve it. I did, anyway. But then you begin to understand that the reward of me...more

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This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature. Look at our parents--were they the stuff of Literature? At best, the...more