2548 2 1
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“He had emerged from slavery, -- not the worst slavery in the world, not a slavery that made all life unbearable, rather a slavery that had here and there something of kindliness, fidelity, and happiness, -- but withal slavery, which, so far a human aspiration…
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254784
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I'm Icarus in Brueghel's painting. My wings as it turned out were made of wax. Mothers, tell your daughters this truth. You cannot fly so close to the sun.
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25472310
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'Hey, are you supposed to be from a cartoon or something?' said the Grim Reaper. I had to take a big drink before I could reply. I didn't know what to say, so I said 'Could I see your watch, please?' He looked down my dress while he thought about it.
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25451712
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25442321
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The debits and credits of life have been recalculated. You are not due tax; you are owed a trapeze. It turns out you have a natural gift for hanging upside down, knees to the clouds.
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25441413
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The patient people who work with the insane are not my kind of people. They are too entertained by the oddness of the inmates and act with a superior sense. I, on the other hand, am odd myself, searching for adherents to my view. The inmates knew me as such and agreed…
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254400
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Like gymnastics, shoplifting is a discipline of youth.
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254471
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If you run into my Aunt Lucille, put your head down and keep walking. She knows when a person is going to die. She knows when a fatal disease is heading your way and she doesn't keep it to herself. She told my best friend, Mary Lou Pierce, don't bother
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254193
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She's standing outside the 7-11, skirt up round her ass. Ripe. She could be a whore but she looks way too classy. Plus she has a huge soda - I'd guess diet - and a Twinkie.
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254099
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Matilda went wild at sixty-five. Legs left unshaven for the first time in fifty years, hair still and proud, knotted with forgetting. She’d roam the streets at night, a traveler without design. Matilda was a gardener of sorts, digging up all previous assu
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25393114
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253931
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There are gestures, unmarred by the words put to them after all has failed. When Y. stopped you from talking to apply lip balm to your dry lips. Or she sidled up to you to read what you had written for her. When you lay on the grass together she put her head on…
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253832
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It was one of those dinner parties where everyone had had a little too much to drink, and the conversation around the table had grown more . . . shall we say, spirited.
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25363720
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Make cartography with your mouth...
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2536209
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Eighteen-layered canvases were prized by both of them, regardless of whose work appeared on top.
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253587
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A brief commentary on the uselessness of endings.
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253511
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Not everybody sees Father. Not Mom, not Dad, not even my little brother, Andre, and he see lots of things. Me, I need to.
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2535179
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When Ryan isn’t around, those of us who know him lament that he peaked at 17, at Disney World.
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253421
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Simon Ridley only had one special power. Whenever he walked into a room, an awkward silence would descend.
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25331311
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Her mother dressed her like a little girl would dress a doll.
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25321110
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he scans the headlines of the tabloids as he waits to pay. “Dog Accidentally Shoots Man With His Own Gun, Elvis's Hidden Extraterrestrial Daughter, Swedish Man Bursts Into Flames on Train Platform.”
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25324822
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When the snow reached the windowsills I was no longer a virgin.
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2532158
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When you return home, one year to the day that you left us, you will wonder if you can do it all over again.
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25302118
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One day a woman, one of several translators at Ellis Island, asks him why he has changed a passenger’s name from Checzowicz to something else.
“The name was too long,” he says. “Ten letters.”
She replies, “But you didn’t change O’Shaughnessy, and it has
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25304121
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My eyes became purple, and boys called them "picture windows". Well, not boys, exactly, but one girl did. Junie.
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2529126
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It’s about 4:30 when the phone rings. I look at the display and see it’s home.
“Hey,” I say picking up.
“I hate you,” says Jules.
“I hate, you, too,” I say. My co-workers don’t even blink. They’ve heard this before.
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2529289
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People huddle in their basements like kittens. People laugh, darkly, saying they'd rather be surfing. People wonder if their batteries are charged. People never do get what they want. People grow tired of the sad dog following them around. People want you to know how…
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252972
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I pass the Grief Benches on my way to work. No one is on them today. Last night I saw a couple there, him wet eyed and her with her head down. She scrunched her eyes tight as I passed and I remember thinking she was a fraud. It's alright if you don't want
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252854
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my exposed
flu-ridden head
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2528187
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This is the only time she feels she can be herself.
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