The collection / 39 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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39 results · Page 2 of 2Play this collection ▷

01c. 2008 AD

It's a real lightning bolt, this Science of Phrenology. I've found out more in the last three days than I knew in my whole life before. Mrs. Guilbert has always been a nasty one, but now I know that she can't help it—she's got a big pit in her Benevolence spot. She fell in the quarry when she was a girl, and my guess is she cracked her Benevolence and was never the same since.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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02c. 2008 AD

Do you know what sentence of his (Wordsworth) I admire the most? It is "The bright day is done, and we are for the dark." I wish I'd known those words on the day I watched those German troops land, plane-load after plane-load of them--and come off ships down in the harbor! All I could think of was damn them, damn them, over and over. If I could have thought the words “the bright day is done and we are for the dark,” I’d have been consoled somehow and ready to go out and contend with circumstance—instead of my heart sinking to my shoes.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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03c. 2008 AD

Friends, show me a man who hates himself, and I'll show you a man who hates his neighbors more! He'd have to—you'd not grant anyone else something you can't have for yourself—no love, no kindness, no respect!

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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04c. 2008 AD

I believe I am becoming pathetic. I'll go further, I believe that I am in love with a flower-growing, wood-carving quarryman/carpenter/pig farmer. In fact, I know I am. Perhaps tomorrow I will become entirely miserable at the thought that he doesn't love me back - may, even, care for Remy- but at this precise moment I am succumbing to euphoria. My head and stomach feel quite odd.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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05c. 2008 AD

Boredom is a powerful reason, and the prospect of fun is a powerful draw - especially when you are young.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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06c. 2008 AD

Visitors offering their condolences, thinking to comfort me, said "Life goes on." What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn't. It's death that goes on; Ian is dead now and will be dead tomorrow and next year and forever. There's no end to that. But perhaps there will be an end to the sorrow of it.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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07c. 2008 AD

Sorrow has rushed over the world like the waters of the Deluge, and it will take time to recede. But already, there are small islands of - hope? Happiness? Something like them, at any rate.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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08c. 2008 AD

I never met a man half so true as a dog. Treat a dog right, and he'll treat you right. He'll keep you company, be your friend, and never ask you no questions. Cats is different, but I never held that against 'em.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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09c. 2008 AD

I don’t much care for people—never have, never will. I got my reasons. I never met a man half so true as a dog. Treat a dog right and he’ll treat you right—he’ll keep you company, be your friend, never ask you no questions. Cats is different, but I never held that against them.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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10c. 2008 AD

He's got that way of believing his opinion is the truth, but he's not disagreeable about it. He's too sure he's right to bother being disagreeable.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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11c. 2008 AD

Oh bless Speranza, for giving her son such a preposterous name as Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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12c. 2008 AD

But the truth is that I'm gloomy - gloomier than I ever was during the war. Everything is so broken, Sophie: the roads, the buildings, the people. Especially the people.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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13c. 2008 AD

All his flowers have been awaiting me on my arrival. I don't know whether to feel flattered or hunted.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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14c. 2008 AD

I kept trying to explain and he kept shouting until I began to cry from frustration. Then he felt remorseful, which was so unlike him and endearing that I almost changed my mind and said yes. But then I imagined a lifetime of having to cry to get him to be kind, and I went back to no again.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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15c. 2008 AD

She gathered a circle of children around her and commenced singing 'For Those Who Peril on the Sea' over their little heads. But no, 'safety from storms' wasn't enough for her. God had to keep them from being blown up too. She set about ordering the poor things to pray for their parents every night- who knew what the German soldiers might do to them? Then she said to be especially good little boys and girls so Mama and Daddy could look down on them from heaven and BE PROUD OF THEM...she had those children crying and sobbing fit to die.I was too shocked to move, but no, not Elizabeth. No, quick as an adder's tongue, she had ahold of Adelaide's arm and told her to SHUT UP.'Let me go!' Adelaide cried. 'I am speaking the Word of God!'Elizabeth, she got a look on her that would turn the devil to stone, and then she slapped Adelaide right across the face!

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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