The collection / 41 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

The evidence never seemed to matter to those in power, who had already made up their minds and did what people typically do when their worldview is threatened by new data: they attacked the messenger.

Sol Luckman / quote

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02Undated

In his mother’s honor, vowing not to commit the “fashionable stupidity” of ignoring things he didn’t understand, Max performed a brave act of nonconformity by accepting the possibility that his dreams might be exactly what they seemed: real.

Sol Luckman / quote

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03Undated

The beauty of a metaphor is it doesn't have to be real to ring true. The instant a metaphor becomes true it ceases to be a metaphor, which suggests a disconnect between truth and what's commonly referred to as reality.

Sol Luckman / quote

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04Undated

The Adventure called and I followed with my thumb like a character being written by an intractable author. Which, of course, I was.

Sol Luckman / quote

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05Undated

It was a rotten time to try to be a man in America. Until Blue came along I’d never even spent time around a man. Hell, I’d never even seen one. Where were all the men in this once great land?

Sol Luckman / quote

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06Undated

Life is too short to waste being a productive member of society.

Sol Luckman / quote

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07Undated

I just want to live my own life instead of everyone else’s version of it.

Sol Luckman / quote

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08Undated

I am, as it were, the created creating—a paradox, for all its rhetorical trappings, at the beating heart of our shared human journey, and one I invite you to struggle with just as I have while, day in and day out, word by word and line by line, constructing a fictitious autobiography for myself in these pages.

Sol Luckman / quote

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09Undated

Such is life, imaginary or otherwise: a continuous parting of ways, a constant flux of approximation and distanciation, lines of fate intersecting at a point which is no-time, a theoretical crossroads fictitiously 'present,' an unstable ice floe forever drifting between was and will be.

Sol Luckman / quote

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10Undated

Home. The word circled comfortably in my mouth like bubble gum, swished around sweetly soft and satisfying. Home. Try saying it aloud to yourself. Home. Isn’t it like taking a bite of something lovely? If only we could eat words.

Sol Luckman / quote

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11Undated

Finally, we entered Chetaube County, my imaginary birthplace, where the names of the little winding roads and minuscule mountain communities never failed to inspire me: Yardscrabble, Big Log, Upper, Middle and Lower Pigsty, Chicken Scratch, Cooterville, Felchville, Dust Rag, Dough Bag, Uranus Ridge, Big Bottom, Hooter Holler, Quickskillet, Buck Wallow, Possum Strut ... We always say a picture speaks a thousand words, but isn’t the opposite equally true?

Sol Luckman / quote

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12Undated

Well, enough of this introspection. It’s depressing, quite frankly.

Sol Luckman / quote

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13Undated

Someone experiencing the stages of grief is rarely aware of how his behavior might appear to others. Grief often produces a “zoom lens effect,” in which the focus is entirely on oneself, to the exclusion of external considerations.

Sol Luckman / quote

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14Undated

The scene sucker-punched Max. He never saw it coming. It encapsulated in one poignant instant the tragic beauty of his family history.

Sol Luckman / quote

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15Undated

Over the years most of my peers had come to hate me—I never understood why. I guess I was just different and, like dogs, they could smell it. So I never had many friends.

Sol Luckman / quote

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16Undated

Recalling his first dreams of flight when he was a small child, Max acknowledged that his entire existence had been building up to this tipping point where he could finally choose to release his self-imposedlimitations.

Sol Luckman / quote

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17Undated

He knew perfectly well (even if he wasn’t inclined to admit it) that the material body had a spiritual aspect. He knew that “spirit,” however explained, was real, because of his own undeniable experiences—which, though he might suppress them, he couldn’t altogether erase from memory.

Sol Luckman / quote

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18Undated

I relinquished myself to existence pure and simple, thinking absolutely nothing—as if my mind were merely an echo chamber for the music, as if it contained only ether or at most a vaguely pleasant odor as of roses preserved between the pages of a book, their significance long forgotten. The tongue of the road gobbled me up and I allowed myself to sink like a tasty mouthful all the way to the bottom of a marvelous, rejuvenating vacuity. Later, it would occur to me it’s the emptiness we mistakenly call Innocence.

Sol Luckman / quote

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19Undated

The biggest question, transcending physics and the realm of how he was able to do the extraordinary things he did, remained firmly rooted in the realm of metaphysics and begged an answer to why he could do these things.

Sol Luckman / quote

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20Undated

Unhealthy behavior is actually common among doctors, who tend to know a lot about medicine but very little about health.

Sol Luckman / quote

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21Undated

Worry wasn’t an emotion to which he was particularly accustomed—and it worried him.

Sol Luckman / quote

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22Undated

Begging is much more difficult than it looks. Contrary to popular belief, it’s a high art form that takes years of dedicated practice to master.

Sol Luckman / quote

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23Undated

It takes money to make money, even begging. Humans are herd animals. If a stranger’s bleeding to death beside the road, most people won’t stop to offer a Band-Aid. But get the ball rolling with a couple Good Samaritans, and before you know it you’ve got more eager philanthropists than you know what to do with.

Sol Luckman / quote

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24Undated

I should think a dead language would be rather boring, sociallyspeaking.

Sol Luckman / quote

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