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I won but I wasn’t like Pat. Because—and why this should be I’ll never know—I never did a thing that wasn’t somehow touched with selfish, furtive hunger, with a private, annihilating need for recognition. Because I’m like a child in a fairy tale cursed from birth, and there has never been anything I can put my hand to without tainting it, no triumph so great or solemn that it doesn’t turn spoiled and ridiculous. Because, sooner or later, the darkness always gets in.

I won but I wasn’t like Pat. Because—and why this should be I’ll never know—I never did a thing that wasn’t somehow touched with selfish, furtive hunger, with a private, annihilating need for recognition. Because I’m like a child in a fairy tale cursed from birth, and there has never been anything I can put my hand to without tainting it, no triumph so great or solemn that it doesn’t turn spoiled and ridiculous. Because, sooner or later, the darkness always gets in.

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Austin Grossman
Attribution: attributed
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Not established
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Historical period not yet established
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Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 216809; supplied attribution, independently unverified

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