May 2012
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Life can be painless, provided that there is sufficient peacefulness for a dozen...
– Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick
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The world is full of people who are very clever at seeming much smarter than...
– Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick
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When I hear a man proclaiming himself as an ‘average, honest, open...
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Rich Boy
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Imagine that human existence is defined by an Ache: the Ache of our not being,...
– Jonathan Franzen, How to be Alone: Essays
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You never stop waiting for the real story to start, because the only real story...
– Jonathan Franzen, The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History
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You may be poor, but the one thing nobody can take away from you is the freedom...
– Jonathan Franzen, Freedom
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But the first lesson reading teaches is how to be alone.
– Jonathan Franzen, How to be Alone: Essays
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The pain was quite extraordinary. And yet also weirdly welcome and restorative,...
– Jonathan Franzen, Freedom
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He couldn’t figure out if she was immensely well adjusted or seriously...
– Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections
April 2012
60 posts
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Nice people don’t necessarily fall in love with nice people.
– Jonathan Franzen, Freedom
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If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.
– David Foster Wallace, The Pale King
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To really try to be informed and literate today is to feel stupid nearly all the...
– David Foster Wallace, The Best American Essays 2007
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Life’s endless war against the self you cannot live without.
– David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
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American experience seems to suggest that people are virtually unlimited in...
– David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
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God seems to have a kind of laid-back management style I’m not crazy...
– David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
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Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they...
– David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
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