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Marvin
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“In a review of Beheld, by TaraShea Nesbit: Nesbit captures a paradox of historical writing — that it’s in the invention and improvisation that the past feels most pressing and most real.”
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“Happy people have bad memory but rich memories.”
― Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee
― Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee
“You must always believe that life is as extraordinary as music says it is.--Quoted in Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood”
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“When his elderly neighbor says they’re both useless because they don’t DO anything, Arthur Trulov notes that everybody wants to be a writer. “But what we need are readers. Right? Where would writers be without readers? Who are they going to write for? And actors, what are they without an audience? Actors, painters, dancers, comedians, even just ordinary people doing ordinary things, what are they without an audience of some sort?
“See, that’s what I do. I am the audience. I am the witness. I am the great appreciator, that’s what I do and that’s all I want to do. I worked for a lot of years. I did a lot of things for a lot of years. Now, well, here I am in the rocking chair, and I don’t mind it, Lucille. I don’t feel useless. I feel lucky.” (128)”
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“See, that’s what I do. I am the audience. I am the witness. I am the great appreciator, that’s what I do and that’s all I want to do. I worked for a lot of years. I did a lot of things for a lot of years. Now, well, here I am in the rocking chair, and I don’t mind it, Lucille. I don’t feel useless. I feel lucky.” (128)”
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“What can I tell you further? I once lived among humankind, and found them in their generality to be cruel and cold, and yet could mention the names of three or four that were like angels.
I suppose we measure the importance of our days by those few angels we spy among us, and yet aren't like them.
If our suffering is great on account of that, yet at close of day the gift of life is something immense. Something larger than old Sligo mountains, something difficult but oddly bright, that makes equal in their fall the hammers and the feathers [a reference to a scientific experiment her father did for her that comes near the beginning of her account:].
And like the impulse that drives the old maid to make a garden, with a meagre rose and a straggling daffodil, gives a hint of some coming paradise.
All that remains of me now is a rumour of beauty.”
― The Secret Scripture
I suppose we measure the importance of our days by those few angels we spy among us, and yet aren't like them.
If our suffering is great on account of that, yet at close of day the gift of life is something immense. Something larger than old Sligo mountains, something difficult but oddly bright, that makes equal in their fall the hammers and the feathers [a reference to a scientific experiment her father did for her that comes near the beginning of her account:].
And like the impulse that drives the old maid to make a garden, with a meagre rose and a straggling daffodil, gives a hint of some coming paradise.
All that remains of me now is a rumour of beauty.”
― The Secret Scripture
Marvin’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Marvin’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
1,386 books
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218 friends
2,482 books
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92 friends
2,904 books
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688 friends
174 books
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56 friends
678 books
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11 friends
16,412 books
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64 friends
1,266 books
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120 friends
739 books
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90 friends
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