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Andrew Solomon

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“I felt a funeral in my brain, and mourners to and fro kept treading, treading till I felt that sense was breaking through. And when they all were seated, a service, like a drum, kept beating, beating, till I felt my mind was going numb. And then I heard them lift a box and creak across my soul with those same boots of lead again, then space began to toll, as if the heavens were a bell and being were an ear, and I, and silence, some strange race wrecked, solitary, here. Just then, a plank in reason broke, and I fell down and down and hit a world at every plunge, and finished knowing then.”

IfsWorldMindSoulReasonHeavenFeltSpaceRaceBrainSilenceKnowingHeardStrangeEarsDown AndBoxesFinishedMy SoulBrokeLiftsFuneralBootsBellsSolitaryNumbPlungeTollsTreading
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“We don't seek the painful experiences that hew our identities, but we seek our identities in the wake of painful experiences. We cannot bear a pointless torment, but we can endure great pain if we believe that it's purposeful. Ease makes less of an impression on us than struggle. We could have been ourselves without our delights, but not without the misfortunes that drive our search for meaning. 'Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities,' St. Paul wrote in Second Corinthians, 'for when I am weak, then I am strong.'”

IfsBelieveHas BeensMotivationalPainStrongPleasureStruggleIdentityBearsWeakEndurePainfulDelightImpressionEaseMisfortunesTormentCould Have BeenPointlessSearch For MeaningInfirmityI Am StrongCorinthiansPainful Experiences
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“Absence does not so much make the heart grow fonder as give the heart time to integrate what it has not previously absorbed, time to make sense of what happened too quickly to have any meaning in the instant. This is always true. If it is in absence that people forget each other, it is also in the quiet pause of absence that, minds running in symmetry, people come to know each other; there is sometimes as much intimacy in the span of continents as in the shared hours before dawn.”

PeopleIfsKnowsGivingMindHeartDoeSometimesRunningGrowsHoursForgetHappenedQuietAbsenceIntimacyMake SenseDawnInstantContinentsPausesIntegratingSymmetry
Book:A Stone Boat: A Novel
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“Antonio Gramsci said that social reformers should have pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will. This means that one must have the intellectual ability to see how bad things are and the emotional ability to look forward with hope. It's a hard combination to sustain, but if you can do it, you can change the world.”

IfsWorldShouldLooksMeanSaidHardSocialCan DoAbilityEmotionalIntellectualShould HaveOptimismIntellectCombinationChanging The WorldBad ThingsPessimismYou Can Do ItReformersAbility To SeeAntonio
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“What has become clear to me is that it is not the inherent nature of being gay that causes such a reduced life; it is, rather, the social circumstances around being gay: the perceptions of it and the cultural norms that it is said to violate. As some of those norms have changed, I have been able to be gay, to have a marriage, to have a family, and to have - if there is wood to knock on - a fortunate and happy life.”

IfsHas BeensSaidAbleSocialCausesClearChangedCircumstancesGayPerceptionWoodsFortunateHappy LifeInherentNormBeing Gay
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“When I remember how unhappy I was in adolescence - about the fact that, though I wasn't really using the term to or for myself, I knew that I was gay - I think, "Oh, if someone then could have shown me just an hour in the life that I have now, I would have made it through all of that misery and despair just fine." The pain lay in thinking that I had a desolate future.”

IfsThinkingMadeFactsPainRememberTermHoursFineGayDespairLaysMiseryUnhappyMade ItAdolescenceDesolate
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“I got into my first serious relationship with a man when I was twenty-three. I had, before that, sort of a typical, sad history of relatively promiscuous sexual encounters with men I didn't know, because I felt that if I were involved with people I did know, other people would know that I was gay, and it was something that I needed to keep so secret.”

PeopleIfsKnowsMenFirstsThreeFeltSecretSeriousNeededInvolvedGayTwentiesEncountersTypicalPromiscuousSerious Relationship
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“My parents deeply and truly loved each other, and if my mother hadn't died they would have been together forever. They were together for as much of forever as was given to them. They really loved my brother and me and were very good to us. It gave the model of how to have a happy marriage and family, but it also set the bar very high.”

IfsHas BeensTogetherMotherGivenParentForeverBrotherModelsDiedVery GoodBarsMy BrotherHappy MarriageMarriage And FamilyTogether Forever
Author:Andrew Solomon
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“The absence of marriages will result in all kinds of financial burdens that gay people wouldn't face if they could get married. If my brother gets hit by a car tomorrow, my sister-in-law will go on living materially in the same way that she does now. If the same thing happens to me, a great deal of what I have will go off to the taxman. That's because of one of, as you doubtless know, eleven hundred federal laws that favor marriage.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWayKindDoeHappensFacesLawResultsDealsCarBrotherGoes OnTomorrowGayMarriedHundredFinancialBurdenAbsenceFavorsThings HappenAll KindsMy BrotherMy SisterElevenIn-lawsGay PeopleSister In LawFinancial Burden
Author:Andrew Solomon
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“I understand perfectly well why the Catholic Church preaches against abortion. But it shouldn't be the purpose of the Catholic Church to prevent non-Catholics from having abortions if they feel that abortions are morally acceptable. They can certainly only argue for what they believe to be right in the court of public opinion and try to persuade people.”

PeopleIfsFeelsTryingBelieveWellsPurposeChurchOpinionCatholicCourtArguingAbortionAcceptablePublic OpinionCatholic ChurchAgainst Abortion
Author:Andrew Solomon
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“Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don't believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave; be strong; take your pills. Exercise because it's good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds. Eat when food itself disgusts you. Reason with yourself when you have lost your reason.”

PeopleIfsLoveBelieveReasonLostStrongMemoriesStepsLove YouExerciseThousandDepressionProjectsBraveDon't BelievePoundsDisgustingBe BravePillsWorth LivingEvery Step
Book:The Noonday Demon: An Atlas Of Depression
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“When I was younger, not being accepted made me enraged, but now, I am not inclined to dismantle my history. If you banish the dragons, you banish the heroes-and we become attached to the heroic strain in our personal history.”

IfsMadeHeroAcceptedDragonsConformityHeroicStrainNon ConformityPersonal HistoryBeing Accepted
Book:Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity
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