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Carol Shields

Carol Shields Books

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Larry's Party

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Swann

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The Box Garden

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“Kindness, after all, comes to him naturally; he was hatched in its lucky genre and embraces its attributes effortlessly. Gentleness, generosity and compromise are not for him learned skills; they have always been with him . . . It may, for all I know, have existed in his family for generations. He is not at the frontier as I am. For me kindness is an alien quality; and like a difficult French verb I must learn it slowly, painfully, and probably imperfectly. It does not swim freely in my bloodstream -- I have to inject it artificially at the risk of all sorts of unknown factors. It does not wake with me in the mornings; every day I have to coax it anew into existence, breathe on it to keep it alive, practice it to keep it in good working order. And most difficult of all, I have to exercise it in such a way that it looks spontaneous and genuine; I have to see that it flows without hesitation as it does from its true practitioners, its lucky heirs who acquire it without laborious seeking . . .”

Kindness
Book:The Box Garden
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“Practically all girls are capable of pulling off the Lady Love stunt before marriage but alas, only too many of them think a wedding ring gives them the right to flop down on the do-nothing stool, get fat and eat onions... When a man see his beauteous pride slouching around the house in a soiled house- coat with cold cream on her face, he feels he got cheated at the altar. Too often after the first baby, [women] cease being wives and are only mothers... giving all their tenderness to Junior and letting poor husband go heart-hungry.”

LoveLifeMarriageMothers
Book:Dropped Threads: What We Aren't Told
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“It has never been easy for me to understand the obliteration of time, to accept, as others seem to do, the swelling and corresponding shrinkage of seasons or the conscious acceptance that one year has ended and another begun. There is something here that speaks of our essential helplessness and how the greater substance of our lives is bound up with waste and opacity... How can so much time hold so little, how can it be taken from us? Months, weeks, days, hours misplaced – and the most precious time of life, too, when our bodies are at their greatest strength, and open, as they never will be again, to the onslaught of sensation.”

PastTimeWasteAgeing
Book:The Stone Diaries
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“Muistatko sen päivän viime lokakuussa, kun minulla oli ensimmäisen kerran kauhea päänsärky? Löysin sinut keittiöstä, sinulla oli sellainen uusi kammottava muoviesiliina. Sinä kiedoit heti käsivartesi minun ympärilleni ja silitit minun ohimoitani. Sillä hetkellä minä rakastin sinua suunnattomasti. Esiliinan natina minun syliäni vasten oli kuin liikuttava vastaus siihen kaipuuseen, jota minä silloinkin tunsin. Oli kuin jokin olisi kuiskimalla kehottanut meitä kiirehtimään, lopettamaan ajan haaskaamisen, ja minä olisin halunnut tanssia sinun kanssasi takaovesta ulos puutarhaan, kadulle, kauas horisonttiin. Voi minun rakkaani. Minä luulin että meillä olisi ollut enemmän aikaa.”

RakkausKuolemaKaipausKaipuuKirjeet
Book:The Stone Diaries
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“And yet, within her anxiety, secured there like a gemstone, she carries the cool and curious power of occasionally being able to see the world vividly. Clarity bursts upon her a spray of little stars. She understands this, and thinks of it as one of the tricks of consciousness; there is something almost luxurious about it.. The narrative maze opens and permits her to pass through. She may be crowded out of her own life - she knows this for a fact and has always know it - but she possesses, as a compensatory gift, the startling ability to draft alternative versions.”

ThinkingKnowsWorldMayLittlesFactsAbleStarsAbilityConsciousnessAnxietyTricksVersionsClarityCuriousAlternativesNarrativeCarriePermitCrowdedSpraySecuredMazesLuxurious
Author:Carol Shields
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“It's the arrangement of events which makes the stories. It's throwing away, compressing, underlining. Hindsight can give structure to anything, but you have to be able to see it. Breathing, waking and sleeping: our lives are steamed and shaped into stories. Knowing that is what keeps me from going insane, and though I don't like to admit it, sometimes it's the only thing.”

GivingSometimesStoriesAbleSleepKnowingOur LivesEventsStructureInsaneBreathingThrowingWakingArrangementsHindsightThrowing Away
Author:Carol Shields
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“In one day I had altered my life; my life, therefore, was alterable. This simple axiom did not call out for exegesis; no, it entered my bloodstream directly, as powerful as heroin. I could feel it pump and surge, the way it brightened my veins to a kind of glass. I had wakened that morning to narrowness and predestination and now I was falling asleep in the storm of my own free will.”

WayFeelsKindFallMy OwnSimplePowerfulMorningOne DayGlassesStormFree WillVeinsAlteredHeroinAxiomsPumpsPredestinationFalling AsleepExegesis
Author:Carol Shields
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