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Christina Baker Kline

Christina Baker Kline Biography

Novelist

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“You can live for a long time inside the shell you were born in. But one day it'll become too small." "Then what?" I ask. "Well, then you'll have to find a larger shell to live in." I consider this for a moment. "What if it's too small but you still want to live there?" She sighs. "Gracious, child, what a question. I suppose you'll either have to be brave and find a new home or you'll have to live inside a broken shell.”

HomeBodyHuman NatureBrokenBraveAllegoryShell
Book:A Piece of the World
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“I think about all the ways I’ve been perceived by others over the years: as a burden, a dutiful daughter, a girlfriend, a spiteful wretch, an invalid… This is my letter to the World that never wrote to Me. “You showed what no one else could see,” I tell him. He squeezes my shoulder. Both of us are silent, looking at the painting. There she is, that girl, on a planet of grass. Her wants are simple: to tilt her face to the sun and feel its warmth. To clutch the earth beneath her fingers. To escape from and return to the house she was born in. To see her life from a distance, as clear as a photograph, as mysterious as a fairy tale. This is a girl who has lived through broken dreams and promises. Still lives. Will always live on that hillside, at the center of a world that unfolds all the way to the edges of the canvas. Her people are witches and persecutors, adventures and homebodies, dreamers and pragmatists. Her world is both circumscribed and boundless, a place where the stranger at the door may hold a key to the rest of her life. What she most wants—what she most truly yearns for—is what any of us want: to be seen. And look. She is.”

Self LoveCompassion WisdomBeing Seen
Author:Christina Baker Kline
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“... I am halfway between two worlds, the known and the unknown. I feel as transparent as the wind, as if my spirit is hovering in the sky, waiting to land. I am driving toward a future I can't see, leaving behind a past that already feels distant. Nothing is clear - and yet the trees are sharp against the sky; I can see the hard outlines of everything.”

HopeTransformationLooking To The FutureTransitions In Life
Book:The Way Life Should Be
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“In my teens I fancied myself an artist; I hung out with the eccentric art teacher at my high school, painted still lifes and portraits and landscapes in watercolor and acrylics, took private lessons, won some blue ribbons for my earnest renderings. My lack of talent did little to dampen my enthusiasm. In college I thought I'd continue, but, like Salieri, I quickly realized that while I had the ability to appreciate art, I wasn't actually very good.”

LittlesArtStillsSchoolArtistAbilityTeacherTalentCollegeLessonsHigh SchoolAppreciateBlueVery GoodEnthusiasmLandscapeTeensHungPortraitsEarnestEccentricRibbonsRenderingStill LifeArt TeacherWatercolorsSalieri
Author:Christina Baker Kline
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“When something terrible happens, a lifetime of small events and unremarkable decisions, of unresolved anger, and unexplored fears begins to play itself out in ways you least expect. You've been going along from one day to the next, not realizing that all those disparate words and gestures were adding up to something, a conclusion, you didn't anticipate. And later, when you begin to retrace your steps you see that you will need to reach back further than you could have imagined, beyond words and thoughts and even dreams, perhaps to make sense of what happened.”

WayNeedsPlayDreamHappensNextRealizingDecisionStepsHappenedEventsTerribleOne DayLifetimeConclusionMake SenseGesturesAnticipateUnexploredSmall Events
Author:Christina Baker Kline
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“I love you," he writes again and again. "I can't bear to live without you. I'm counting the minutes until I see you." The words he uses are the idioms of popular songs and poems in the newspaper. And mine to him are no less cliched. I puzzle over the onionskin, trying to spill my heart onto the page. But I can only come up with the same words, in the same order, and hope the depth of feeling beneath them gives them weight and substance. I love you. I miss you. Be careful. Be safe.”

GivingWritingTryingHeartI CanUseFeelingsSongOrderMinutesLove YouMissingMinesBearsMy HeartSafePagesWeightDepthCome UpCarefulNewspapersSubstanceBe CarefulAgain And AgainPuzzlesCountingWithout YouSpillsPopular SongIdiom
Author:Christina Baker Kline
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“Do you believe in spirits? Or ghosts?...Yes, I do. I believe in ghosts....They're the ones who haunt us. The ones who have left us behind." "Vivian has come back to the idea that the people who matter in our lives stay with us, haunting our ordinary moments. They're with us in the grocery store, as we turn the corner, chat with a friend. They rise up through the pavement; we absorb them through our soles." "The things that matter stay with you, seep into your skin.”

PeopleBelieveIdeasMatterMomentsSpiritTurnsLeftI BelieveBehindsOur LivesOrdinarySkinsCornersI Believe InStoresGhostHauntingGroceriesThings That MatterGrocery StoresPavementOrdinary Moments
Author:Christina Baker Kline
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“She knows too well what it's like to tamp down your natural inclinations, to force a smile when you feel numb....The expression of emotion does not come naturally, so yo learn to fake it. To pretend. To display an empathy you don't really feel. And so it is that you learn to pass, if you're lucky, to look like everyone else, even though you're broken inside.”

IfsKnowsFeelsWellsLooksDoeForceNaturalEmotionExpressionBrokenLuckyEmpathyFakeDisplayInclinationNumbBroken Inside
Author:Christina Baker Kline
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“I learned long ago that loss is not only probable but inevitable. I know what it means to lose everything, to let go of one life and find another. And now I feel, with a strange, deep certainty, that it must be my lot in life to be taught that lesson over and over again.”

KnowsLifeFeelsMeanLongChangeLosesLossLearningTaughtStrangeLessonsLetting GoCertaintyInevitableNovelistsLife ChangingLife LessonI Have LearnedLong AgoChanging Your LifeMaking ChangesPositive Change
Author:Christina Baker Kline
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