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Joyce Elbert Quotes

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Famous Joyce Elbert Quotes

“Like many mind-altering drugs, alcohol had shown me where I wanted to go but alcohol couldn't get me there. It didn't have the power. I needed sobriety to connect me to stronger forces than my earthbound self. Whether these forces are God or nature is beside the point. Call them what you will. I feel that I instinctively knew I wasn't here alone or by sheer brute chance, but to live my life with as much courage and joy as possible before I returned to where I came from. I think that's really the goal.”

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Book:A Tale of Five Cities & Other Memoirs
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“In the windowpane I caught a glimpse of myself: fat, badly-dressed, the seams on my skirt about to burst, my hair in need of a trim, my shoes run down at the heels, yet for once I didn't give a damn. I thought of how anxious I had been about this city, its intimidating chic, its hostile shopkeepers, Simone de Beauvoir's opinion of me, my clothes, my hairdo, my weight, my inability to speak the language properly. "Bonjour, Madame," I said to the proprietor in my fractured French. "Deux litres du lait, s'il vous plait." Why do we always worry about the wrong things, I wondered?”

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Book:A Tale of Five Cities & Other Memoirs
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“I still remember typing the title page on my manual Smith-Corona with clammy hands and a racing heart. When I came to the words, "A novel by Joyce Elbert", I heard the New York Philharmonic break into Wagnerian praise for a major new literary voice, yet seconds later doubt and insecurity had crept in.”

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Book:A Tale of Five Cities & Other Memoirs
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