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Julian Barnes

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“Life is like invading Russia. A blitz start, massed shakos, plumes dancing like a flustered henhouse; a period of svelte progress recorded in ebullient despatches as the enemy falls back; then the beginning of a long, morale-sapping trudge with rations getting shorter and the first snowflakes upon your face. The enemy burns Moscow and you yield to General January, whose fingernails are very icicles. Bitter retreat. Harrying Cossacks. Eventually you fall beneath a boy-gunner's grapeshot while crossing some Polish river not even marked on your general's map.”

FirstsLongFacesLife IsFallEnemyBoysProgressPeriodsRiversDancingRussiaBitterMapsYieldYour FaceRetreatPolishLife Is LikeCrossingsJanuaryFall BackMoraleMoscowSnowflakeFingernailsInvadingBlitzRationsIciclesGunnersCossacks
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“In my terms, I settled for the realities of life, and submitted to its necessities: if this, then that, and so the years passed. In Adrian's terms, I gave up on life, gave up on examining it, took it as it came. And so, for the first time, I began to feel a more general remorse - a feeling somewhere between self-pity and self-hatred - about my whole life. All of it. I had lost the friends of my youth. I had lost the love of my wife. I had abandoned the ambitions I had entertained. I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded - and how pitiful that was.”

IfsFeelsYearsFirstsSelfWholeFeelingsRealityWantedLostTermToo MuchWifeYouthAmbitionFirst TimeHatredMy WifeWhole LifePityBotherReality Of LifeAbandonedRemorseGave UpSelf PityExaminingSelf HatredPitiful
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“In those days, we imagined ourselves as being kept in some kind of holding pen, waiting to be released into our lives. And when the moment came, our lives -- and time itself -- would speed up. How were we to know that our lives had in any case begun, that some advantage had already been gained, some damage already inflicted? Also, that our release would only be into a larger holding pen, whose boundaries would be at first undiscernible.”

KnowsFirstsKindMomentsWould BeWaitingCasesOur LivesAdvantageSpeedBoundariesReleaseDamagePensLife And Time
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“You put together two people who have not been put together before. Sometimes it is like that first attempt to harness a hydrogen balloon to a fire balloon: do you prefer crash and burn, or burn and crash? But sometimes it works, and something new is made, and the world is changed. Then, at some point, sooner or later, for this reason or that, one of them is taken away. and what is taken away is greater than the sum of what was there. this may not be mathematically possible; but it is emotionally possible.”

PeopleWorldFirstsMayMadeTwoSometimesReasonTogetherTakenFireGreaterChangedSomething NewSooner Or LaterCrashBalloonsHarnessHydrogen
Book:Levels of Life
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“We live on the flat, on the level, and yet - and so - we aspire. Groundlings, we can sometimes reach as far as the gods. Some soar with art, others with religion; most with love. But when we soar, we can also crash. There are few soft landings. We may find ourselves bouncing across the ground with leg-fracting force, dragged towards some foreign railway line. Every love story is a potential grief story. If not at first, then later. If not for one, then for the other. Sometimes, for both.”

IfsFirstsMayArtSometimesStoriesForceLinesLevelsGriefLegsLove StoryFlatsCrashAspireSoarLandingRailwayLevels Of Life
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“You put together two people who have not been put together before; and sometimes the world is changed, sometimes not. They may crash and burn, or burn and crash. But sometimes, something new is made, and then the world is changed. Together, in that first exaltation, that first roaring sense of uplift, they are greater than their two separate selves. Together, they see further, and they see more clearly.”

PeopleWorldFirstsMayMadeTwoSelfSometimesTogetherGreaterChangedUpliftingSomething NewCrashRoaringExaltation
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