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Ray Smith Books

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“For as Molly looked at him, she felt an immediate … she didn’t know what. Despite her love of the language arts, she also possessed an analytic mind, and that mind straightaway tried to seek out the why. And it couldn’t unearth the reason apart from his smile. Or, rather, how he smiled at her—warm and full-armed, like the embrace from a long-absent friend, without the slightest trace of fakeness or concealed motive. His was the most open face she’d ever seen in her life. Concomitant with these sensations, all delivered within a split second, was a thought, seemingly originating not in her mind but from the center of her torso and radiating out to the ends of each nerve, inexplicable in its suddenness and surety. A thought that children and very young people might have, but never middle-aged adults, especially one with a divorce behind her and the conviction that she already knew the world and what it was able to offer. But there it was, undeniably, the thought: I’m on a great adventure.”

Love At First SightFirst ImpressionsBuild RapportMeeting SomeonePower Of A SmileNonverbal CommunicationFirst MeetingEmotional ConnectionsExplaining Yourself
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“The woman turned to him, and he observed she was someone his own age or a bit younger. Dark, wavy hair and large brown eyes behind schoolmarm glasses. A friendly, olive-complected face. Not stereotypically Southern, if there was such a thing. Greek or Spanish maybe. He wasn’t sure. What he did know was that he felt something then. Something that was shapeless and intangible, but neither quality made it—whatever it was—any less there. It was a shifting of his senses or maybe even of reality itself. You turned a corner and a stunning landscape presented itself, and though you yourself had not changed, everything else had for, after you’d seen this new thing, whatever this thing was, you automatically understood the mechanisms of life could not go back to where they had been before. The sight—though it could more properly be called an experience, encompassing all five senses and even ones not yet discovered—rendered everything before it monochrome and matte. John Pressman had only felt this way twice before in his life with a woman, and this time, he felt it at fifty years, four months, and twenty-three days of age. At a greasy spoon in a small town in Mississippi in the summer of 1961.”

Love At First SightMeeting SomeoneEyes Of LoveMeeting Someone NewInstant Love
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“Folks don’t give themselves enough credit. The mother who endures cavities so her children can get braces. The father who works a dead-end job so his kids can have a roof over their heads. The daughter who sacrifices college so she can take care of her disabled mother. They are all heroes.”

HeroesSacrifice For OthersStriving For GreatnessHeroic ActBuilding YourselfGive Credit Where Credit Is DueNever Forget Those Who HelpedImpress YourselfNothing Great Comes Easy
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“John knew the best love stories were the ones that were never told. For no medium—no book, no poem, no play or movie—could ever tell a love story in its entirety, its full span and depth, from the exhilarating beginning to the tragic ending of all love stories. He didn’t mind if his life was forgotten—it had never occurred to him to want to be remembered—as long as he had truly lived, and to live life without experiencing one great love story was to not live at all.”

GambleWithout LoveLive And LoveSpice Of LifeComplicated LoveLife Love TruthBeing RememberedNothing Else MattersIrreplaceable LoveLove Is The Source Of Life
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“The goddess of sex that most men had fantasized about since their teenage years wasn’t to be found in some red-light district of town or in an illicit magazine but was actually standing right next to them at work, at the library, at the coffee shop. And they were too blind to see it!”

Sex AppealBlind SpotsHidden TreasureDon T Judge A Book By Its CoverPlot TwistWhat Men WantLibrianSex Goddess
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“This has been her life for the past fifty years, this striving to help save the world a little bit, to push it just a bit farther into the right. This action was the only thing that sustained her during the hard times [when] only her purposeful life propped her up from total collapse, and she thought how strange that she had taught the morality play Everyman all those years but didn’t fully understand its central lesson or how true it was: We are our good deeds, and they alone will come with us into the afterlife.”

FadedStorms Of Life QuotesClear ConsciencePick Yourself UpOvercoming DepressionFading AwayLose Your MindObstacles Make You StrongerContinuous StruggleLife Is A Test
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“There is no end to that kind of love, even if the lovers’ bodies ceased to exist in this world. No, that love is manifested everywhere else, in a million other couples worldwide, and probably a few not far from where I am driving, up the 405 freeway, through a world I thought I knew but admit that I don’t know at all.”

AgelessLove Never DiesForever QuotesDeath Is Only The BeginningNot OverLove Is Stronger ThanDeath Is Not The End Of LifeLife Never EndsLove BelieveNever Endless Love
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“A hundred years from now, folks will look back at this time period and think, Wow, what an incredible moment it must’ve been to be alive. Syrian refugees, human trafficking, climate change—the whole world is out there waiting to be saved. And you’ll have a grand adventure doing it, even if only in what you consider a small, locally based way. You know, you already have as a teacher.”

Busy LifeValue Of LifeYou Can Do AnythingDont Lose FaithKeep FightingNever Be AfraidBetter Than YesterdayLook On The Bright SideWorld Needs More LoveStop Wishing And Start Doing
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“To fight against these falsehoods, though, one needed to be able to see past the present-day and very male-oriented distortion lens to the underlying truth. Beyond question, Molly Valle could do this. A woman whose surface appearance, eyeglasses and conservative clothes, fit the schoolmarm stereotype to a T. Yet she had sloughed off that exterior and society’s restrictions as effortlessly as she had her clothes, and during their lovemaking, she had not only kept up with him but often passed ahead of him. With other women, he had seen the embers of passion but never the flame. Tonight, he had witnessed the bonfire.”

InsatiableGender NormsExpectations Vs RealitySexual HealthDon T Judge A Book By Its CoverAppearances Are DeceivingForce To Be Reckoned WithLooking Down On OthersLove Fever
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“Soon, John would wake up and leave her, at least for the day, to right one injustice in a world chockful of injustices. In imagining his day, Molly understood what she was going to do for the rest of her life. The world was so wrong, so disastrously cruel, and in so many ways, it became clear to her that she would try to right it somehow, even in the minuscule measure that a single human being could influence. . . . She even had a partner in crime, a man whose wonderful mysteries she would also need a lifetime to unravel, and she was so looking forward to this task.”

RomancePurpose Driven LifeCount On MeTaking SidesEnemies Of ProgressYou By My SideTwo Better Than One
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“In his lifetime, he had seen enough injustice to know the world was cold and remorseless and didn’t care one fig about the happiness of people. He tried to live a good life and devote that life to helping others, but he never thought the world would reward him for his efforts. Such a thought would be the ultimate in self-deluding self-aggrandizement, for why would the world care one iota about him?”

Good LifeRewardSelf DelusionDelusions Of GrandeurBrown SkinGuard Your HeartUgliness Of LifeUgly World
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“Oh my. Molly put her hand to her no-doubt agape mouth. Oh my, oh my, oh my. After her divorce, she hadn’t thought this day would ever come again, but here it was, a second proposal. Life is funny, she thought, and she felt herself step back from the reality of her situation for a moment, lest its emotions overwhelm her and make her swoon like a damsel in those Middle English chivalric romances she taught in 10th-grade English. Yes, life was indeed funny. It had no syllabus, which was why Molly, always a diligent student, felt so unprepared for it. Life played tricks on you too, surprised you, with the biggest surprise that life, even at the nearly half-century mark, could still hold surprises. Like so: There is a man in my kitchen, a man I’m in love with, and he wants to spend the rest of his life with me. How strange and how very unconventional by its conventional, everyday setting.”

Romance QuotesProposalSecond Chance At LoveWedding RingSecond LoveStep BackMiddle Age QuotesOpportunity To LoveLove At A Certain Age
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“Love is eternal . . . There is no end to that kind of love, even if the lovers’ bodies ceased to exist. That love is manifested everywhere else, in a million other couples worldwide, and probably a few not far from where I am driving, up the freeway, through a world I thought I knew but admit that I don’t know at all.”

E ReadersFill My Heart With LoveE ReadingLove Knows No Boundaries
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“He realized that his past life, his past lonely life, hadn’t been good but perfect. For every single event in that life had pushed him unwaveringly closer and closer to her. Every failure, every crumbling relationship, every breakup in the cold rain or amidst hot tears—everything had been to place him at that diner two weeks ago. To bring him to the now—sleeping on her bed, this stunning, intelligent woman next to him. All his life, he had dreamt of her, either consciously or subconsciously, and this woman had materialized in the flesh. Looking back, he wondered if the plan had been too perfect for it to be mere coincidence. Fate or whatever could substitute for fate had slowly moved him toward her.”

Romance Book QuotesRespect WomenExpressing LoveBumps In The RoadLonely SoulFulfillment QuotesLucky In LoveBetter To Be Lucky Than GoodMatch Made In Heaven
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“No, life has no soundtrack, just the daily grind occasionally alleviated by short-lived bursts of happiness—a vacation, the birth of a child, retirement. This is my life and the life of everyone I know—all my friends, all my family members, everyone with whom I have more than a passing acquaintance. I’ve spent nearly forty-five years on this planet, and the majority of those years—my adult years, my reality-based years—have shown me that the adventure Molly and John had no longer exists. This is why I so want Molly to wake up and tell me that I’m wrong.”

Short LivedHappiness In LifeBoring LifeMundane LifeTemporary HappinessMundane RealityGoing Through The MotionsShort Lived Moments
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“This striving to help save the world a little bit, to push it just a bit farther into the right—this action was the only thing that sustained her during the hard times [when] only her purposeful life propped her up from total collapse, and she thought how strange that she had taught the morality play Everyman all those years but didn’t fully understand its central lesson or how true it was: We are our good deeds, and they alone will come with us into the afterlife.”

End Of LifeHard LifePushing ThroughEndured HardshipsEnduring PainHardships PerspectiveSpread Love Not Hate
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“I’m in love, aren’t I? She thought she knew the answer by how much she wanted to be there. Wouldn’t have traded being there for any other location in the world. Wouldn’t have traded it for all the exotic destinations flaunted in Pan Am travel brochures. Not Tahiti, not Monte Carlo, not Hong Kong. No, she wanted to be here, in this ramshackle market not a ten-minute drive from her humdrum house and life. Except it wasn’t a humdrum life anymore, was it? No, I’m at the most exciting place on Earth. The center of the world. The Roman Forum during the reign of Augustus Caesar.”

Boyfriend And GirlfriendLoving HeartAbundance Of LoveRealization Of LoveManifesting LoveSteal Your HeartDeep In My HeartLove EverythingAll I Want Is YouSublime Love
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“Most people didn’t see the beauty behind the everyday, didn’t enjoy the simple pleasures in life, didn’t stop and smell the roses … and just because these phrases were considered platitudes didn’t make them any less true. For you could belittle truth, lambaste it, deny its existence, but truth would always still be there, as unconcerned as the inexorably flowing Mississippi.”

Speak The TruthPoor QuotesClear MindDon T Follow The CrowdBe Happy With What You HaveSmell The RosesBe SimpleFeel The BeautyIf You Know What I MeanDon T Complicate Your Life
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“Molly wondered this: Could the size of man’s soul be small? She marveled that she would ask herself this question, for the obvious answer was yes. After all, if John’s was infinitely large, then his polar opposite must also surely exist. Her ex-husband’s soul was very small indeed. He was forever spinning his wheels to enlarge his soul, to fill its emptiness, with things. The luxury car, the large house, the high-paying but unimaginative job, the respect of people he didn’t even like. Like so many men, he needed a boy’s toy box of things to feel whole. John was the opposite. He didn’t need anything to feel whole besides a hammock, a beer, and her.”

Ex HusbandPoor QuotesRelaxing The MindSuccess StoryBad BoyfriendsBe Happy With What You HaveHammockMan ChildDon T Compete With AnyoneAn Ugly Heart
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“He had envisioned each contour and line of her face, the spellbinding individuality of personal detail. Here was a woman who had lived, and that life had been kind and good. And within that goodness lay true glamour, which was far more than the sum of ephemeral, physical parts. That was why, even attired in an unpretentious house dress, her forty-eight-year-old face scarcely made up, Molly was glamorous in a way that put in the shade women half her age and on the cover of fashion magazines.”

OverlookedTrue BeautyPhysical AttractionPhysical AppearanceLooks Don T MatterAttractive PowerUnseen Beauty
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“Except those images weren’t exact captures of reality. No, the Camera Eye was also suffused with what photographers called the Golden Hour—the gilt-tinted hour following sunrise and preceding sunset, when the world was awash with russet rays and even the meanest streets were aglow as if in an Arthurian legend. Every moment spent with John was like that, reality beyond reality. Richer, realer, rawer than reality. These were the moments she remembered most.”

CamerasSunset QuotesHappy MemoriesMorning SunGrass Is GreenerSunrise QuotesMemories Of LoveGolden HourMemorable Moments
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“She looked at his face, his lined, well-lived face. You were right. This perfect moment, in her once-desolate bedroom, was John’s belief at its apotheosis. She realized she wouldn’t have believed it before—that, in the most hopelessly constricted of places, you could find the fulfillment to all your dreams of adventure and romance. No, she wouldn’t have believed it. Not twenty years ago, not ten years ago, not a year ago. She had to reach forty-eight years of age to realize the truth and to internalize it. Forty-eight long years of groping in the dark. How silly she felt now and how blessed.”

Believe In Your DreamsProfound TruthSeeing Is BelievingDreams And WishesDream HouseFaith Over FearOut With The Old In With The NewEpitome Of LifeThe Epitome Of TruthWe Made It
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“She was beautiful. Not despite her so-called flaws but because of them—those scrapes and life experiences that made her body like no other woman’s. The beauty that wasn’t ephemeral or society-dictated but the real beauty that cut across generations, across all cultures, from the beginning of humankind. The beauty that was painted in Paleolithic caves and carved in ancient Venus statuettes, those wonderful figurines of all shapes and sizes, individualized and gorgeous precisely because of that individuality. What cavemen had known, modern men had forgotten, and sadly, modern women too.”

InclusiveBeautiful FaceYou Are UniqueBbwKind SoulNo One Is PerfectI Can Only Be MeIts Okay To Be DifferentStay BeautifulStay The Way You Are
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“She was part of a group that helped tilt the world just a tiny bit the right way. Yes, she, one tiny person, was part of it. Hardly noticeable, true, but “hardly” was more than nothing. “Hardly” made all the difference in the world in how she saw herself.”

Great WorkMeaningful WorkMake The World A Better PlaceNo LimitsStand TallLife MattersStart SmallMake Your Mark QuotesEnlighten The WorldFeeling Important
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“She looked at his face, his lined, well-lived face. You were right. This perfect moment, in her once-desolate bedroom, was his belief at its apotheosis. She realized she wouldn’t have believed it before—that, in the most hopelessly constricted of places, you could find the fulfillment to all your dreams of adventure and romance.”

Dreams Come TruePerfect LovePerfect ManDream Husband
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“The spotlight hadn’t dimmed as Molly aged but had changed its glow instead. It had grown more intense with each new experience, had become more personalized and distinguished. It was no longer the bland whitish light of youth, a light dictated by a ceaselessly shallow society and therefore able to be seen by everyone in such a society. No, hers at present was a spotlight with highly individualized rays that could no longer be seen by most men simply because most men’s eyes weren’t good enough to see them.”

Exceptional PeopleDon T Settle For LessBe Proud Of YourselfProud QuotesCelebrate YouTouch The SoulWoman ScornedMen SuckAllow Yourself To Be LovedDon T Let This World Change You
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“As she drove, she surprised herself with a sudden laugh. How blind, infinitely blind, she had been to think that men’s inability to see her forty-eight-year-old self was a regret or, worse, a failing on her own part. No, what it really was was a blessing, for that inability had separated the wheat from the chaff. The spotlight was indeed always there but only for someone perceptive enough, brave enough, mature enough to see it still shining above her head.”

Be Kind To YourselfProud To Be MeBe Happy With YourselfSelf Love Is The Best LoveTwo Sides To Every StoryYou Deserve To Be HappyTake Care Of Your HealthDo Your ThingFacing Your DemonsNever Settle For Less
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“Molly wanted to hug the young girl close, stroke her black hair and tell her that loneliness, while unpleasant, was endurable. Not once, though, did she consider telling the girl that she was wrong for that reassurance would be a lie, wouldn’t it be? She was, after all, her, and in the intervening four decades, the girl’s prescience had been proven right. Loneliness had indeed been the condition—would always be the condition—of Molly’s life, of being misunderstood and neglected by others, even amidst a crowd and friends and, for a few years, a husband.”

MisunderstoodBeing SingleLoneliness QuotesSuffering In SilenceUnable To LoveNot Wanted
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“I am merely at the midway point in the novel of my own life. On around page 250 of a 500-page tale and, given future medical advances, maybe even 200. There’s no reason why the next 250, 300, or even 350 pages will not be far more exciting than the first half.”

Patience And TimingSeize The MomentNo Turning BackPerception Of LifeBetter Days AheadLife StagesAge Is Just A NumberMake Each Day CountBe What You Want To BeMake Every Moment Count
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“I am merely at the midway point in the novel of my own life. On around page 250 of a 500-page tale, maybe even 200. There’s no reason why the next 250, 300, or even 350 pages will not be far more exciting than the first half.”

Life Is An AdventureEndless PossibilitiesBigger And Better ThingsEnjoy Life To The FullestDon T Waste Your TimeUnpredictable FutureWant More Out Of LifeLife Is A Beautiful JourneyLife Is OnceTurn Up
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“Folks don’t give themselves enough credit. The mother who endures cavities so her children can get braces. The father who works a dead-end job so his kids can have a roof over their heads. The daughter who sacrifices college so she can take care of her disabled mother. They are all heroes, and don’t you believe otherwise.”

Serving HumanityService To HumanityStruggles In LifeImpacting LivesStruggle For LifeBelieve MeJudge NotLook Up ToWonderful PeopleNothing Is Free
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“She had always thought history was made up of grand gestures, as recent, momentous events seem to demonstrate. The British Prime Minister kowtowing to the Nazi Fuehrer at Munich, the quarter-million troops landing on D-Day, the two atomic bombs that ended World War II. But now she knew better. History could be judged grand even if the event was, on the surface, small. For here, right in front of her, was history in the flesh, history that would be immortalized in print and film. The city council and mayor had surrendered, and evidently so had the biggest department store in town.”

HistoryHistoricalImmortalityHistory PoliticsRememberanceGreat Men And WomenHistory Will Remember Us
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“He tried to live a good life and devote that life to helping others, but he never thought the world would reward him for his efforts. Such a thought would be the ultimate in self-deluding self-aggrandizement, for why would the world care one iota about him? Now, however, he wondered if he had been wrong. Now, he thought that maybe, just maybe, if you lived a good life, the universe—this cold, cold world—might just reward you. And he did feel rewarded—rewarded beyond all the gold in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.”

Dreams Come TrueToo Good To Be TrueGift Of LoveTrue RichesGood Life QuotesReward QuotesGet Over YourselfHaving It AllReap The Fruit Of Your Labor
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“Robert Frost wrote about “two roads diverg[ing] in a wood” and taking “the one less traveled.” But, in Molly’s case, both roads continued on to equally devastating destinations, even if the specifics were different. Which of the two paths would you choose if one went off a cliff and the other into quicksand?”

Bad NewsLife ChoicesChoice QuotesFork In The RoadPrepare For The WorstClear MindRoad Less Travelled Quotes
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“Inside her mind, she felt increasingly adrift, as if their lovemaking had reached a realm that transcended the physical body. She saw herself float above her body, past her ceiling, through her roof, and higher and higher, the entire world pulsating and alive with sensations. Even these receded as she floated above her town, the pinpoints of the shop windows and car headlights downtown, then she was even higher, above the mighty Mississippi.”

Making LoveLovemakingCity LightsFemale OrgasmRise In LoveSex MagicFeel FreeMagic Of Love
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“He walked beside her, in front of her, behind her. He tried not to be overwhelmed by her fragrance and sheer presence. Yet, beyond the near-overwhelming desire for Molly Valle, he felt something else. It was as if the hands of some internal clock had long been off-kilter and had, at last, rearranged themselves into the correct positions.”

LuckyLove QuoteReevaluateThe One You Love
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“People gave up too soon on dreams and hope, but both were there, if you kept your eyes open. With that truth in mind, she returned to the world only to find her own eyes were so tear-filled, she might as well have been submerged fifty feet underwater. “Yes, I will marry you, John,” she heard herself say. “Of course, I will. You kidding me?” She laughed and wiped her eyes, no longer fifty feet underwater but skimming the surface of a great, churning sea. John reached up and kissed her, and they stayed like that for a minute, a month, a millennium.”

MarriageHappiness QuotesPassionate KissTears Of JoyWater DropEuphoria QuoteHope Never Dies
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“John never felt the insecurity that underlay the surfaces of most men, and in his mind, he could easily conjure up those male colleagues of hers. In the teachers’ lounge, in their stiff suits with their bow-tied collars, their nicotine-yellowed fingers holding up their pretentious pipes, eyeing Molly as she came in, then snickering when she went out, dismissing her not because she didn’t know enough but because she knew too much, indeed knew far more than they did, and they were cognizant of and frightened by this fact. Hence, the dismissal and, concomitantly, the figurative puffing out of their chests, like those of exotic birds whose impressive plumage hid the scrawny bodies beneath.”

SexismOverlookedUnderratedGender InequalityMale Chauvinism
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“Intellectually, she recognized the summer could’ve lasted only so many days, but, in remembrance, it seemed to last epochs, from the creation of the Milky Way to its expiration. Not because the time was dull but rather it was so damn fun and so life-affirming, it could’ve been a magical potion concocted to revive the dead. Even in her advanced age, she could see that time, so clearly delineated in what the novelist John Dos Passos called the Camera Eye—mental snapshots, frozen in bliss, which neither age nor time could mar their perfection.”

Time Well SpentJackpotLife Is MagicalPerfect DayBe Happy To Be AliveEveryday Is A GiftCreate Endless MemoriesEveryday Is An AdventureLife Is A Fairytale
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“Of course, I know the answer. I went into teaching as a stepping stone to my writing career, and when that fizzled and died, I was cut adrift and so very resentful. How does that John Lennon song go? “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” That was me. I was so angry and frustrated by my failed writing ambitions, I couldn’t see my life as a teacher being fulfilling in its own right. I missed it—but now I see it.”

Anger QuotesFailedWaste Of LifeAngry QuoteAngry With God
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