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Shirley Hazzard

Shirley Hazzard Books

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The Bay of Noon

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“...while Norah described to me her plans for carpets and curtains, or showed me the sample of bedspread material she had hung over a chair to see if she could live with it. When I began to know her, I wondered if their courtship had been, for her, something of the same -- my brother draped over a chair for the statutory length of time, to see if she could live with him. In that case she might have noticed that he did not really go with the surroundings; perhaps she did see this, but knew that he would fade to a better match.”

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Book:The Bay of Noon
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“Did you ever notice how easy it is to forgive a person any number of faults for one endearing characteristic, for a certain style, or some commitment to life - while someone with many good qualities is insupportable for a single defect if it happens to be a boring one?”

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Book:The Evening of the Holiday: A Novel
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“Since the moment of the United Nations' inception, untold energies have been expended by governments not only toward the exclusion of persons of principle and distinction from the organization's leading positions, but toward the installation of men whose character and affiliations would as far as possible preclude any serious challenge to governmental sovereignty.”

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Author:Shirley Hazzard
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“The United Nations emerged as a temple of official good intentions, a place where governments might - without abating their transgressions - go to church; a place made remote - by agreed untruth and procedural complexity, and by tedium itself - from the risk of intense public involvement.”

MadeGovernmentMightNationsChurchUnitedRiskIntentionIntenseComplexityOfficialsTemplesUnited NationsInvolvementGood IntentionsUntruthTransgressionTedium
Author:Shirley Hazzard
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“One would always want to think of oneself as being on the side of love, ready to recognize it and wish it well -but, when confronted with it in others, one so often resented it, questioned its true nature, secretly dismissed the particular instance as folly or promiscuity. Was it merely jealousy, or a reluctance to admit so noble and enviable a sentiment in anyone but oneself?”

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Author:Shirley Hazzard
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“Going to Europe, someone had written, was about as final as going to heaven. A mystical passage to another life, from which no-one returned the same. Those returning in such ships were invincible, for they had managed it and could reflect ever after on Anne Hathaway's Cottage or the Tower of London with a confidence that did generate at Sydney. There was nothing mythic at Sydney; momentous objects, beings and events all occurred abroad or in the elsewhere of books.”

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Author:Shirley Hazzard
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“In the circle where I was raised, I knew of no one knowledgeable in the visual arts, no one who regularly attended musical performances, and only two adults other than my teachers who spoke without embarrassment of poetry and literature — both of these being women. As far as I can recall, I never heard a man refer to a good or a great book. I knew no one who had mastered, or even studied, another language from choice. And our articulate, conscious life proceeded without acknowledgement of the preceding civilisations which had produced it.”

MenArtI CanTwoBookChoicesLiteratureLanguageTeacherHeardConsciousAdultsPerformancesRaisedMusicalCirclesVisualsSpokesRecallsEmbarrassmentCivilisationBeing A WomanKnowledgeableGreat BookAcknowledgementVisual ArtMusical Performance
Author:Shirley Hazzard
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