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Quote by Sharyn McCrumb

Work

The Ballad of Frankie Silver

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Author

Sharyn McCrumb
Sharyn McCrumb

Sharyn McCrumb is an American author renowned for her mystery novels, particularly those set in the Appalachian region of the United States. Born on February 26, 1948, she has written over 30 novels, blending historical fiction and mystery with a focus on Appalachian culture and history. McCrumb's work has been recognized with numerous awards and is celebrated for its complex characters and historical depth. more

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“Amidst the sea of joy-seeking juveniles, Be the one anomaly that feasts on pain. Seek out the pain among those around, Rush down to heal like monsoon rain.”

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“For the first time in my life, I had begun to feel that kind of slow desolation that rises, little by little, slowly, slowly every day, that one hardly knows it is there. Until that one day when all those small deaths accrue into a kind of leaden weight one feels in the legs and the arms. One cannot move from all that pain that manifests itself as an all-encompassing lack of feeling. That is how strong the pain really is. It cannot admit its own hurt to itself. For once, I would have gladly died in that bed smelling of shit, my hair shaved, my heart no longer a muscle but a kind of extraneous organ not part of myself but beating in spite of myself. It was then that I knew that spite was not a thing to take against a captor, but that spite was a thing to hold against one's self. For I did not want to be alive. Life, and my daily affirmation of it, was not something I wanted, as time went by.”