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1 " I collect the walks of my life. Some people have asked me if I have walked so very far to merit such an activity, but I say to them, it's not about how far you have walked, but how thoroughly. "
― Edward Carey , Little
2 " I put myself away. I came up with the great vanishing system, in which I could retreat so deep within myself that, though I might still appear the same creature, actually I was very different. I thrust all thoughts and feelings into the depths of me, where they were safe, but in an outward way I became something like an automation. "
3 " She was always struggling over what was the best way to react. There were so many contradictions between what she was told and what she saw that she could only hesitatingly move forward, lacking, as she did, power and knowledge. She was a girl trying to make her way. "
4 " These were desperate times, the two men agreed; it was easy to stay at home and pull the bedcovers over your heads, but if nothing was done, someone would rip the bedcovers from your face and tug you naked into the street. "
5 " Here is a truth: people are very fascinated by themselves. "
6 " What casual monsters we are. What calamities we are capable of. "
7 " What is a life? That is what we were left with: stories. They were our clothes. "
8 " So I learned not only that your loved one may be forbidden you, given away to someone else, but also that though you love someone they may run from you, and you may open your arms but they shall not come in. "
9 " Adults, I understand, have many faults, they are not perfect—even though they have lived longer, even though they offer themselves as examples to children. They are larger, that is certain, and size has an unearned authority. But they are easily influenced, and they can be easily swayed. "
10 " Why was she always so cruel, I wondered, even after I had worked so hard for her? Perhaps she needed someone beneath her to know for certain that she was not on the bottom rung. Perhaps being cruel was proof of her success. "
11 " A woman's death is a simple enough thing perhaps; women will always be dying about the place; no doubt several women have died as I have been writing this sentence; only this one woman who concerns me now, this one woman tied up to the rafters, unlike all the others in the world - this woman was my mother. Before, I had always had Mother to hide behind; now I was exposed. Her death was not a quiet, thinking-death like Father's had been, her death was about business; it was all hurried action; Mother had jolted herself out of life. "
12 " Some things are missing from the world and they will never be replaced. "
13 " Monkey "
14 " mourning,” she reminded him. “That’s my husband atop the stairs.” Desrues increased the profit of the Cabinet, it could not be denied. The widow, scratching her bonnet, "