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1 " To readers who tend to think primarily in terms of liking or disliking characters: these people are fictional. They do not stand before us asking to be liked. They stand before us asking to be read. They ask to be seen and heard and maybe even understood, or at least for their motives to be understood, if that is what the author is after. But, for the sake of argument, let’s pretend these characters are in fact real, that they are human beings standing before us. Let us open up at least a little to those we might not like—in their presence, we might experience something new. To me, facing those we might not want to face is crucial to living in a diverse world. "
― T. Coraghessan Boyle , The Best American Short Stories 2015
2 " If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. "
3 " A mother’s rage was too incandescent to blaze unshaded. "
4 " It was just past dawn, in the perfidious part of the day that implied anything was possible when, really, nothing was very likely. "
5 " would be hell to pay when he got home. But the devil was in the back seat, keeping time to the music, and hell was a long way up the road. "
6 " He dug wells for a living and his customers were cattle ranchers and wheat farmers, which meant they were always about to go broke, except when they were rich. "
7 " So he learned to look like he was working when he worked. He learned to act like a father when his daughter was around, to look like a husband when Marnie needed a husband. He did what people expected him to or maybe a little more. "
8 " If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn’t ‘Is this a potential friend for me?’ but ‘Is this character alive? "
9 " I note that I’ve lived longer in the past now than I can expect to live in the future. I have more to remember than I have to look forward to. Memory fades, not much of the past stays, and I wouldn’t mind forgetting a lot more of it. Once "
10 " We found each other in Hollywood, as Minnesotan expatriates always do, common sense driving them together—though to leave the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes for a thirsty city built on a desert may speak of some interior flaw. "
11 " There was nothing for many, many kilometers surrounding the train...and that what she had thought while traveling on the train: that to journey through such emptiness was to invite it inside. "
