January 2012
91 posts
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“At his call she would come up to him and give him a quick kiss with wide-open...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, “O Russet Witch”
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“In the early days of their marriage, Benjamin had worshipped her. But, as the...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
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“All life was weather, a waiting through the hot where events had no significance...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Jelly Bean”
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Editorial of the first issue of Résistance,...
Resist! In our anguish at the disastrous fate that has befallen our nation, this is our heartfelt cry. This is the cry of every one of you who is not prepared to accept this catastrophe, of every one of you who wants to do their duty.
But amid your feelings of isolation and helplessness, amid the current turmoil of ideas and approaches, you wonder where your duty lies. First and foremost, to...
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“Indignation can move mountains. France in 1940 was unbelievable. There were no...”
– Germaine Tillion, Sisters in Resistance
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“Watching all of this, I feel my heart and mind split in two. One half of my...”
– Agnès Humbert, Résistance: Memoirs Of Occupied France
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“I wonder — a worthy subject for meditation — what Descartes would...”
– Agnès Humbert, Résistance: Memoirs Of Occupied France
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“What will become of them, those boys so full of enthusiasm and conviction? Are...”
– Agnès Humbert, Résistance: Memoirs Of Occupied France
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Résistance: Memoirs Of Occupied France
‘Dear Agnès,’ he retorted with a chuckle, ‘we’re all going to end up in prison, as you well know.’
He thought the photograph of Pétain that graces my room was terribly funny.
‘It’s for the benefit of the Gestapo,’ I explain, and we giggle like idiots. It’s our very own version of the crucifixes that sixteenth-century Huguenots used to hang...
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“Good heavens above, can a woman not carry a portable typewriter about in broad...”
– Agnès Humbert, Résistance: Memoirs Of Occupied France
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“Her affairs had long shared such a sameness, that, as she dried out, they were...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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Tender Is The Night
“Your wife does not love you,” said Tommy suddenly. “She loves me.”
The two men regarded each other with a curious impotence of expression. There can be little communication between men in that position, for their relation is indirect, and consists of how much each of them has possessed or will possess of the woman in question, so that their emotions pass through her...
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Tender Is The Night
She went up putting her arm around his shoulder and touching their heads together said: “Don’t be sad.”
He looked at her coldly.
“Don’t touch me!” he said.
Confused she moved a few feet away.
“Excuse me,” he continued abstractedly. “I was just thinking of what I thought of you — “
“Why not add the new classification to...
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“She wandered about the house rather contentedly, resting on her achievement. She...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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Tender Is The Night
“You’re a fetching kid, but I couldn’t fall in love.”
“You won’t give me a chance.”
“What!”
The impertinence, the right to invade implied, astounded him. Short of anarchy, he could not think of any chance that Nicole Warren deserved.
“Give me a chance now.”
The voice fell low, sank into her breast and stretched the tight bodice...
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Tender Is The Night
“Have we got to go all the way to your hotel in Monte Carlo?”
He brought the car to a stop with a squeak of tires.
“No!” he answered. “And by God, I have never been so happy as I am this minute.”
They had passed through Nice following the blue coast and begun to mount to the middling-high Corniche. Now Tommy turned sharply down to the shore, ran out a blunt...
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“Nicole did not just want a spiritual romance — she wanted an...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“Attractive women of nineteen and twenty-nine are alike in their breezy...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“It had been a long lesson but she had learned it. Either you think — or...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“Nicole saw Dick peer about for the children among the confused shapes and...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“For what might occur thereafter she had no anxiety — she suspected that...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“She stood a minute in the doorway, aware of the sin she had committed against...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“It was as if for the remainder of his life he was condemned to carry the egos of...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“For three years Dick had been the ideal by which Rosemary measured other men and...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“He guessed that she had had lovers and had loved them in the past four years....”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“After dinner and a bottle of the local wine in the deserted dining-room, he felt...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“Walking in the garden later when it was quite dark, he thought about her with...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“England was like a rich man after a disastrous orgy who makes up to the...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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Tender Is The Night
“Why did you lose control of yourself like that?”
“You know very well why.”
“No, I don’t.”
“That’s just preposterous — let me loose — that’s an insult to my intelligence. Don’t you think I saw that girl look at you — that little dark girl. Oh, this is farcical — a child, not more than fifteen. Don’t...
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“The frontiers that artists must explore were not for her, ever. She was...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“For him time stood still and then every few years accelerated in a rush, like...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure and the...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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Tender Is The Night
An unfamiliar impatience settled over Dick; suddenly Nicole said: “It seemed too bad to leave Rosemary like that — do you suppose she’ll be all right?”
“Of course. She could take care of herself anywhere — ” Lest he belittle Nicole’s ability to do likewise, he added, “After all, she’s an actress, and even though her mother’s in the...
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“Receding from a grief, it seems necessary to retrace the steps that brought us...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“‘My politeness is a trick of the heart.’ This was partly true. From...”
– F Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“In the square, as they came out, a suspended mass of gasoline exhaust cooked...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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Tender Is The Night
Nicole: I am a woman and my business is to hold things together.
Abe: My business is to tear them apart.
Nicole: When you get drunk you don't tear anything apart except yourself.
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“I suppose I got bored; and then it was such a long way to go back in order to...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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Tender Is The Night
They looked at each other at last, murmuring names that were a spell. Softly the names lingered on the air, died away more slowly than other words, other names, slower than music in the mind.
“I don’t know what came over me last night,” Rosemary said. “That glass of champagne? I’ve never done anything like that before.”
“You simply said you loved...
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“‘The strongest guard is placed at the gateway to nothing,’ he said....”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“Later she remembered all the hours of the afternoon as happy — one of...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“She went up the stairs on the other side and into the vegetable garden; she...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The Night
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“At our hotel, there were three of everything — three breakfast trays,...”
– Paula McLain, The Paris Wife
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“What could I do or say? He might ultimately fall out of love with Pauline and...”
– Paula McLain, The Paris Wife
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The Paris Wife
Hadley: It's freedom you want, then.
Kitty: Good God, yes. Don't you?
Hadley: I don't know. I want to be happy, I suppose.
Kitty: Happiness is so awfully complicated, but freedom isn't. You're either tied down or you're not.
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“Marriage could be such deadly terrain. In Paris, you couldn’t really turn...”
– Paula McLain, The Paris Wife
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The Paris Wife
“You seem to be reducing, too, my dear. You’re fading away.”
“I know. It’s this business with Olga Rudge,” she said with a sigh.
She’d long since told me about Olga, a concert violinist who’d been Pound’s mistress for more than a year. “What’s happened?” I asked. “Has something changed?”
“Not really. I...
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“A week passes but it feels as if he’s never been anywhere else. It’s...”
– Paula McLain, The Paris Wife
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“Over and over I’d sworn I’d never stand in the way of his work,...”
– Paula McLain, The Paris Wife
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“Everyone knows many secrets now and everyone has written everything and will...”
– Ernest Hemingway, “Fragments”