Category: writing
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Beautiful Sentences: Nathan Englander
His mother sometimes looked our way as she came and went from the house. She didn’t reveal anything that we were mature enough to read—only kept on, often with a palm pressed to the small of her back. Nathan Englander, “How We Avenged the Blums.”
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Beautiful Sentences: Christian Wiman
Sometimes God calls a person to unbelief in order that faith may find new forms. Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss.
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Beautiful Sentences: Derek Robinson
In mid-March the sky over France was all exuberance. Ragged flotillas of cloud sailed before a brisk west wind. Sunlight sought out the gaps and flickered over the new-green fields far below, The sky was a place of awakening, of vigour, as full of life as the million seeds in the earth. Woolley hacked a…
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Beautiful Sentences: Richard Dooling
His fourth day in Africa was spent deep in the interior of a remote, unmapped equatorial latrine exploring the dark incontinent. Richard Dooling, White Man‘s Grave.
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Beautiful Sentences: Elie Wiesel
And yet only fanatics—in religion as well as politics—can find a meaning in someone else’s death. That’s what distinguishes them from mystics, or most of us, whose only concern is our own death. Elie Wiesel, The Judges.
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Beautiful Sentences: Charles Willeford
Policemen undoubtedly had some kind of inborn perverted streak that normal men like himself didn’t have. Charles Willeford, Miami Blues.
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Beautiful Sentences: Elie Wiesel
Don’t forget that the Jews were not the only victims of my father and his accomplices: we, their children, are victims too. In our own way, we too have been uprooted and left on the scrap heap. For the children of the executioners too, midnight will always be sounding. Don’t forget that. Elie Wiesel, The…
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Beautiful Sentences: Ernest Hemingway
“It’s all nonsense. It’s only nonsense. I’m not afraid of the rain. I’m not afraid of the rain. Oh, oh, God, I wish I wasn’t.” She was crying. I comforted her and she stopped crying. But outside it kept on raining. Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms.
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Beautiful Sentences: Elie Wiesel
Why does the Torah begin with the second letter, beth, rather than the first, aleph? Because the latter was already in exile. Elie Wiesel, The Judges.