Just another writer
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Beautiful Sentences: John Updike
Real life now commences, they are informed; the Eden of public education has shut its garden gate. A garden, Levy reflects, of rote teaching dully ignored, of the vicious and ignorant dominating the timid and dutiful, but a garden nevertheless, a weedy patch of hopes, a rough and ill-tilled seedbed of what this nation wants…
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The Big Countdown
My number went back up to 87 from 83, which is still less than my pre-drop life expectancy, but close enough that I can consider last year’s drop to be the anomaly, although I can still do more to improve my health and perhaps get a little bit more time with my family. In the…
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Beautiful Sentences: Harry Levin
The history of the realistic novel shows that fiction tends towards autobiography. The increasing demands for social and psychological detail that are made upon the novelist can only be satisfied out of his own experience. The forces which make him an outsider focus his observation upon himself. Harry Levin, James Joyce: A Critical Introduction.
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Beautiful Sentences: John Updike
Real life now commences, they are informed; the Eden of public education has shut its garden gate. A garden, Levy reflects, of rote teaching dully ignored, of the vicious and ignorant dominating the timid and dutiful, but a garden nevertheless, a weedy patch of hopes, a rough and ill-tilled seedbed of what this nation wants…
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Beautiful Sentences: Dorothy M. Richardson
People thought it was silly, almost wrong to look at the end of a book. But if it spoilt a book, there was something wrong about the book. If it was finished and the interest gone when you know who married who, what was the good of reading it at all? Dorothy M. Richardson, Honeycomb.
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Beautiful Sentences: Kelly Link
Now that we are married, we will have the same dreams. Kelly Link, “Shoe and Marriage.”
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Beautiful Sentences: Raymond Carver
In addition to being in love, we like each other and enjoy one another’s company. She’s easy to be with. Raymond Carver, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.”
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Beautiful Sentences: Christian Wiman
Intellectuals and artists concerned with faith tend to underestimate the radical, inviolable innocence it requires. We read and read, write long, elaborate essays and letters, engage in endlessly inflected philosophical debates. We talk of poetry as prayer, artistic discipline as a species of religious devotion, doubt as the purest form of faith. These ideas are…
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Dewey Decimal Project: 478.2 SHA Essential Latin: The language and life of ancient Rome
It’s been a long time since I studied Latin, but I figured that it’s been long enough that a refresher will be welcome, but short enough that the refresher won’t be redundant. Sharpley incorporates a bit of cultural background alongside the language lessons which provides a nice supplement. This is generally connected to the Latin readings…