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Without sound, celebration and grief look nearly the same.

Ben Marcus

Judaism to me, as badly as I practiced it, what I’ve always loved about it was its total embrace of complexity, its admission of unknowability.
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Complexity Embrace Judaism
To refrain from storytelling is perhaps one of the highest forms of respect we can pay. Those people, with no stories to circle them, can die without being misunderstood.
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Circles Misunderstood People
Rain is used as white noise when God is disgusted by too much prayer, when the sky is stuffed to bursting with the noise of what people need.
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Prayer Rain Sky
A misspelled word is probably an alias for some desperate call for aid, which is bound to fail.
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Desperate Failing Language
Among other things, autoimmune disorders are an induction into a world of unstable information and no reliable expertise.
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Disorder Information World
It’s lonely to listen to the pleasure of others, not that I’ve made a habit of that kind of eavesdropping. There’s joy and passion in the next room, in the next bed, but it’s not yours.
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Joy Lonely Passion
Mostly we’re motivated to control ourselves in public. Mostly. At home the motivation is much less clear. At home there’s a bit of a lab for bad behavior.
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Home Labs Motivation
Spelling is a way to make words safe, at least for now, until another technology appears to soften attacks launched from the mouth.
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Mouth Safe Technology
I work a lot in the summers. My family goes to Maine, where we have a little house. My wife’s a writer, too, and we can write for six hours a day and then play with the kids.
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House Kids Summer Wife Writing
Suspense left my life a long time ago, now it has returned. I do not care for it.
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Care Long Suspense
The context of what can be known establishes that love and indifference are forms of language, but the wise addition of punctuation allows us to believe that there are other harms – the dash gives the reader the clear signal they are coming.
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Believe Dash Establish Indifference Language Love Wise
Fiction is too complicated and too elusive to break down into a set of tricks.
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Breaking Complicated Down Fiction
Eventually you stop paying attention to your own feelings when there’s nothing to be done about them.
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Attention Done Feelings
Being with him was like being alone underwater – everything was slow; nothing counted; I could not be harmed; I would feel dry and cold when I resurfaced.
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Alone Being Like Love Underwater
I like big doses of grief when I read: Richard Yates, Flannery O’Connor, Kenzabaro Oe, Thomas Bernhard.
BEN MARCUS

Bigs Dose Grief
Without sound, celebration and grief look nearly the same.
BEN MARCUS

Grief Looks Sound

Without sound, celebration and grief look nearly the same.

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Without sound, celebration and grief look nearly the same.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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