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My parents showed me by example that they could balance their work and family lives.

Ben Marcus

RHETORIC The art of making life less believable; the calculated use of language, not to alarm but to do full harm to our busy minds and properly dispose our listeners to a pain they have never dreamed of.
BEN MARCUS

Art Believe Calculate Harm Language Pain Wise
My parents showed me by example that they could balance their work and family lives.
BEN MARCUS

Balance Example Parent
I’m an enormous fan of Thomas Bernhard’s books, and I like the relentless feeling in his work – the pursuit of darkness, the negative – and I think in some sense I’ve internalised that as what one is supposed to do.
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Book Darkness Negative Thinking
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
I like big doses of grief when I read: Richard Yates, Flannery O’Connor, Kenzabaro Oe, Thomas Bernhard.
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Bigs Dose Grief
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
Teaching is all armchair. I learn about writing by writing and thinking about what I’ve written and throwing it away.
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Teaching Thinking Writing
I’m interested in the hope we invest in science, and the disappointment we can feel when science flattens, or ‘explains,’ the larger mysteries of religion.
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Disappointment Feels Mystery
To me one of the amazing technologies of writing is the way it can listen in on thoughts. I don’t feel that that’s natural to other art forms in the same way.
BEN MARCUS

Art Feel Listen Technology Writing
Slamming the book shut produces a wind on the face, a weather that is copyrighted by the author, and this wind may not be deployed without permission, nor may the pages be turned without express written permission.
BEN MARCUS

Book Copyright Permisson Weather Wind
Sorry, I said to myself, wondering how many times in my marriage I’d said that, how many times I’d meant it, how many times Claire had actually believed it, and, most important, how many times the utterance had any impact whatsoever on our dispute. What a lovely chart one could draw of this word Sorry.
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Dispute Impact Love Sorry Times Wonder yself
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
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
A self needed to spill out sometimes, a body should show evidence of what the hell went on inside it.
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Body Self Sometimes
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
It amazes me that parents are allowed to raise kids. There’s so much power and often very little accountability.
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Accountability Kids Parent

My parents showed me by example that they could balance their work and family lives.

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My parents showed me by example that they could balance their work and family lives.

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