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While husbands and lovers in the stories are of all kinds, ranging from sympathetic to disgusting, women are invariably deceivers: inconstant, unscrupulous, quarrelsome, querulous, lecherous, shameless, although not necessarily all of these at once.

Barbara Tuchman

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Barbara Tuchman
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To gain victory over the flesh was the purpose of fasting and celibacy, which denied the pleasures of this world for the sake of reward in the next.
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The writer's object is - or should be - to hold the reader's attention.
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Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.
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To be a bestseller is not necessarily a measure of quality, but it is a measure of communication.
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To put away one's own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost.
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The story and study of the past, both recent and distant, will not reveal the future, but it flashes beacon lights along the way and it is a useful nostrum against despair.
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Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence. It is no fun to write lumpishly, dully, in prose the reader must plod through like wet sand. But it is a pleasure to achieve, if one can, a clear running prose that is simple yet full of surprises. This does not just happen. It requires skill, hard work, a good ear, and continued practice.
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If I had taken a doctoral degree, it would have stifled any writing capacity.
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If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.
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