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It is not easy to be solitary unless you are also born ruthless. Every solitary repudiates someone.

Jessamyn West

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Jessamyn West
Age: 81 †
Born: 1902
Born: July 18
Died: 1984
Died: February 22
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Indiana
United States
Mary Jessamyn West
Also
Repudiates
Every
Ruthless
Solitary
Solitude
Unless
Born
Easy
Someone

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A rattlesnake that doesn't bite teaches you nothing.
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The West is color. Its colors are animal rather than vegetable, the colors of earth and sunlight and ripeness.
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Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.
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The conversation of two people remembering, if the memory is enjoyable to both, rocks on like music or lovemaking. There is a rhythm and a predictability to it that each anticipates and relishes.
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In their sympathies, children feel nearer animals than adults
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Being consistent meant not departing from convictions already formulated being a leader meant making other persons accept these convictions. It was a narrow track, and a one-way, but a person might travel a considerable distance on it. A number of dictators have.
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Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.
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It is the loving, not the loved, woman who feels loveable.
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There are two barriers that often prevent communication between the young and their elders. The first is middle-aged forgetfulness of the fact that they themselves are no longer young. The second is youthful ignorance of the fact that the middle aged are still alive.
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Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely necessary.
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The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.
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In their sympathies, children feel nearer animals than adults. They frolic with animals, caress them, share with them feelings neither has words for. Have they ever stroked any adult with the love they bestow on a cat? Hugged any grownup with the ecstasy they feel when clasping a puppy?
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People who keep journals have life twice
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A good time for laughing is when you can.
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Knowledge of what you love somehow comes to you you don’t have to read nor analyze nor study. If you love a thing enough, knowledge of it seeps into you, with particulars more real than any chart can furnish.
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If you train people properly, they won't be able to tell a drill from the real thing. If anything, the real thing will be easier.
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The source of one's joy is also often the source of one's sorrow.
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Nothing is so dear as what you're about to leave.
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If you want a baby, have a new one. Don't baby the old one.
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Somehow I have the feeling that in some book is the great treasure I've been looking for all my life.
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