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I begin with songs. They provide a sort of skeleton grammar for me to flesh out. Songs of longing for future tense, songs of regret for past tense, and songs of love for present tense.

Mary Doria Russell

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Mary Doria Russell
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: August 19
Anthropologist
Novelist
Paleoanthropologist
Paleontologist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Present
Tense
Sort
Grammar
Future
Longing
Song
Provide
Past
Flesh
Love
Regret
Begin
Skeleton
Songs
Skeletons

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It would not have suprised Emilio Sandoz that his sex life was discussed with such candor and affectionate concern by his friends. The single craziest thing about being a priest, he'd found, was that celibacy was simultaneously the most private and most public aspect of his life.
Mary Doria Russell
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House-training, I must tell you, is a formality that can elude young dachshunds for some time this is particularly true in climates that affront their sensibilities with outrageous meteorological insults. Rain, for example, or a startling gust of wind.
Mary Doria Russell
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Instead of taking a year off, I started Dreamers of the Day exactly 36 hours after I sent the manuscript for A Thread of Grace to the publisher!
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When it comes down to it, I don't have much in the way of advice to offer you, but here it is: Read to children. Vote. And never buy anything from a man who's selling fear.
Mary Doria Russell
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Tradition was safety change was danger.
Mary Doria Russell
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If we keep demanding that God yield up His answers, perhaps some day we will understand them. And then we will be something more than clever apes, and we shall dance with God.
Mary Doria Russell
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How can you hear your soul if everyone is talking?
Mary Doria Russell
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Rain falls on everyone, lightning strikes some. What cannot be changed is best forgotten. God made the world, and He saw that it was good. Not fair. Not happy. Not perfect. Good.
Mary Doria Russell
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Cleveland is really good about recognizing its artists because of the Arts Council.
Mary Doria Russell
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God save us from idealists! They dream of a world without injustice, and what crime won't they commit to get it! I swear, Mirella, I'll settle for a world with good manners.
Mary Doria Russell
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The sign of a good decision is the multiplicity of reasons for it.
Mary Doria Russell
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The characters Im most emotionally involved with are like friends you leave behind when you move away. You dont see them regularly anymore, but you still love them and keep in touch.
Mary Doria Russell
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The trouble with illusions is that you aren't aware you have any until they are taken away from you.
Mary Doria Russell
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I do what I do without hope of reward or fear of punishment. I do not require Heaven or Hell to bribe or scare me into acting decently.
Mary Doria Russell
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See that's where it falls apart for me! Anne cried. What sticks in my throat is that God gets the credit but never the blame. I just can't swallow that kind of theological candy. Either God's in charge or he's not.
Mary Doria Russell
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Like so many Boomers, I saw Lawrence of Arabia in 1962 when it was first released and when we were young teenagers. Im not quite sure why - I really wish some psychologist would explain this - but that movie had a tremendous effect on many of us.
Mary Doria Russell
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When the preponderance of human beings choose to act with justice and generosity and kindness, then learning and love and decency prevail. When the preponderance of human beings choose power, greed, and indifference to suffering, the world is filled with war, poverty, and cruelty.
Mary Doria Russell
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Indulge me, John. Cynicism and foul language are the only vices I'm presently capable of. Everything else takes energy or money.
Mary Doria Russell
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Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between That doesn't make sense and I don't understand.
Mary Doria Russell
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Feelings are facts. Look straight at 'em and deal with 'em. Work it through, as honestly as you can. If God is anything like a middle-class white chick from the suburbs, which I admit is a long shot, it's what you do about what you feel that matters.
Mary Doria Russell