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The essay I had to read was called, An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope. The first challenge was that the essay was, in fact, a very long poem in heroic couplets. If something is called an essay, it should be an essay.

Maureen Johnson

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Maureen Johnson
Age: 51
Born: 1973
Born: February 16
Author
Novelist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Fact
Pope
Facts
Heroic
Firsts
Poem
First
Challenge
Long
Criticism
Couplets
Something
Challenges
Essay
Called
Alexander
Read
Essays

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These houses had been plunked down with an alarming randomness -- unevenly spaced, on crooked lines, like whoever had designed the place had said, We'll just follow this cat, and wherever he sits down, we'll build something.
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You're...a demon hunter?' 'It's not as exciting as it sounds,' he said. 'There is a surprising amount of paperwork involved.
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I realize Jubilee is a bit of a stripper name. You probably think I have heard the call of the pole.
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One of them hung a pink bra from our lighting fixture. I left it there. It was a nice bra
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Something about her suggested that her leisure activities included wrestling large woodland animals and banging bricks together.
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Proximity doesn't breed familiarity.
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Debbie had to get up and slice me a thick piece of cake before she could answer. And I do mean thick. Harry Potter volume seven thick. I could have knocked out a burglar with this piece of cake. Once I tasted it, though, it seemed just the right size.
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Fear can't hurt you, she said. When it washes over you, give it no power. It's a snake with no venom. Remember that. That knowledge can save you.
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What tinfoil? he asked.
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Prefects. I had learned this one. Student council types, but with superpowers. They who must be obeyed.
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There is no normal. I've never met a normal person. The concept is flawed. It implies that there is only one way people are supposed to be, and that can't possible be true. Human experience is far too varied.
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I guess life is full of maybes.
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Spicy food and I have a close relationship—an obsessive one, in fact. If it’s spicy, I want it. I want to sweat and shake and go half blind from the searing pain . . . which, now that I put it that way, seems really suggestive. But spicy stuff is addictive. That’s a known fact of science.
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Sometimes people graduate but they don't leave. They hang around for years, for no reason. I would think of ghosts like that, I decided.
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Once again, her parents' problems had run through her life like a piece of heavy equipment, smashing everything in their way.
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No one in history had ever done less and yet been so wrong.
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Just then, my phone started ringing. The ring must have been damaged by the water as well, so now it had a high, keening note - kind of the sound I imagine a mermaid might make if you punched her in the face.
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I feel warm and reassured, I whispered. He's like Santa.
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I'm done. I'm going to go to bed and read important books about theater. It would would be easier if you just said porn, Scarlett said. No idea what you're talking about. But knock first if you need me.
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Sometimes it is worth any amount of suffering just to prevent giving your parents the opportunity to be right.
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