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One can never change the past, only the hold it has on you.

Merle Shain

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Merle Shain
Age: 53 †
Born: 1935
Born: January 1
Died: 1989
Died: January 1
Author
Journalist
City of Toronto
Never
Healing
Hold
Past
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More quotes by Merle Shain

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Feelings take you into uncharted territory from time to time it's true, but you almost always benefit from the journey one way or the other. We tend to think of the rational as a higher order, but it is the emotional that marks our lives.
Merle Shain
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The conflict between what one is and who one is expected to be touches all of us. And sometimes, rather than reach for what one could be, we choose the comfort of the failed role, preferring to be the victim of circumstance, the person who didn't have a chance.
Merle Shain
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Love is short, forgetting is long, and understanding longer still.
Merle Shain
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It takes a lot of mulch, love does, to create a froth.
Merle Shain
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Men who take advantage of one woman take advantage of them all.
Merle Shain
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Perhaps the old view of 'Me breadwinner, you hausfrau' worked for our grandparents, when people obligingly popped off before boring each other to death, but it won't work any longer because we are living too long and divorce is needed today to do what death acomplished more economically before.
Merle Shain
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It can be much harder to be on the receiving end of a transaction than to be the one who gets to give. In fact, being given to can mean being taken from. There is a very strong connection between pride and giving, and those who do the giving get to feel that they are worthy, while those who are given to often feel that they are not.
Merle Shain
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You can tell a lot about what a man lacks by watching what he is cynical about, and many of us are cynical about love.
Merle Shain
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The roots of love sink down and deep and strike out far, and they are arteries that feed our lives, so we must see that they get the water and sun they need so they can nourish us. And when you put something good into the world, something good comes back to you.
Merle Shain
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There are really only two ways to approach life - as victim or as gallant fighter - and you must decide if you want to act or react, deal your own cards or play with a stacked deck. And if you don't decide which way to play with life, it always plays with you.
Merle Shain
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One can never change the past, only the hold it has on you, and while nothing in your life is reversible, you can reverse it nevertheless.
Merle Shain
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Our strength is in our dreams, and those who do not dare to dream damn themselves.
Merle Shain
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The best kind of men have a certainty in themselves that isn't done in when countered by a certainty in their women, and they are much adored.
Merle Shain
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Compassion is the thing that leads you gently back to yourself.
Merle Shain
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The job of a friend is not to decide what should be done, not to run interference or pick up the slack. The job of a friend is to understand, and to supply energy and hope, and in doing so to keep those they value on their feet a little longer, so that they can fight another round and grow strong in themselves.
Merle Shain
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The romantic myth is so strong that it survives the wear and tear of marriage by simply detaching from it and floating up on ahead, and women who are rather fond of the men they married, as well as ones who are not, go through life with a bag packed for the day when the shining knight on a white charger arrives, just in case he does.
Merle Shain
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There are no perfect men of course, but some are more perfect than others, and we can use all of those we can get.
Merle Shain
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Cynicism is a form of cowardice, a failure of courage to hope.
Merle Shain
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But who would rush at a benighted man, and give him two black eyes for being blind?
Merle Shain
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There are many pages in the book, many kinds of lives we each can live, many ways to be rich, and even more to be poor.
Merle Shain