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Not all the ravages caused by our merciless age are tangible ones. The subtler forms of destruction, those involving only the human spirit, are the most to be dreaded.

Paul Bowles

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Paul Bowles
Age: 88 †
Born: 1910
Born: January 1
Died: 1999
Died: January 1
Author
Composer
Music Critic
Photographer
Translator
Writer
Queens
New York
Paul Frederic Bowles
Ones
Subtler
Age
Merciless
Spirit
Dreaded
Form
Involving
Human
Tangible
Humans
Caused
Forms
Destruction
Ravages

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One never took the time to savour the details one said: another day, but always with the hidden knowledge that each day was unique and fatal, that there never would be a return, another time.
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I wanted to meet other artists. I suppose I simply felt that I was taking pot shots at clay pipes. Pop! Down goes Gertrude, down goes Jean Cocteau, down goes André Gide.
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She was saved from prettiness by the intensity of her gaze.
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Every second, ten stars set behind the black water in the west.
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It's unnecessary and destructive to think of oneself at all. People ask me, 'What do you think of yourself as?' My answer is, 'Nothing.
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We've never managed, either one of us, to get all the way into life. We're hanging on to the outside for all we're worth, convinced we're going to fall off at the next bump.
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It was one of the charms of the International Zone that you could get anything you wanted if you paid for it. Do anything, too, for that matter - there were no incorruptibles. It was only a question of price.
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A black star appears, a point of darkness in the night sky's clarity. Point of darkness and gateway to repose. Reach out, pierce the fine fabric of the sheltering sky, take repose.
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Illness reduces man to his basic state: a cloaca in which the chemical processes continue. The meaningless hegemony of the involuntary.
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The act of living had been enjoyable at some point when I was not paying attention, it had turned into a different sort of experience, to whose grimness I had grown so accustomed that I now took it for granted.
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