December 2011
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Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
(I have decided from this day forth that life is too short to finish books I am not whole-heartedly adoring devouring at a rate of knots. I shall of course always persevere until I am satisfied the situation isn’t going to suddenly rectify itself, that it isn’t a case of laziness due to archaic vocabularies or paragraphs being infested with irrelevant or tedious footnotes and highly...
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“Life is a nightmare that prevents one from sleeping.”
– Oscar Wilde
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'A Child's Christmas in Wales' by Dylan Thomas
‘and the gong was bombilating and Mrs Prothero was announcing ruin like a town crier in Pompeii’
‘snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss…and settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunderstorm of white, torn Christmas cards’
“Were there postmen then, too?” “With sprinkling eyes and...
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Letter to Lady Georgiana Morpeth, by Sydney Smith,...
Dear Lady Georgiana,
- Nobody has suffered more from low spirits than I have done – so I feel for you.
1st. Live as well as you dare.
2nd. Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold, 75° or 80°.
3rd. Amusing books.
4th. Short view of human life – not further than dinner or tea.
5th. Be as busy as you can.
6th....
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