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Tyrannical fathers, oppressed daughters, and repugnant suitors are scattered throughout English history.
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Recognize your limitations and rejoice in them!
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Helplessness in the face of a child's suffering is the curse of parenthood.
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...the writing is writ large on the wall: Mother Earth will continue to punish us with floods, famines, and fires until we learn to behave as custodians of the natural world rather than as its conquerors.
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They were tales of commonplace courage and optimism, for I knew from my own experience that everyday virtues endure best, and that quiet courage is worth more than the grandest derring-do.
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Fairy tales, as Nell had said, are always complicated.
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A woman without a past is like a fruitcake without brandy—insipid!
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He refuses to let bitterness poison his heart. He chooses instead to believe in the healing power of love.
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Knowing full well that I looked like something any self-respecting cat would refuse to drag in.
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When we reached the top of the humpbacked bridge that crossed the Little Deeping River, I paused, as I always did, to savor the view. It was a view that never failed to warm my heart. The village lay before me, its golden buildings aglow in the morning light. Dew glistened on the elongated oval of tussocky grass that formed the village green, and the worn stones in the cobbled lane gleamed as if they'd been polished. St. George's stumpy bell tower peered shyly at me through the boughs of the churchyard's towering cedars, and the river rushed below me, rendered livelier than usual by spring rains.
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Maybe, when all was said and done, that was where love began and what kept it alive: the simple, everyday act of paying attention.
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A decent world is built upon small acts of kindness.
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When his dream proved to be more than he could handle, he didn’t become discouraged. He simply recognized his limitations and decided to live happily within them.
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When I learned of Aunt Dimity's death, I was stunned. Not because she was dead, but because I had never known she'd been alive.
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The Handsome Prince Handbook is mute on the subject of chronic workaholism—Prince Charming, apparently, knew how to delegate—and I didn't know where else to turn for help. What do you do when life begins to go wrong and you've used up all three wishes?
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.... Finch, a small and somnolent village set among the rolling hills and the patchwork fields of the Cotswolds, a pastoral haven described in countless guidebooks as one of the prettiest regions in England.
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As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy. —Christopher Dawson, The Judgment of Nations (1942)