2010 :: Issue 7/Fall :: Solitude
Out of Context
Marty Rubin
My ideal journey: set out early and never arrive.
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Every lock that breaks sets a key free.
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A long silence never means what it says.
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Rain is the picnic when it rains.
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Where does the wind stand?
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Optimists think badly, but live well.
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The unknown is a kind of light.
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Between thoughts, travel far and wide.
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Dreams that scare us wake us up.
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Water flows because it’s willing.
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Writing is talking to yourself—with the hope of being overheard.
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Wisdom gives bad advice.
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More sailors have drowned in words than in the sea.
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Not the light ahead, but the wind pushing me from behind.
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I have no heroes except flowers and children.
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Thought is a splinter in the eye.
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Sometimes out of sheer perversity reality conforms to my wishes.
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Beware of those who aren’t content with soup and bread.
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Art: a conversation through a locked door.
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Change is always trivial compared to what doesn’t change.
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We no longer know what we feel when we can say what we feel.
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Your faith is weak if you can’t lose it.
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When the train stays on the tracks, you don’t ask why.
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The lifting of an arm or leg is magic.
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The news wouldn’t worry us, if we weren’t already worried.
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Real dishes break. That’s how you know they’re real.
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Tell the world your secret, but keep it from yourself.
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My drug of choice is Yes.
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When the wings are too heavy, the bird can’t fly.
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You don’t know how to live. You live.
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Getting lost is part of getting there.
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Looking in the mirror is seeing what other people see.
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Grace rides inside the wave.
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Some truths can only be seen in the dark.
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The places you’ve been in your imagination are places you’ve never been.
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If you need a second to think, it’s too late.
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The key to every lock doesn’t open any door.
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What variety is to life, contradiction is to the mind.
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To hate everything is to be wounded by everything.
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When you look into things you see things that aren’t there.
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The fenced-in dog barks at the one running free.
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Like Noah I built my ark, but the floods never came.
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Death is. That’s its only excuse.
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Language—a mirror in front of a window.
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A dream separates, but a look unites.
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A few names have survived oblivion. In time oblivion will have them all.
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A cat believes in its claws even when they’re cut.
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If it rains tonight, rain will be the cause.
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Happiness exists, but not the conditions of happiness.
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Things put in the wrong place have found a new place.
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Every line is the perfect length if you don’t measure it.
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Some lives, like some remarks, only make sense out of context.
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Words make known. But we live in the unknown.
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Tell the truth. It’s more disturbing than telling lies.
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New ideas wind up on the same trash heap as the old ones.
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Humanity will never solve its problems as long as there are people around.
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If you’re in a hurry…don’t go.
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The leaves on the water, the fog under the bridge. That’s what I believe in.
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Blessed are they who expect nothing, for they’ll be pleasantly surprised.