"We are told stories as children to help us bridge the abyss..." — John Cheever

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We are told stories as children to help us bridge the abyss between waking and sleeping. We tell stories to our own children for the same purpose. When I find myself in danger -- caught on a stuck ski-lift in a blizzard -- I immediately start telling myself stories. I tell myself stories when I am in pain and I expect as I lay dying I will be telling myself a story in a struggle to make some link between the quick and the defunct.

— John Cheever

The Trip to Echo Spring

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I’ve been homesick for countries I’ve never been, and longed to be where I couldn’t be.

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As he inflates his imagination, he inflates his capacity for anxiety, and inevitably…

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He loved the world, and the world loved him.

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Beginning in the fall, there was all this excitement about Christmas and how it was a day…

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