An ordinary mirror is silvered at the back but the window of the night train has darkness behind … - Russell Hoban

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I think forgiveness plays a very important part in Western society and it comes from the Judeo Christian heritage.

Russell Hoban

An ordinary mirror is silvered at the back but the window of the night train has darkness behind the glass. My face and the faces of other travellers were now mirrored on this darkness in a succession of stillnesses. Consider this, said the darkness: any motion at any speed is a succession of stillnesses; any section through an action will show just such a plane of stillness as this dark window in which your seeking face is mirrored. And in each plane of stillness is the moment of clarity that makes you responsible for what you do.

Dark, Mirror, Mirrored, Night, Reflection, Responsible

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There must be a lot of people in the world being wondered about by people who don't see them anymore.

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Language is an archaeological vehicle. . . the language we speak is a whole palimpsest of human effort and history.

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After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language?

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When I write a book, I don't have a plan or an outline. The characters move the action, and the action develops the characters. When I write a book, I become an actor, really, taking the role of the person who is speaking or acting at the time, and so their reactions to whatever they see are my reactions.

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What a weird thing smoking is and I can't stop it. I feel cosy, have a sense of well-being when I'm smoking, poisoning myself, killing myself slowly. Not so slowly maybe. I have all kinds of pains I don't want to know about and I know that's what they're from. But when I don't smoke I scarcely feel as if I'm living. I don't feel as if I'm living unless I'm killing myself.

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