"You must stop worrying about why things happen and wonder what they mean when they do."

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Source: Joy Williams (1978). “The changeling”, Doubleday Books

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Joy Williams

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Joy Williams is an acclaimed author known for her poignant exploration of love and loss in works like 'The Quick and the Dead.'

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Joy Williams Author

"Someone once told me a story about long term relationships. To think of them as a continent to explore. I could spend a lifetime backpacking through Africa, and I would still never know all there is to know about that continent. To stay the course, to stay intentional, to stay curious and connected - that's the heart of it. But it's so easy to lose track of the trail, to get tired, to want to give up, or to want a new adventure. It can be so easy to lose sight of the goodness and mystery within the person sitting right in front of you."

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"The story knows itself better than the writer does at some point, knows what's being said before the writer figures out how to say it."

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"What a story is, is devious. It pretends transparency, forthrightness. It engages with ordinary people, ordinary matters, recognizable stuff. But this is all a masquerade. What good stories deal with is the horror and incomprehensibility of time, the dark encroachment of old catastrophes..."

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