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It's A Huge Carthusian Monastery, Stuck Down Between Rocks And Sea, Where You May Imagine Me, Without White Gloves Or Hair Curling, As Pale As Ever, In A Cell With Such Doors As Paris Never Had For Gates. The Cell Is The Shape Of A Tall Coffin, With An Enormous Dusty Vaulting, A Small Window... Bach, My Scrawls And Waste Paper - Silence - You Could Scream - There Would Still Be Silence. Indeed, I Write To You From A Strange Place.

-Frederic Chopin

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It's A Huge Carthusian

Frederic Chopin

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It's A Huge Carthusian Monastery, Stuck Down Between Rocks And Sea, Where You May Imagine Me, Without White Gloves Or Hair Curling, As Pale As Ever, In A Cell With Such Doors As Paris Never Had For Gates. The Cell Is The Shape Of A Tall Coffin, With An Enormous Dusty Vaulting, A Small Window... Bach, My Scrawls And Waste Paper - Silence - You Could Scream - There Would Still Be Silence. Indeed, I Write To You From A Strange Place.

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I Have Met A Great Celebrity, Madame Dudevant, Known As George Sand... Her Appearance Is Not To My Liking. Indeed There Is Something About Her Which Positively Repels Me... What An Unattractive Person La Sand Is... Is She Really A Woman? I'm Inclined To Doubt It.

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Simplicity Is The Highest Goal, Achievable When You Have Overcome All Difficulties.

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I Could Express My Feelings More Easily If They Could Be Put Into The Notes Of Music, But As The Very Best Concert Would Not Cover My Affection For You, Dear Daddy, I Must Use The Simple Words Of My Heart, To Lay Before You My Utmost Gratitude And Filial Affection

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As Long As I Have Health And Strength, I Will Gladly Work All My Days.

Health And Strength

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I Am Gay On The Outside, Especially Among My Own Folk (i Count Poles My Own); But Inside Something Gnaws At Me; Some Presentiment, Anxiety, Dreams - Or Sleeplessness - Melancholy, Indifference - Desire For Life, And The Next Instant, Desire For Death; Some Kind Of Sweet Peace, Some Kind Of Numbness, Absent-mindedness.

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Liszt Commenting On The Music Of Frédéric Chopin: He Confided . . . Those Inexpressible Sorrows To Which The Pious Give Vent In Their Communication With Their Maker. What They Never Say Except Upon Their Knees, He Said In His Palpitating Compositions.

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The Earth Is Suffocating... Swear To Make Them Cut Me Open, So That I Won't Be Buried Alive.

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