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This Country Wants To Live In The Illusion That It Is Tolerant But Also Wants To Be Able To Practice Intolerance.
-Junot Diaz
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This Country Wants To

Junot Diaz
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This Country Wants To Live In The Illusion That It Is Tolerant But Also Wants To Be Able To Practice Intolerance.

Understanding the Quote: "this country wants to live in the illusion that it is tolerant..."

This quote by Junot Diaz reflects deeply on the theme of country. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Country, Practice, Want, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Junot Diaz interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Junot Diaz

Junot Diaz is celebrated for insightful thoughts on country and practice. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Country
Practice
Want
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I Was Part Of That Group Of Kids Growing Up In The '80s Under The Reagan Regime, What I Used To Call 'living In The Shadow Of Dr. Manhattan,' Where We Would Have Dreams All The Time That New York City Was Being Destroyed, And That That Wall Of Light And Destruction Was Rolling Out And Would Just Devour Our Neighborhood.
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I Find Reading To Be A Delight, A Source Of Comfort, A Way To Explore.
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You Were At The Age Where You Could Fall In Love With A Girl Over An Expression, Over A Gesture. That's What Happened With Your Girlfriend, Paloma- She Stooped To Pick Up Her Purse And Your Heart Flew Out Of You.
Girl
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It's Never The Changes We Want That Change Everything.
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Books Are Surviving In This Intense, Fragmented, Hyper-accelerated Present, And My Sense And Hope Is That Things Will Slow Down Again And People Will Want More Time For A Contemplative Life. There Is No Way People Can Keep Up This Pace. No One Is Happy. Two Or Three Hours To Read Should Not Be An Unattainable Thing, Although I Hope We Get To That Stage Without Needing A Corporate Sponsored App To Hold Our Hand. The Utopian In Me Has My Fingers Crossed That We Haven't Quite Figured Out The Digital Future Just Yet. After All, The One Thing We Know About People: They Always Surprise.
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If You Want To Make A Human Being Into A Monster, Deny Them, At The Cultural Level Any Reflection Of Themselves
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But Back Then, In Those First Days, I Was So Alone That Every Day Was Like Eating My Own Heart.
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Out Of Nowhere You Said, I Love You. For Whatever It's Worth.
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When She Smiles Niggers Ask Her For Her Hand In Marriage; When I Smile Folks Check Their Wallets.
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There's A Long-term Tradition Of White Supremacy In This Country. [donald] Trump Isn't Something Entirely New. But Then There Is The Crisis For White Supremacy In This Country Now Where You Have People Of Color Standing Up For Themselves In Ways That They've Never Stood Up For Themselves Or At Least Standing Up For Themselves In A Generational, Novel Way.
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I Was Really Drawn To Thinking About The Women In My Life. Thinking About My Mother, Who's A Very Powerful Force On Me. And I Have These Two Very Strong Sisters Who Took Up A Lot Of Imaginary Space In My Life.
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And Because Love, Real Love, Is Not So Easily Shed.
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The Art Is Just Really Mysterious. If I Understood It More, Maybe I Would Write More.
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I Wring My Hands Because I Know That As A Dude, My Privilege, My Long-term Deficiencies Work Against Me In Writing Women, No Matter How Hard I Try And How Talented I Am.
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Run A Hand Through Your Hair, Like The White Boys Do, Even Though The Only Thing That Runs Easily Through Your Hair Is Africa.
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I Know For A Fact That - It's Just The Way Our Biases Work Now In The Industry Of Literature, But Certainly A Short Story Collection Does Not Receive The Same Kind Of Attention As A Novel.
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If We Do Not Begin To Practice The Muscles Of Having A Possessive Investment In Each Other's Oppressions, Then We Are In Some Serious Trouble.
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Like Most Lit Nerds, I'm A Voracious Reader. I Never Got Enough Poetry Under My Belt Growing Up But I Do Read It - Some Of My Favorites, Gina Franco And Angela Shaw And Cornelius Eady And Kevin Young, Remind Me Daily That Unless The Words Sing And Dance, What's The Use Of Putting Them Down On Paper.
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God Bless Perseverance. Because It's Not Easy.
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Forever
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Failure
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Writing
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Thinking
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Thinking
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Artist
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Trying
Next
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Water
Paper
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Years
Sixteen
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Numbers
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Should
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Postmodernism
Bad Man
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Matter
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Absence
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Love Is
Historical
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Writing
Pieces
Resources
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Self
Vortex
Oscars
I Think That Most Of Us Are Aware That As Writers We Are Seeking Absences, We're Seeking Silences, We're Seeking Spaces That People Haven't Entered. No Writer Is Saying, "hey, I Want To Go To This Very Well Trod Territory And Say Exactly What Someone Else Has Done." I Think The Nature Of A Writer, Because We Are Attempting To Bring To Light Areas That People Haven't Seen Before, Tends In Some Ways To Be Progressive, At Least In That Light.
Thinking
People
Silence
Cities Produce Love And Yet Feel None. A Strange Thing When You Think About It, But Perhaps Fitting. Cities Need That Love More Than Most Of Us Care To Imagine. Cities, After All, For All Their Massiveness, All Their There-ness, Are Acutely Vulnerable.
Thinking
Cities
Needs
As Expected: She, The Daughter Of The Fall, Recipient Of Its Heaviest Radiation, Loved Atomically.
Daughter
Fall
Radiation
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Love
Forever
Half
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Country
Practice
Want
You Can't Regret The Life You Didn't Lead.
Regret
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Thinking
America
Immigration
I Think That Distance Is Good For Some People For Certain Projects. I Mean This Is Sort Of A Dynamic Question. Some Projects Require More Distance Than Others, Some Don't Require It At All. Sometimes You Need It And Sometimes You Don't.
Distance
Mean
Thinking
I Always Wanted To Read. I Always Thought I Was Going To Be A Historian. I Would Go To School And Study History And Then End Up In Law School, Once, I Ran Out Of Loot Trying To Be A History High School Teacher. But My Dream Was Always To Place Myself In A Situation Where I Was Always Surrounded By Books.
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Teacher
Book
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Know How
Knows
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Heart
Air
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Three
Poor
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People
Feminism
My Greatest Responsibility Is To Acknowledge The Mistakes And The Shortcomings Of The Country In Which I Live, To Acknowledge My Privileges, And To Try To Make It A Better Place.
Country
Mistake
Responsibility
Stereotypes, They're Sensual, Cultural Weapons. That's The Way That We Attack People. At An Artistic Level, Stereotypes Are Terrible Writing.
Writing
People
Sensual
Even If You Didn't Come From Another Country, The Idea Of How Do You Make A Home Somewhere New Is Common To Anyone Who's Either Going To College, Shifting Towns.
Country
Home
College
Sucks To Be Left Out Of Adolescence, Sort Of Like Getting Locked In The Closet On Venus When The Sun Appears For The First Time In A Hundred Years.
Years
Venus
Firsts
Stories Are Hard. I Have Friends Who Knock Out Stories On A Weekly Or Monthly Basis, Like They're Running On Medicinal-strength Updike. But For Me A Story Is As Daunting A Prospect As A Novel.
Running
Stories
Novel
My Mother Took Care Of Us Until My Father Scrammed, And Then She Ended Up Working In The Small-factory Sector Of New Jersey With A Lot Of Other Immigrants.
Mother
Father
Care
Motherfuckers Will Read A Book That’s One Third Elvish, But Put Two Sentences In Spanish And They [white People] Think We’re Taking Over.
Book
Thinking
Two
We All Dream Dreams Of Unity, Of Purity; We All Dream That There's An Authoritative Voice Out There That Will Explain Things, Including Ourselves. If It Wasn't For Our Longing For These Things, I Doubt The Novel Or The Short Story Would Exist In Its Current Form. I'm Not Going To Say Much More On The Topic. Just Remember: In Dictatorships, Only One Person Is Really Allowed To Speak. And When I Write A Book Or A Story, I Too Am The Only One Speaking, No Matter How I Hide Behind My Characters.
Dream
Book
Writing
I Look Most Like Myself... When I'm Wearing My Black, Nerdy Engineering Glasses.
Glasses
Engineering
Black
I Mean In The Community That I Grew Up In, You Know, A Very, You Know, Mixed, Almost Entirely African Diaspora Community, One Of The Things That We Were Not Ever Supposed To Say Was How Much Self-hatred And Colorism Determined And Guided What We Would Call Our Desire. In Other Words, What We Would Consider Beautiful.
Beautiful
Mean
Self
When You're The Ones In The Life Raft And You Have Four Or Five Women In The Life Raft Who Put It Together, By The End Of It Your Nerves Are Blown. The People You're Going To Attack Are The People Who Are Helping You, Who You Are Holding It Together With.
People
Together
Nerves
I Don't Think You Can Be From The Caribbean And Not Know A Certain Amount About The Apocalypse.
Thinking
Apocalypse
Certain
It Wasn't That I Couldn't Write. I Wrote Every Day. I Actually Worked Really Hard At Writing. At My Desk By 7 A.m., Would Work A Full Eight And More. Scribbled At The Dinner Table, In Bed, On The Toilet, On The No. 6 Train, At Shea Stadium. I Did Everything I Could. But None Of It Worked.
Writing
Eight
Bed
You Know, I Was A Kid Who Had Difficulty Speaking English When I First Immigrated. But In My Head, When I Read A Book, I Spoke English Perfectly. No One Could Correct My Spanish. And I Think That I Retreated To Books As A Way, You Know, To Be, Like, Masterful In A Language That Was Really Difficult For Me For Many Years.
Book
Kids
Thinking
Colleagues Are A Wonderful Thing - But Mentors, That's Where The Real Work Gets Done.
Real
Mentor
Done
John Carter Was Also One Of Our First Recognizable Superhumans And There Is Little Doubt That His Extraordinary Physical Feats Inspired Superman's Creators. Remember: Before Superman Could Fly Or Turn Back Time, He Was Nothing Less Than An Earthbound Crime-fighting John Carter In Tights.
Fighting
Doubt
Tights
Used To Be In The Old Days, Only The Pulp Writers Wrote Like Machines. Now Everybody Is Expected To Be Literary John Henrys. So In That Context Someone Like Me Is An Anomaly.
Machines
Anomalies
Used
I Always Think About Myself As A Writer; That Comes Out Of Being A Reader First, And I Don't Think I Kind Of Got To Really Playing With Language In Any Formal Way Probably Until I Was In My Mid-twenties.
Thinking
Twenties
Way
But If These Years Have Taught Me Anything It Is This: You Can Never Run Away. Not Ever. The Only Way Out Is In.
Running
Years
Way
You Eventually Erase Her Contact Info From Your Phone But Not The Pictures You Took Of Her In Bed While She Was Naked And Asleep, Never Those.
Sad
Breakup
Phones
When I Became My Masked Identity I Was This Incredible Little Nerd, But In The Real World I Had To Be This Tough Kid From The Neighborhood.
Real
Kids
Nerd
If You Were A Nerd Computer Geek In 1982, The Amount Of Isolation You Felt - At Least What I Experienced, Or The Kids I Knew, The Isolation They Felt - Was Almost Total. They Were Not Part Of Society; No One Thought They Were Cool.
Kids
Nerd
Geek
A Form Wherein We Can Enjoy Simultaneously What Is Best In Both The Novel And The Short Story Form. My Plan Was To Create A Book That Affords Readers Some Of The Novel's Long-form Pleasures But That Also Contains The Short Story's Ability To Capture What Is So Difficult About Being Human - The Brevity Of Our Moments, Their Cruel Irrevocability.
Book
Long
Stories
When People Are Always Telling You That You Have To Have A Lot Of Women, Women Are Very Important, There's A Chance That You Might Actually Begin To Observe Them On A More Fundamental Level. Then You Get So Much Focus That One Day You Might Actually See. Dominican Men Are Told To Look At Women All The Time, But They're Definitely Not Told To See Them.
Men
People
Focus
Ybon Was The One Who Suggested Calling The Wait Something Else. Yeah, Like What? Maybe, She Said, You Could Call It Life.
Waiting
Calling
Yeah
Privilege Does Not Operate Without Silence.
Silence
Doe
Privilege
Shot At Twenty-seven Times - What A Dominican Number.
Numbers
Twenties
Seven
She Smelled Like Herself, Like The Wind Through A Tree.
Wind
Tree
When I Write, What I Long For Is Not More Realism Or Fiction But More Courage. That's What I Always Find Myself Short On And What I Have To Struggle To Achieve In Order That The Work Might Live.
Struggle
Writing
Order
[immigrating] Didn't Burn Out My Desire To Travel, Though That Can Happen. There's Nothing Like Immigration To Make You Want To Just Stay Put. But What I Think Of As Home Is This Life Between Santo Domingo And The Parts Of New Jersey And New York City That Were My Childhood, So In My Mind It's Like Home Is All Those Things Combined.
New York
Home
Thinking
To An Outsider, I Just Seem Like A List Of Accomplishments. To Me, All There Is Is How Often I Fail.
Accomplishment
Outsiders
Lists
When I Read Toni Morrison And Sandra Cisneros As A Freshman At Rutgers, It All Clicked - That Writing Was All I Wanted To Do. It Became My Calling.
Writing
Calling
Freshman
My Father Was A Little League Dictator. That Really Affected Me, His Control-freakery, His Impunity, His Arbitrary Unreasonable Power.
Father
League
Arbitrary
We Get So Many People Saying Short Fiction Is Not Economical, That It Doesn't Sell; But There Are So Many Of Us Enjoying Writing It And Reading It. So It's Wonderful To Be Around People Who Love Short Fiction Too - It's Like Hanging Around With My Tribe.
Short Love
Reading
Writing
Students Teach All Sorts Of Things But Most Importantly They Make Explicit The Courage That It Takes To Be A Learner, The Courage It Takes To Open Yourself To The Transformative Power Of Real Learning And That Courage I Am Exposed To Almost Every Day At Mit And That I'm Deeply Grateful For.
Real
Grateful
Mit
Beli At Thirteen Believed In Love Like A Seventy-year-old Widow Who's Been Abandoned By Family, Husband, Children And Fortune Believes In God.
Children
Husband
Believe
So The Kind Of Boy I Was, Or That I Was Told To Be, You Were Kind Of This Like Half-gladiator, Half-dude Who, You Know, Was Supposed To Have As Many Girls As Possible And Work Until Your Heart Exploded, Have No Fear, You Know.
Girl
Heart
Boys
Tell Her That You Love Her Hair, That You Love Her Skin, Her Lips, Because, In Truth, You Love Them More Than You Love Your Own.
Hair
Dating
Skins
You Ask Everybody You Know: How Long Does It Usually Take To Get Over It? There Are Many Formulas. One Year For Every Year You Dated. Two Years For Every Year You Dated. It's Just A Matter Of Will Power: The Day You Decide It's Over, It's Over. You Never Get Over It.
Love
Years
Two
I Always Individuate Myself From Other Writers Who Say They Would Die If They Couldn't Write. For Me, I'd Die If I Couldn't Read.
Writing
Dies
Ifs
'a Princess Of Mars' May Not Have Exerted The Same Colossal Pull That Tarzan Had On The Global Imagination, But Its Influence On Generations Of Readers Cannot Be Underestimated.
Princess
Imagination
Generations
It's Exactly At These Moments, When All Hope Has Vanished, That Prayer Has Dominion.
Prayer
Dominion
Moments
I Have Three Storage Units, And That's No Lie. Three Storage Units. All Books.
Lying
Book
Three
'oscar Wao' For Example Cohered In A Period Of Terrible Distress. All The Novels That I Wanted To Write Were Not Happening.
Writing
Example
Oscars
As Artists We Are Here To Make You Uncomfortable With The Complexity Of Your Reality.
Artist
Reality
Uncomfortable
For Me It's A Remarkable Thing That There Is A Prize Celebrating And Honouring And Making For A Brief Moment Short Fiction The Centre Of The Literary Universe.
Fiction
Moments
Celebrate
Mine (story) Ain't The Scariest, The Clearest, The Most Painful, Or The Most Beautiful. It Just Happens To Be The One That's Got It's Fingers Around My Throat.
Beautiful
Stories
Painful
You Keep Waiting For The Heaviness To Leave You. You Keep Waiting For The Moment You Never Think About The Ex Again. It Doesn't Come.
Thinking
Waiting
Moments
You're The Only Person I've Ever Met Who Can Stand A Bookstore As Long As I Can.
Long
Bookstores
Mets
In Fact, Looking At The Darkest Sides Of The United States Has Only Made Me Appreciate The Things That We Do Right, The Things That We Do Beautifully. We Are, For All Of Our Mistakes And All Of Our Crimes, A Remarkable Place.
Mistake
Appreciate
United States
I Act Most Like Myself... When I'm In My Hometown, Santo Domingo. I Try To Get There About Five Times A Year.
Years
Trying
Hometown
I Can Always Tell If Someone's From Harvard Because They Trot Out Their Vitae. I Would Die At Harvard.
Harvard
Dies
Ifs
We Hide So Well. This Is The Bottom Line: How Hidden Is Male Subjectivity? Name Five Books Where Male Subjectivity Is Produced In An Honest Way.
Book
Names
Males
Every Single Immigrant We Have, Undocumented Or Documented, Is A Future American. That's Just The Truth Of It.
Immigrants
You Don't Want To Let Go, But Don't Want To Be Hurt, Either. It's Not A Great Place To Be But What Can I Tell You?
Letting Go
Hurt
Want
We're On Speaking Terms Today. I Say, Maybe We Should Hang Out With The Boys, And You Shake Your Head. I Want To Spend Time With You, You Say. If We're Still Good, Next Week Maybe. That's The Most We Can Hope For. Nothing Thrown, Nothing Said That We Might Remember For Years. You Watch Me While You Put A Brush Through Your Hair. Each Strand That Breaks Is As Long As My Arm. You Don't Want To Let Go, But Don't Want To Be Hurt, Either. It's Not A Great Place To Be But What Can I Tell You?
Letting Go
Hurt
Boys
But It's Clear To Me That Us Slow-poke Writers Are A Dying Breed. It's Amazing How Thoroughly My Young Writing Students Have Internalized The New Machine Rhythm, The Rush Many Of My Young Writers Are In To Publish. The Majority Don't Want To Sit On A Book For Four, Five Years. The Majority Don't Want To Listen To The Silence Inside And Outside For Their Artistic Imprimatur. The Majority Want To Publish Fast, Publish Now.
Book
Writing
Years
Art Is Not Boosterism, It's Not Propaganda, And It's Not Spin, But That's Not Something That Art Does, And Nor Has It Historically Ever Done It.
Art
Doe
Done
I Have A Very Powerful Sense Of Place, But I Have A Very Powerful Sense Of Being A Migrant, So It's Both. It Seems Like I'm Always Leaving My Home. That's Part Of The Formula. I Love The Dominican Republic. I Go Back All The Time. I Love New Jersey. Go Back All The Time.
Powerful
Home
Leaving
The Prisoner's Wife Echoes Edwidge Danticat's Farming Of The Bones In The Urgency In Which It Reminds Us Of The Possibility Of Love Even Amidst The Ruins. This Is A Terrifying, Heart-breaking And, Ultimately, Important Book.
Book
Heart
Echoes
You Think People Hate A Fat Person? Try A Fat Person Who's Trying To Get Thin.
Bullying
Hate
Thinking
If You're A Status Quo Writer, You're Considered To Not Be Political But That's As Political As If You're A Progressive Writer. Some Politics Are Asked To Show Their Passports And Others Aren't. In The Dominican Republique, If You're Slightly Progressive, People Have A Lot Of Suspicions That You're Up To Some Sort Of Conspiracy, That This Is Some Sort Of Plot. On The Other Hand, If You're Conservative And Mainstream, People Tend To Take That As A Given And Don't Notice The Politics.
People
Political
Conservative
Love Was A Rare Thing, Easily Confused With A Million Other Things, And If Anybody Knew This To Be True It Was Him.
Confused
Being True
Rare Things
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