Sept Born Quotes

The wealthy husbands with their cinq-à-sept affairs, the grand apartments and white, shuttered holiday homes on the Île de Ré. Born here, bred here, from old French money – or at least so they would like you to believe.

In the churchyard in Jaffrey, New Hampshire are two handsome headstones. The slate weathered well and William Farnsworth's chiseling is clearly readable. They say: Sacred to the memory of Amos Fortune who was born free in Africa a slave in America he purchased liberty professed Christianity lived reputably and died hopefully Nov. 17, 1801 Aet. 91 Sacred to the memory of Violate by sale the slave of Amos Fortune by marriage his wife by her fidelity his friend and solace she died his widow Sept. 13 1802 Aet. 73

Order is important. In language classes, you’ll typically learn words in thematic order because it’s a comfortable way to organize classes (“Today, we’re going to learn about animals!”) and it’s a comfortable way to learn (“Today, I learned about animals!”). But there’s an unintended consequence of doing this: you get your words mixed up. I learned all of my French numbers and colors at the same time, and I still have problems remembering whether sept is six or seven, or whether jaune is yellow or green. This is borne out by the research: when you learn a bunch of similar words at once, you’ll have a harder time remembering which one is which.

The radical acceptance of the accumulations of our lives is born in the giving up, the acknowledgment of the artifice. It is what journalist Ken Fuson exudes in his self-penned obituary. Having been unshackled from pretense by a public struggle with addiction and freed from performance by impending bodily death, Fuson delivered a remarkable eulogy for himself: He attended the university’s famous School of Journalism, which is a clever way of saying, “almost graduated but didn’t.” . . . In 1996, Ken took the principled stand of leaving the Register because The Sun in Baltimore offered him more money. Three years later, having blown most of that money at Pimlico Race Track, he returned to the Register, where he remained until 2008. For most of his life, Ken suffered from a compulsive gambling addiction that nearly destroyed him. But his church friends, and the loving people at Gamblers Anonymous, never gave up on him. Ken last placed a bet on Sept. 5, 2009. He died clean. He hopes that anyone who needs help will seek it, which is hard, and accept it, which is even harder. Miracles abound.9 Fuson evinces true authenticity, something close to real freedom, and it is beautiful. His prose is not a parade of accomplishments but a catalog of embarrassing details and defeats—the kind that makes a reader’s heart beam with appreciation, identification, laughter, and hope.