Any Human Heart (2002) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

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Quotes edit see section history

• “Because it seems to me that to be human you have to compromise.”

  Logan Mountstuart

• “That's all your life amounts to in the end: the aggregate of all the good luck and the bad luck you experience. Everything is explained by that simple formula. Tot it up - look at the respective piles. There's nothing you can do about it: nobody shares it out, allocates it to this one or that, it just happens. We must quietly suffer the laws of man's condition, as Montaigne says.”

  Logan Mountstuart

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• That’s all your life amounts to in the end: the aggregate of all the good luck and the bad luck you experience. Everything is explained by that simple formula. Tot it up—look at the respective piles. There’s nothing you can do about it: nobody shares it out, allocates it to this one or that, it just happens. We must quietly suffer the laws of man’s condition, as Montaigne says.

  Highlighted by 45 Kindle customers

• We keep a journal to entrap that collection of selves that forms us, the individual human being.

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• Every life is both ordinary and extraordinary—it is the respective proportions of those two categories that make that life appear interesting or humdrum.

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• Shelley was so right: atheism is an absolute necessity in this world of ours. If we are to survive as individuals we can rely only on those resources provided by our human spirit—appeals to a deity or deities are only a form of pretence. We might as well howl at the moon.

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• Isn’t this how life turns out, more often than not? It refuses to conform to your needs—the narrative needs that you feel are essential to give rough shape to your time on this earth.

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• The view ahead is empty and void: only the view backward shows you how utterly random and chance-driven these vital connections are.

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• Maybe this is the answer—maybe this is how to find true contentment—to live your life within confined horizons. To set modest goals, achievable ambitions. Not all of us can manage it, alas.

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• It’s true: lives do drift apart for no obvious reason. We’re all busy people, we can’t spend our time simply trying to stay in touch. The test of a friendship is if it can weather these inevitable gaps.

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• Why am I lying so much? To Mother, to Lucy, to Vanderpoel, to Ben . . . Is this normal, I wonder? Does everybody do it as much as me? Are our lives just the aggregate of the lies we’ve told? (“Lives”—the “v” is silent.) Is it possible to live reasonably without lying? Do lies form the natural foundation of all human relationships, the thread that stitches our individual selves together?

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• The awful boredom of uncritical faith. All great artists are doubters.

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First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. William Boyd (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Man Booker Prize (Finalist, 2002, Longlisted)
• International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (Finalist, 2004, Short list)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PR6052.O9192 A64 2002
• Dewey: 823.914

Notes for Parents edit see section history

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Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( B ) › Boyd, William
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Wikipedia

Movie Connections edit see section history

• Any Human Heart (IMDb)