{
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  "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-banville/the-untouchable/but-what-comfort",
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  "text": "But what comfort does belief offer, when it contains within it its own antithesis, the glistening drop of poison at the heart? Is the Pascalian wager sufficient to sustain a life, a real life, in the real world? The fact that you place your bet on red does not mean that the black is not still there.",
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    "title": "The Untouchable",
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      "slug": "man-is-only",
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      "text": "Man is only lovable in the multitude, and at a good distance.",
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      "slug": "i-suspect-that",
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      "text": "I suspect that significant first encounters only take on their aura of significance in retrospect.",
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      "slug": "i-was-pondering",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-banville/the-untouchable/i-was-pondering",
      "text": "I was pondering the question, which I have pondered before, of whether such great revelatory moments really so occur, or if it is only that, out of need, our lives so lacking in drama, we invest past events with a significance they do not warrant.",
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