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5bf3f6f
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Had he been a lunatic or an intellectually honourable man who'd thought things through to their logical conclusion? And was there any difference?
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Margaret Atwood |
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cde084b
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He was wrong about the sadness though: far better to have it when you're young. A sad pretty girl inspires the urge to console, unlike a sad old crone.
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unhappiness
loneliness
youth
beauty
sadness
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Margaret Atwood |
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9171d1e
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Setting fire to the roofs, getting away with the loot, suiting herself. She studied modern philosophy, read Sartre on the side, smoked Gitanes, and cultivated a look of bored contempt. But inwardly, she was seething with unfocused excitement, and looking for someone to worship.
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worship
philosophy
rebel
rebelliousness
sartre
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Margaret Atwood |
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0fd947a
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She probably has a row of men's dicks nailed to her wall, like stuffed animal heads.
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Margaret Atwood |
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cf0b5ff
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Perhaps they'll say, These things are not real. They are phantasmagoria. They were made by dreams, and now that no one is dreaming them any longer they are crumbling away.
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Margaret Atwood |
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10ace8b
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the best and most cost-effective way to control women for reproductive and other purposes was through women themselves. For this there were many historical precedents; in fact, no empire imposed by force or otherwise has ever been without this feature: control of the indigenous by members of their own group.
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Margaret Atwood |
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c7d59c8
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It must have been an endless breathing in: between the wish to know and the wish to praise there was no seam.
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praise-poems
poetry-quotes
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Margaret Atwood |
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fcdaae3
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In reduced circumstances you have to believe all kinds of things. I believe in thought transference now, vibrations in the ether, that sort of junk. I never used to.
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Margaret Atwood |
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19b20c8
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I can't think of myself, my body, sometimes, without seeing the skeleton: how I must appear to an electron. A cradle of life, made of bones; and within, hazards, warped proteins, bad crystals jagged as glass.
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Margaret Atwood |
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ffdb625
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Breasts were one thing: they were in front, where you could have some control over them. Then there were bums, which were behind, and out of sight, and thus more lawless. Apart from loosely gathered skirts, nothing much could be done about them.
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teeangers
butts
breasts
sexuality
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Margaret Atwood |
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37b5641
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I know why there is no glass, in front of the watercolor picture of blue irises, and why the window opens only partly and why the glass in it is shatter-proof. It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.
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the-handmaid-s-tale
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Margaret Atwood |
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0ab2e08
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We were a society dying, said Aunt Lydia, of too much choice.
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Margaret Atwood |
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eb7e88b
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I believe there can be no light without shadow; or rather, no shadow unless there is also light
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Margaret Atwood |
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006be62
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Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.
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Margaret Atwood |
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9ed15e9
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Where was the threshold, between the inner world and the outer one? We each move unthinkingly through this gateway every day, we use the passwords of grammar-- --paying for the privilege of sanity with common coin, with meanings we've agreed on.
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sanity
meaning
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Margaret Atwood |
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bf59d64
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He got his driver's license, he got his high school diploma, he got his university degree. He got a worried little furrow between his eyes. He did what he thought was expected of him, and brought the official pieces of paper home to her like a cat bringing dead mice. Now it's as if he's given up because he doesn't know what else to bring; he's run out of ideas.
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Margaret Atwood |
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67684cc
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She said, What you don't know won't hurt you. A dubious maxim: sometimes what you don't know an hurt you very much.
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Margaret Atwood |
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f3cea21
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Language, like the mouths that hold and release it, is wet & living, each word is wrinkled with age, swollen with other words, with blood, smoothed by the numberless flesh tongues that have passed across it. Your language hangs around your neck, a noose, a heavy necklace; each word is empire, each word is vampire and mother.
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Margaret Atwood |
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c852551
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There is a Do this or Do that with God, but not any Because.
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Margaret Atwood |
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743919c
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Today she wears her habitual expression of strained anxiety; she smells of violets.
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Margaret Atwood |
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b8fe529
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If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting anything.
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Margaret Atwood |
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1c867cf
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No one ever told you greed and hunger are not the same.
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Margaret Atwood |
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1c33deb
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What is a stromatolite? he asks rhetorically, his eyes gleaming. The word comes from the Greek stroma, a mattress, coupled with the root word for "stone." Stone mattress: a fossilized cushion, formed by layer upon layer of blue-green algae building up into a mound or dome. It was this very same blue-green algae that created the oxygen they are now breathing. Isn't that astonishing?"
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Margaret Atwood |
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5460d8d
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Although he doesn't know it yet, she isn't his real life. But he is hers. This is painful.
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unequal-affections
the-robber-bride
one-sided-love
painful
sad
unrequited-love
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Margaret Atwood |
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55ce542
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That was the original idea, but once you've got a controlled population with a wall around it and no oversight, you can do anything you want.
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Margaret Atwood |
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6213ae6
|
There were a few other moves of his father's he could do without as well - the sucker punches, the ruffling of the hair, the way of pronouncing the word son, in a slightly deeper voice. This hearty way of talking was getting worse, as if his father were auditioning for the role of Dad, but without much hope.
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Margaret Atwood |
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ef8cdf5
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She'd learned a lot of things from Zeb in his Urban Bloodshed Limitation classes: in Zeb's view, the first bloodshed to be limited should be your own.
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Margaret Atwood |
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852dbb9
|
The trouble some people have being German, I thought, I have being human. In a way it was stupid to be more disturbed by a dead bird than by those other things, the wars and riots and the massacres in the newspapers. But for the wars and riots there was always an explanation, people wrote books about them saying why they happened: the death of the heron was causeless, undiluted.
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Margaret Atwood |
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96d47c7
|
It's daybreak. The break of day. Toby turns this word over: break, broke, broken. What breaks in daybreak? Is it the night? Is it the sun, cracked in two by the horizon like an egg, spilling out light?
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Margaret Atwood |
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aa69a37
|
She began to fret about God's exact location. It was the Sunday-school teacher's fault: God is everywhere, she'd said, and Laura wanted to know: was God in the sun, was God in the moon, was God in the kitchen, the bathroom, was he under the bed?...Laura didn't want God popping our at her unexpectedly...Probably God was in the boom closet. It seemed the most likely place. He was lurking in there like some eccentric and possibly dangerous unc..
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Margaret Atwood |
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027846e
|
Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. You might even provide a Heaven for them. We need You for that. Hell we can make for ourselves.
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Margaret Atwood |
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1952738
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His view of the world featured swift disasters set against a background of lurking doom, my cooking did nothing to contradict it.
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Margaret Atwood |
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bbce20c
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The truth is I don't want him watching me while I eat. I don't want him to see my hunger. If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting anything. He
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Margaret Atwood |
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b5a5eb9
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What are we do to? The child sex trade is not for us: our children are unattractive and rude, and - due to the knowledge of our history - have a bad habit of mugging prospective customers and shoving them over cliffs.
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Margaret Atwood |
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7eb9004
|
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow. The sky is clear but hard to make out, because of the searchlight; but yes, in the obscured sky a moon does float, newly, a wishing moon, a sliver of ancient rock, a goddess, a wink. The moon is a stone and the sky is full of deadly hardware, but oh God, how beautiful anyway.
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Margaret Atwood |
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254de6d
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Mushrooms were the roses in the garden of that unseen world, because the real mushroom plant was underground. The parts you could see - what most people called a mushroom - was just a brief apparition. A cloud flower.
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mushrooms
roses
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Margaret Atwood |
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ba30533
|
The stains on the mattress. Like dried flower petals. Not recent. Old love; there's no other kind of love in this room now.
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Margaret Atwood |
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548d182
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I think, therefore I spam.
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Margaret Atwood |
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8f8f376
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The door of Reverend Verringer's impressive manse is opened by an elderly female with a face like a pine plank; the Reverend is unmarried, and has need of an irreproachable housekeeper. Simon is ushered into the library. It is so self-consciously the right sort of library that he has an urge to set fire to it.
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Margaret Atwood |
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e406f57
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She talks with wolves, without knowing what sort of beasts they are: Where have you been all my life? they ask. Where have I been all my life? she replies.
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Margaret Atwood |
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9df26e7
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He thought of it as a contest, like the children at school who would twist your arm and say Give in? Give in? until you did; then they would let go. He didn't love me, it was an idea of himself he loved and he wanted someone to join him, anyone would do, I didn't matter so I didn't have to care.
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Margaret Atwood |
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3629432
|
The threshold of a new house is a lonely place.
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Margaret Atwood |
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2fcc2c0
|
There were places you didn't want to walk, precautions you took that had to do with locks on windows and doors, drawing the curtains, leaving on lights. These things you did were like prayers; you did them and you hoped they would save you. And for the most part they did. Or something did; you could tell by the fact that you were still alive.
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precautions
rape-culture
safety
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Margaret Atwood |
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39bef79
|
Once in a while, though, he went on binges. He would sneak into bookstores or libraries, lurk around the racks where the little magazines were kept; sometimes he'd buy one. Dead poets were his business, living ones his vice. Much of the stuff he read was crap and he knew it; still, it gave him an odd lift. Then there would be the occasional real poem, and he would catch his breath. Nothing else could drop him through space like that, then c..
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Margaret Atwood |