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bc45ffb
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Our curiosity is supposed to have limits, though these have never been defined exactly.
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Margaret Atwood |
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cf090c0
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It's the unbroken calm, both within and without, that is getting to her. Real events happen to people, she thinks, why not me? And then there's her conviction that they are happening, all around her, but that they're being kept from her.
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Margaret Atwood |
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dd80475
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Have they forgotten that I'm in here? They'll have to bring more food, or at least more water, or else I will starve, I will shrivel, my skin will dry out, all yellow like old linen; I will turn into a skeleton, I will be found months, years, centuries from now on, and they will say Who is this, she must have slipped our mind, Well sweep all those bones and rubbish into the corner, but save the buttons, no sense in having them go to waste, ..
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Margaret Atwood |
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e21cae6
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Not so her eyes, which were the flat hostile blue of a midsummer sky in bright sunlight, a blue that shuts you out.
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Margaret Atwood |
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bed3f77
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To periekhomeno [ton periodikon] etan uposkhese. Milousan gia metamorphoseis, gargalousan me mia ateleiote seira apo dunatotetes, olo kai pio proothemenes, opos ta eidola se duo kathreptes topothetemenous antikrista, me telos tous to apeiro. sou proballan peirasmous: mia peripeteia meta ten alle, mia gkarntarompa na akolouthei allen, e mia beltiose xopiso apo ten alle, enas antras amesos meta apo allon. Milousan gia xananioma kuttaron, kata..
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Margaret Atwood |
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6a241fe
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How could a person be caught that way, in an instant, by a glance, the lift of an eyebrow, the curve of an arm? But he was.
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Margaret Atwood |
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b508586
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you can't change the past,Aunt Lou used to say.Oh, but I wanted to;that was the one thing I really wanted to do
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regret
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Margaret Atwood |
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f5ce1e3
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He could never get used to her, she was fresh every time, she was a casketful of secrets.
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Margaret Atwood |
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c9bdfee
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I lie flat, the damp air above me like a lid. Like earth. I wish it would rain. Better still, a thunderstorm, black clouds, lightning, ear-splitting sound.
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Margaret Atwood |
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a5f7c27
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How potent was that word. With. He could never get used to her, she was fresh every time, she was a casketful of secrets. Any moment now she would open herself up, reveal to him the essential thing, the hidden thing at the core of life, or of her life, or of his life - the thing he was longing to know. The thing he'd always wanted. What would it be?
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Margaret Atwood |
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94a28cc
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Time is going faster and faster; the days of the week whisk by like panties.
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Margaret Atwood |
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6e508cb
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Now she imagines him dreaming. She imagines him dreaming of her, as she is dreaming of him. Through a sky the color of wet slate they fly towards each other on dark invisible wings, searching, searching, doubling back, drawn by hope and longing, baffled by fear. In their dreams they touch, they intertwine, it's more like a collision, and that is the end of the flying. They fall to earth, fouled parachutists, botched and cindery angels, love..
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Margaret Atwood |
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c4fafa8
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It wasn't just the sex." A dark smile from her: that's better. "You know I love you. You're the only one." She isn't the first woman he's ever said that to. He shouldn't have used it up so much earlier in his life, he shouldn't have treated it like a tool, a wedge, a key to open women. By the time he got around to meaning it, the words had sounded fraudulent to him and he'd been ashamed to pronounce them."
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Margaret Atwood |
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405a026
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Fraternize means to behave like a brother. Luke told me that. He said there was no corresponding word that meant to behave like a sister. Sororize, it would have to be, he said. From the Latin.
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Margaret Atwood |
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bf9fe97
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He was not a monster, to her ... How easy to invent a humanity, for anyone at all.
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Margaret Atwood |
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ba965cc
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Heaven, for the Presbyterians, must resemble a banking establishment, with each soul tagged and docketed, and placed in the appropriate pigeonhole.
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Margaret Atwood |
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8aad432
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It's like Janine, though, to take it upon herself, to decide the baby's flaws were due to her alone. But people will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning. No use, that is. No plot.
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Margaret Atwood |
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93a548b
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I marvel again at the nakedness of men's lives: the showers right out in the open, the body exposed for inspection and comparison, the public display of privates. What is it for? What purposes of reassurance does it serve?...Why don't women have to prove to one another that they are women?
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comparisons-in-sexes
different-genders
proving-womanhood
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Margaret Atwood |
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769d48d
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This is what I feel like: this sound of glass. I feel like the word shatter. I want to be with someone
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needing-someone-s-touch
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Margaret Atwood |
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590d61e
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I beliebe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow; or rather, no shadow unless there is also light.
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rebellion
resisting
shadow-and-light
resistance
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Margaret Atwood |
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9bd3072
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Watch out for art, Crake used to say. As soon as they start doing art, we're in trouble.
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Margaret Atwood |
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428dba7
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Be a good girl," she said. "I hope you'll be a good sister to Laura. I know you try to be." I nodded. I didn't know what to say. I felt I was the victim of an injustice: why was it always me who was supposed to be a good sister to Laura, instead of the other way around? Surely my mother loved Laura more than she loved me."
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Margaret Atwood |
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d053c5d
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He knows this by the way the girl stumbles, and it occurs to him for the first time that by taking her with him he'll be slowed down. He'll be hampered by her ability to see.
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Margaret Atwood |
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0859f25
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If he had known unstructured space is a deluge and stocked his log house- boat with all the animals even the wolves, he might have floated. But obstinate he stated, The land is solid and stamped, watching his foot sink down through the stone up to his knee. From "Progressive insanities of a pioneer"
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nature
poetry
pioneer
farmer
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Margaret Atwood |
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a14d21e
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The doctor tapped my ribs and eavesdropped on my heart.
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Margaret Atwood |
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5793a91
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But how can she ever get out of it, her life, except through him?
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Margaret Atwood |
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5300925
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More recently, some of us have been able to infiltrate the new ethereal-wave system that now encircles the globe, and to travel around that way, looking out at the world through the flat, illuminated surfaces that serve as domestic shrines. Perhaps that's how the gods were able to come and go as quickly as they did back then--they must have had something like that at their disposal.
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Margaret Atwood |
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55e78c7
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She wants to jig and amble, she wants to lisp, she wants to suck the last slurp of essence out of his almost-voided cranium. Avaunt, wanton!
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Margaret Atwood |
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fc60edd
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How much needless despair has been caused by a series of biological mismatches, a misalignment of the hormones and pheromones? Resulting in the fact that the one you love so passionately won't or can't love you. As a species we're pathetic in that way: imperfectly monogamous. If we could only pair-bond for life, like gibbons, or else opt for total guilt-free promiscuity, there'd be no more sexual torment. Better plan - make it cyclical and ..
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Margaret Atwood |
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8117d7e
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Fuck that shit, I told them, I've started this and I'm going to finish it.
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Margaret Atwood |
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02e25d1
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By extension, anyone who liked smelling the daisies, and having daisies to smell, and eating mercury-free fish, and who objected to giving birth to three-eyed infants via the toxic sludge in their drinking water was a demon-possessed Satanic minion of darkness, hell-bent on sabotaging the American Way and God's Holy Oil, which were one and the same.
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Margaret Atwood |
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7995839
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We are two-legged wombs, that's all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices.
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Margaret Atwood |
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f455a56
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But remember that forgiveness too is a power.
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Margaret Atwood |
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d36714d
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Everything that went on in your life was thought to be due to some positive or negative power emanating from inside your head.
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Margaret Atwood |
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c1db9ae
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As we know from the study of history, no new system can impose itself upon a previous one without incorporating many of the elements to be found in the latter, as witness the pagan elements in medieval Christianity and the evolution of the Russian "KGB" from the czarist secret service that preceded it" --
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Margaret Atwood |
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2a79f69
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But if it's a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don't tell a story only to yourself. There's always someone else. Even when there is no one. A story is like a letter. Dear You, I'll say. Just you, without a name. Attaching a name attaches you to the world of fact, which is riskier, more hazardous: who knows what the chances are out there, of survival, yours? I will say you, you, like an old love song.
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Margaret Atwood |
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ec5934e
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Moira had power now, she'd been set loose, she'd set herself loose. She was now a loose woman. I think we found this frightening. Moira was like an elevator with open sides. She made us dizzy. Already we were losing the taste for freedom, already we were finding these walls secure. In the upper reaches of the atmosphere you'd come apart, you'd vaporize, there would be no pressure holding you together.
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Margaret Atwood |
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af25d4f
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Unlikely a handgun any more because it was around that time that the CorpSeCorps was confiscating those, having raised the spurious banner of civic safety and thus effectively securing a monopoly for themselves on killing at a distance.
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Margaret Atwood |
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fefa01d
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I never had a favourite letter that began my name - I for Iris - because I was everybody's letter.
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Margaret Atwood |
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c651501
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There is nothing more onerous than enforced gratitude.
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Margaret Atwood |
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c49a9be
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Thinking he knows can be a trap. An ex-professor once told him he had a diamond-hard intellect and he'd been flattered at the time. Now he considers the nature of diamonds. Although sharp and glittering and useful for cutting glass, they shine with reflected light only. They're no use at all in the dark
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ego
intellect
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Margaret Atwood |
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cc0e2a6
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What was the rationale for all this pillaging? Souvenirs. These people needed something to remember themselves by. An odd thing, souvenir-hunting: now becomes then even while it is still now. You don't really believe you're there, and so you nick the proof, or something you mistake for it.
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Margaret Atwood |
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4f29e1a
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Change, we were sure, was for the better always. We were revisionists; what we revised was ourselves.
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Margaret Atwood |
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e20e645
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Everybody knew. Nobody admitted to knowing. If other people began to discuss it, you tuned them out, because what they were saying was both so obvious and so unthinkable.
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Margaret Atwood |