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d3b8c91
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I am a believer in sensible choices, so different from many of my own. Also in sensible names for children.
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margaret-atwod
sensible
sense
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Margaret Atwood |
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535a787
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I've learned to do without a lot of things. If you have a lot of things, said Aunt Lydia, you get too attached to this material world and you forget about spiritual values. You must cultivate poverty of spirit. Blessed are the meek.
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Margaret Atwood |
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33a5a7c
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It is better to journey than to arrive, as long as we journey in firm faith and for selfless ends.
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Margaret Atwood |
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054b8a6
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He compiled lists of old words too - words of a precision and suggestiveness that no longer had a meaningful application in today's world, or toady's world, as Jimmy sometimes deliberately misspelled it on his term papers. (Typo, the profs would note, which showed how alert they were.) He memorized these hoary locutions, tossed them left-handed into conversation: wheelwright, lodestone, saturnine, adamant. He'd developed a strangely tender ..
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Margaret Atwood |
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1f5448b
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Disguise is easier when you're young.
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Margaret Atwood |
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029e01c
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I planted him in this country like a flag
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immigrant
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Margaret Atwood |
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05a223f
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Canlit might not exert the fascination of - say - a venereal wart.
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Margaret Atwood |
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786159f
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Placidity and order and everything in its place, with a decorous and sanctioned violence going on underneath everything, like a heavy, brutal shoe tapping out the rhythm on a carpeted floor.
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Margaret Atwood |
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78a816c
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I don't want a man around, what use are they except for ten seconds' worth of half babies. A man is just a woman's strategy for making other women.
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Margaret Atwood |
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99c0580
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Back at home they drew the curtains and read, with disapproval, with relish, with avidity and glee - even the ones who'd never thought of opening a novel before. There's nothing like a shovelful of dirt to encourage literacy.
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reading
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Margaret Atwood |
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a08eec4
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most people prefer a past is which nothing smells.
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Margaret Atwood |
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f3046ec
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He wants to see, he wants to know, only to see and know. I'm aware that it is this mentality, this curiosity, which is responsible for the hydrogen bomb and the imminent demise of civilization and that we would all be better off if we were still at the stone-worshipping stage. Though surely it is not this affable inquisitiveness that should be blamed.
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unearthing-suite
margaret-atwood
inquisitiveness
curiosity
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Margaret Atwood |
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1b51147
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I sang out the words unflinchingly though, as I stomped around the toadstool in clouds of church-basement dust, with a damp Gnome hand clutched in each of mine.
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Margaret Atwood |
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a553444
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I would pore for hours over the stalls of worn necklaces, sets of gilt spoons, sugar tongs in the shape of hen's feet or midget hands, clocks that didn't work, flowered china, spotty mirrors and ponderous furniture, the flotsam left by those receding centuries in which, more and more, I was living.
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Margaret Atwood |
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536956f
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They were wrong about the sun. It does not go down into the underworld at night. The sun leaves merely and the underworld emerges. It can happen at any moment. It can happen in the morning, you in the kitchen going through your mild routines. Plate, cup, knife. All at once there's no blue, no green, no warning.
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poetry
underworld
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Margaret Atwood |
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9a65900
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Besides, who would think of marrying a mothball? A question my mother put to me often, later, in other forms.
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Margaret Atwood |
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079c840
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left lipstick imprints the shape of grateful, rubbery sighs...
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Margaret Atwood |
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ed42a6c
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Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast.
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Margaret Atwood |
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fbcb293
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Watch out for art, Crake used to say. As soon as they start doing art, we're in trouble. Symbolic thinking of any kind would signal downfall, in Crake's view. Next they'd be inventing idols, and funerals, and grave goods, and the afterlife, and sin, and Linear B, and kings, and then slavery and war. Snowman longs to question them--who first had the idea of making a reasonable facsimile of him, of Snowman, out of a jar lid and a mop? But tha..
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Margaret Atwood |
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cc20fb4
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He came to understand why serial killers sent helpful clues to the police.
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Margaret Atwood |
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ad8e8b5
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Dear Diplodicus; dear Pterosaur; dear Trilobite; dear Mastodon, dear Dodo, dear Great Auk, dear Passenger Pigeon, dear Panda, dear Whooping Crane; and all you countless others who have played in this our shared Garden in your day: be with us at this time of trial, and strengthen our resolve. Like you, we have enjoyed the air and the sunlight and the moonlight on the water; like you, we have heard the call of the seasons and have answered th..
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Margaret Atwood |
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04354f4
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I was tired of her getting away with being so young.
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youth
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Margaret Atwood |
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2857ba3
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I almost gasp: he's said a forbidden word. Sterile. There is no such thing as a sterile man anymore, not officially. There are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren, that's the law.
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Margaret Atwood |
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aa6fd47
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Not me," said Jimmy, trying to joke. "I don't have a price." Wrong, as usual."
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Margaret Atwood |
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1c7c3c2
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In the east a bank of cloud rises up silently like dark bread.
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poetry
shapechangers-in-winter
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Margaret Atwood |
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e53d993
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What was in them was promise. They dealt in transformations; they suggested an endless series of possibilities, extending like the reflections in two mirrors set facing one another, stretching on, replica after replica, to the vanishing point.
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Margaret Atwood |
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e205af6
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Though at that time men and women tried each other on, casually, like suits, rejecting whatever did not fit.
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Margaret Atwood |
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4094358
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He hated being dumped, even though he himself had manoeuvred the event into place.
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Margaret Atwood |
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37bbf04
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Bir yumruk onu meydana getiren parmaklarin toplamindan fazla bir seydir.
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Margaret Atwood |
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b9dad1b
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What's the difference between vision and a vision? The former relates to something it's assumed you've seen, the latter to something it's assumed you haven't. Language is not always dependable either.
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Margaret Atwood |
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42c201d
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Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last
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Margaret Atwood |
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631bdeb
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In reality it was like this: Earth was colonized by the Zycronites, who developed the ability to travel from one space dimension to another at a period several millennia after the epoch of which we speak. They arrived here eight thousand years ago. They brought a lot of plant seeds with them, which is why we have apples and oranges, not to mention bananas--one look at a banana and you can tell it came from outer space. They also brough..
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Margaret Atwood |
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a6acafc
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women on their own, making up their minds. They wore blouses with buttons down the front that suggested the possibilities of the word undone. These women could be undone; or not. They seemed to be able to choose. We seemed to be able to choose, then. We were a society of dying, said Aunt Lydia, of too much choice.
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Margaret Atwood |
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92a9fc6
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His drawings were not originals then, only copies. He must have been doing them as a sort of retirement hobby, he was an incurable amateur and enthusiast; if he'd become hooked (on these rock paintings) he would have combed the area for them, collecting them with his camera, pestering experts by letter whenever he found one; an old man's delusion of usefulness.
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Margaret Atwood |
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93e131d
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Young girls have such sweet tooths. Or is that sweet teeth?
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Margaret Atwood |
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cb18030
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I'm sad now, the way we're talking is infinitely sad: faded music, faded paper flowers, worn satin, an echo of an echo. All gone away, no longer possible.
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sad
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Margaret Atwood |
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42712a1
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Roughing it builds a boy's character, but only certain kinds of roughing it.
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masculinity
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Margaret Atwood |
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c1a2262
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Being here with him is safety; it's a cave, where we huddle together while the storm goes on outside. This is a delusion, of course. This room is one of the most dangerous places I could be.
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safety
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Margaret Atwood |
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711ce7e
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but love was undependable, it came and then it went; so it was good to have a money value, because then at least those who wanted to make a profit from you made sure you were fed enough and not damaged by too much. Also there were many who had neither love nor money value and having one of these things was better than having nothing.
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Margaret Atwood |
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d948800
|
The tide of human desire, the desire for more and better, would overwhelm them. It would take control and drive events, as it had in every large change throughout history.
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Margaret Atwood |
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4f712f2
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If you can call it talking, these clipped whispers, projected through the funnels of our white wings. It's more like a telegram, a verbal semaphore. Amputated speech.
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Margaret Atwood |
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8198958
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I am a blank, here, between parentheses. Between other people.
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Margaret Atwood |
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40616e0
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Ill winds blow far and find a ready welcome.
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Margaret Atwood |
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c219390
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And they're smiling at her, not half-smiles either, but full-on total-face smiles that are only partly fake.
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Margaret Atwood |