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f46b0c2
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He was deciding whether to cut her throat or love her forever.
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murder
love
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Margaret Atwood |
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abad590
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Children were vehicles for passing things along. These things could be kingdoms, rich wedding gifts, stories, grudges, blood feuds. Through children, alliances were forged; through children, wrongs were avenged. To have a child was to set loose a force in the world.
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Margaret Atwood |
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61a0404
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Sometimes when I am dusting the mirror with the grapes I look at myself in it, although I know it is vanity. In the afternoon light of the parlour my skin is a pale mauve, like a faded bruise, and my teeth are greenish. I think of all the things that have been written about me - that I am inhuman female demon, that I am an innocent victim of a blackguard forced against my will and in danger of my own life, that I was too ignorant to know ho..
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Margaret Atwood |
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bfaa106
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Messy love is better than none, I guess. I am no authority on sane living.
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Margaret Atwood |
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d5dec49
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i) We are hard on each other and call it honesty, choosing our jagged truths with care and aiming them across the neutral table. The things we say are true; it is our crooked aims, our choices turn them criminal. ii) Of course your lies are more amusing: you make them new each time. Your truths, painful and boring repeat themselves over & over perhaps because you own so few of them iii) A truth should exist, it should not be used like th..
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Margaret Atwood |
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57e0440
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What is the real breath of a man -- the breathing out or the breathing in?
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Margaret Atwood |
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3f14bbf
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It was the thumbprints of human imperfection that used to move him, the flaws in the design: the lopsided smile, the wart next to the navel, the mole, the bruise. Was it consolation he'd had in mind, kissing the wound to make it better?
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Margaret Atwood |
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ed574c8
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There is never only one, of anyone
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Margaret Atwood |
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0421a52
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Why are you so interested in amoebas?
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Margaret Atwood |
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6cbbf43
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Everything is post these days, as if we're all just a footnote to something earlier that was real enough to have a name of its own.
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Margaret Atwood |
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899bfcb
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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 sounded fraudulent to him and he'd been ashamed to pronounce them."
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lies
love
manipulation
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Margaret Atwood |
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d02ddd7
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He considers me also a little fragile because artistic. I need to be cared for, like a potted plant.
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Margaret Atwood |
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4c6bc4b
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My own view of myself was that I was small and innocuous, a marshmallow compared to the others. I was a poor shot with a 22, for instance, and not very good with an ax. It took me a long time to figure out that the youngest in a family of dragons is still a dragon from the point of view of those who find dragons alarming.
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Margaret Atwood |
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706bb04
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Stick a shovel into the ground almost anywhere and some horrible thing or other will come to light. Good for trade, we thrive on bones; without them there'd be no stories.
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Margaret Atwood |
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5c29ea0
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Also, if a man takes pride in his disguise skills, it would be a foolish wife who would claim to recognise him: it's always an imprudence to step between a man and the reflection of his own cleverness.
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Margaret Atwood |
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0f3c3a2
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I tried to visualize my jealousy as a yellowy-brown cloud boiling around inside me, then going out through my nose like smoke and turning into a stone and falling down into the ground. That did work a little. But in my visualization a plant covered with poison berries would grow out of the stone, whether I wanted it to or not.
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Margaret Atwood |
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b15ed7d
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Some days I do appreciate things more, eggs, flowers, but then I decide I'm only having an attack of sentimentality, my brain going pastel Technicolor, like a beautiful-sunset greeting cards they used to make so many of in California. High-gloss hearts. The danger is grayout.
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Margaret Atwood |
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abeb5d7
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It's evening, one of those gray water-color washes, like liquid dust.
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Margaret Atwood |
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f88b7e2
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Can a single ant be said to be alive, in any meaningful sense of the word, or does it only have relevance in terms of its anthill?
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Margaret Atwood |
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76ba8c6
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Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody--a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules.
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Margaret Atwood |
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332632c
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I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely.
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Margaret Atwood |
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a1f8288
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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...
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history
incorporation
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Margaret Atwood |
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987b5a6
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Is that how we lived, then? But we lived as usual. Everyone does, most of the time. Whatever is going on is as usual. Even this is as usual, now. We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.
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Margaret Atwood |
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7b523dd
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But maybe, underneath, she loves him too much. Maybe it's her excessive love that pushes him away.
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Margaret Atwood |
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97b3daa
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You can't keep a cool head when you're drowning in love. You just thrash around a lot and scream, and wear yourself out.
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Margaret Atwood |
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64c8a27
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The proper study of Mankind is Everything.
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Margaret Atwood |
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9fa7cf1
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a handful of crumpled stars
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Margaret Atwood |
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e98a094
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Soon it will be daybreak. Soon the day will break. I can't stop it from breaking in the same way it always does, and then from lying there broken; always the same day, which comes around again like clockwork. It begins with the day before the day before, and then the day before, and then it's the day itself. A Saturday. The breaking day. The day the butcher comes.
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Margaret Atwood |
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5ec81cc
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Why do men want to kill the bodies of other men? Women don't want to kill the bodies of other women, by and large. As far as we know. Here are some traditional reasons: Loot. Territory. Lust for power. Hormones. Adrenaline high. Rage. God. Flag. Honor. Righteous anger. Revenge. Oppression. Slavery. Starvation. Defense of one's life. Love; or, a desire to protect the women and children. From what? From the bodies of other men. What men are m..
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Margaret Atwood |
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7f9bd74
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When they came to harvest my corpse (open your mouth, close your eyes) cut my body from the rope, surprise, surprise: I was still alive. Tough luck, folks, I know the law: you can't execute me twice for the same thing. How nice. I fell to the clover, breathed it in, and bared my teeth at them in a filthy grin. You can imagine how that went over. Now I only need to look out at them through my sky-blue eyes. They see their own ill will starin..
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Margaret Atwood |
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1548267
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More powerful than God, more evil than the Devil; the poor have it, the rich lack it, and if you eat it you die?
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Margaret Atwood |
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43b0402
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Once in a while, Jimmy would make up a word but he never once got caught out. ... He should have been pleased by his success with these verbal fabrications, but instead he was depressed by it. The memos telling him he'd done a good job meant nothing to him; all they proved was that no one was capable of appreciating how clever he had been. He came to understand why serial killers sent helpful clues to the police.
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Margaret Atwood |
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a6b7c4a
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Why is it always such a surprise? thinks Toby. The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush.
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surprise
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Margaret Atwood |
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c768249
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The world is full of weapons if you're looking for them.
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Margaret Atwood |
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8b86490
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Snowman wakes before dawn.
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Margaret Atwood |
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12207b1
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Creating some god for one's inspirations was always a good way to avoid accusations of pride should the scheme succeed, as well as the blame if did not.
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Margaret Atwood |
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e44ecf3
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I wish I was ignorant, so I didn't know how ignorant I am
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Margaret Atwood |
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a913409
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What you don't know won't hurt you. A dubious maxim: sometimes what you don't know can hurt you very much.
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pain
lies
loss
learning
philosophy
philosophy-of-life
ignorance
knowledge
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Margaret Atwood |
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a492f63
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But who can remember pain, once it's over?
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Margaret Atwood |
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5cfacac
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When you can't tell the difference between your own pleasure and your pain then you're an addict.
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Margaret Atwood |
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846c663
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He drowned his sorrows, though like other drowned things they had a habit of floating to the surface when least expected.
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Margaret Atwood |
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099112c
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Sympathy from strangers can be ruinous.
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sadness
the-blind-assassin
melancholy
strangers
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Margaret Atwood |
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0cc3a55
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Lose your temper and you lose the fight.
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temper
fight
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Margaret Atwood |
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6be4646
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I intend to get out of here. It can't last forever. Others have thought such things, in bad times before this, and they were always right, they did get out one way or another, and it didn't last forever. Although for them it may have lasted all the forever they had.
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Margaret Atwood |