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0393442
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You want your decisions taken away from you so you won't be responsible for your own actions?
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Margaret Atwood |
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2cccfc1
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Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I'm a cloud, congealed around a center object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping. Inside it is a space, huge as the sky at night and dark and curved like that, though black-red rather than black. Pinpoints of light swell, sparkle, burst and shrivel within it, countless as stars. Every month there is a moon, gigantic, round, heav..
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Margaret Atwood |
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79d6e94
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According to Tobias, women hang around longer because they're less capable of indignation and better at being humiliated, for what is old age but one long string of indignities? What person of integrity would put up with it?
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integrity
men
women
indignities
old-age
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Margaret Atwood |
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1034ef1
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People need such stories, because however dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void.
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Margaret Atwood |
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abf7885
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Jimmy found himself wishing to make a dent in Crake, get a reaction; it was one of his weaknesses, to care what other people thought of him.
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Margaret Atwood |
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74d28c8
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But how else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin?
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ruin
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Margaret Atwood |
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1180b99
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Her metaphors for her children included barnacles encrusting a ship and limpets clinging to a rock.
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Margaret Atwood |
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7ab8dae
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A divorce is like an amputation, you survive but there's less of you.
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Margaret Atwood |
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884ec68
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Flowers, for instance, because where would we be without them?
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Margaret Atwood |
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4e6c05c
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Si solo es un cuento, parece menos espantoso.
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Margaret Atwood |
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f987be6
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An unearned income encourages self-pity in those already prone to it.
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self-pity
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Margaret Atwood |
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7ad9655
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Don't cry anymore, she tells herself. Just do one thing at a time. Get from hour to hour and day to day like a frog jumping on lily pads.
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Margaret Atwood |
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c3d582d
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You shouldn't do that," said Laura. "You could set yourself on fire."
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life-lessons
life
inspirational
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Margaret Atwood |
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ad0d2ec
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A writer's age at the time of a work's composition is never irrelevant.
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writer
author
relevance
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Margaret Atwood |
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ac6e417
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Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse.
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Margaret Atwood |
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5926ebd
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there was little that was truly original or indigenous to Gilead. Its genius was synthesis.
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Margaret Atwood |
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9afca04
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My hands are out of practice, my eyes disused. Most of what I do is drawing, because the preparation of the surface, the laborious underpainting and detailed concentration... are too much for me. I have lost confidence: perhaps all I will ever be is what I am now.
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Margaret Atwood |
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6b78863
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oil paints...the look of licked lips.
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Margaret Atwood |
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fdce5de
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I had a boyfriend once who sent me--in a plastic bag, so it wouldn't drip--a real cow's heart with a real arrow stuck through it. As you may divine, he knew I was interested in poetry.
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Margaret Atwood |
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1807aa3
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Nobody's heart is perfect.
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Margaret Atwood |
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6f5402c
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I try to remember if the past was exactly like this. I'm not sure, now. I know it contained these things, but somehow the mix is different. A movie about the past is not the same as the past
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Margaret Atwood |
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ded0036
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It was a question now, rather than a statement; a question with no answer.
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Margaret Atwood |
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d31df23
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Spend this in remembrance of me.
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spend
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Margaret Atwood |
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805a723
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I don't even close my eyes. Out there or inside my head, it's an equal darkness. Or light.
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Margaret Atwood |
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54e8287
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Girl Without Hands Walking through the ruins on your way to work that do not look like ruins with the sunlight pouring over the seen world like hail or melted silver, that bright and magnificent, each leaf and stone quickened and specific in it, and you can't hold it, you can't hold any of it. Distance surrounds you, marked out by the ends of your arms when they are stretched to their fullest. You can go no farther than this, you think, wal..
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burned
without
hands
morning
margaret
house
girl
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Margaret Atwood |
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76f2078
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I look up at the ceiling, tracing the foliage of the wreath. Today it makes me think of a hat, the large-brimmed hats women used to wear at some period during the old days: hats like enormous halos, festooned with fruit and flowers, and the feathers of exotic birds; hats like an idea of paradise, floating just above the head, a thought solidified.
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Margaret Atwood |
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a8ad265
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With a room of his own, a room at the top, he could proffer a temporary refuge to some lovely, fatigued, world-weary, sophisticated, black-turtlenecked, heavily-eyelinered girl he might lure up the stairs into his newspaper-strewn boudoir and onto his Indian-bedspreaded bed with the promise of artistic talk about the craft of writing, and the throes and torments of creation, and the need for integrity, and the temptations of selling out, an..
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Margaret Atwood |
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05c48fc
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To pronounce the name of the dead is to make them live again, said the ancient Egyptians: not always what one might wish.
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Margaret Atwood |
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104d587
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If you can't stop the waves, go sailing.
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Margaret Atwood |
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a47af1d
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This murdered girl troubles me. After the first shock, nobody at school says much about her. Even Cordelia does not want to talk about her. It's as if this girl has done something shameful, herself, by being murdered.
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murder
women
girls
shame
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Margaret Atwood |
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4181bb5
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I don't even glance at the herbal teas, I go straight for the real, vile coffee. Jitter in a cup. It cheers me up to know I'll soon be so tense.
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Margaret Atwood |
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1ca5f57
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Why hyphenate, why parenthesize, unless absolutely necessary?
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Margaret Atwood |
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99ee480
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She believed in public service; she felt she had to roll up her sleeves and do something useful for the war effort. She organized a Comfort Circle, which collected money through rummage sales. This was spent on small boxes containing tobacco and candies, which were sent off to the trenches. She threw open Avilion for these functions, which (said Reenie) was hard on the floors. In addition to the rummage sales, every Tuesday afternoon her gr..
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war-effort
knitting
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Margaret Atwood |
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c092b55
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I should have known better than to rely on pills. You can't buy unconsciousness quite so cheaply.
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unconsciousness
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Margaret Atwood |
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3ff859f
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that's what Hiltler exemplified: not the triumph of evil but the failure of reason.
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Margaret Atwood |
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17362b6
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A road is a process, not a location.
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Margaret Atwood |
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5a99eed
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Now, it's full night, clear, moonless and filled with stars, which are not eternal as we once thought, which are not where we think they are. If they were sounds, they would be echoes, of something that happened millions of year ago: a word made of numbers. Echoes of light, shining out of the midst of nothing. It's old light, and there's not much of it. But it's enough to see by.
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Margaret Atwood |
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e81e315
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Their youngness is terrifying. How could I have put myself into the hands of such inexperience?
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Margaret Atwood |
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2a12bdf
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It must have been then that I began to lose faith in reasonable argument as the sole measure of truth.
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Margaret Atwood |
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8c56cba
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The tension between her lack of control and her attempt to suppress it is horrible. It's like a fart in church.
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Margaret Atwood |
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2d68ad8
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He'll find out somehow, because journeys end in lovers meeting.
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Margaret Atwood |
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5fb8ad7
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You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality. The only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.
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Margaret Atwood |
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dbd8207
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Miranda nods, because she knows that to be true: noble people don't do things for the money, they simply have money, and that's what allows they to be noble. They don't really have to think about it much; they sprout benevolent acts the way trees sprout leaves.
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wealth
charitable-acts
wealthy
charity
nobility
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Margaret Atwood |
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0f35fc6
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It is the strict adherence to daily routine that tends towards the maintenance of good morale and the preservation of sanity," he says out loud."
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Margaret Atwood |