b2dbd5a
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He's humanoid, he's hominid, he's an aberration, he's abominable; he'd be legendary, if there were anyone left to relate legends.
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Margaret Atwood |
3ad10dc
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Change can be accommodated by any system depending on its rate, Crake used to say. Touch your head to a wall, nothing happens, but if the same head hits the wall at ninety miles an hour, it's red paint. We're in a speed tunnel, Jimmy. When the water's moving faster than the boat, you can't control a thing.
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time
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Margaret Atwood |
6d0d06d
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We thought we could do better. Better? I say, in a small voice. How can he think this is better? Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some.
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Margaret Atwood |
c1be6ce
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Human beings- I've observed- are hot-wired for score keeping, and since they like to win, they're always going one better than the other fellow.
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Margaret Atwood |
dd10c70
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The imprint left on her mind by the long famished body that had seemed in the darkness to consist of nothing by sharp crags and angles, the memory of its painfully-defined almost skeletal ribcage, a pattern of ridges like a washboard, was fading as rapidly as any other transient impression on a soft surface.
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Margaret Atwood |
4060147
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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 |
2999225
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One young fellow pointed to another steamer in the distance, and said it was the Lady of the Lake, a United States vessel which until recently was thought to be the fastest boat on the Lake; but she had just lost a trial-of-speed race to the new Royal Mail Standard boat, the Eclipse, which outran her by four minutes and a half. And I said didn't that make him proud, and he said no, because he had bet a dollar on the Lady. And all present la..
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inspirational
reflective
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Margaret Atwood |
a5bba8b
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because that was the effect love had on you. It snuck up on you, grabbed hold of you before you know it, and then there was nothing you could do. Once you were in it - in love - you would be swept away, regardless. Or so the books had it.
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Margaret Atwood |
681c4dd
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Our big mistake was teaching them to read. We won't make that mistake again.
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Margaret Atwood |
71b27db
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Don't interfere with false gods, you'll get the gold paint all over your hands.
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Margaret Atwood |
0fecf75
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But how can you have a sense of wonder if you're prepared for everything? Prepared for the sunset. Prepared for the moonrise. Prepared for the ice storm. What a flat existence that would be.
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Margaret Atwood |
5adbfd4
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Dream steals from its lair towards its prey.
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Margaret Atwood |
a4e1578
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Eu gostaria de nao ter vergonha. Gostaria de ser sem vergonha. Gostaria de ser ignorante. Entao eu nao saberia o quanto era ignorante.
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Margaret Atwood |
10315cb
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So when time had begun to run out on Adelia with no really acceptable husband in sight, she'd married money -- crude money, button money. She was expected to refine this money, like oil.
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money
refine
oil
husband
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Margaret Atwood |
b29055a
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How soon before there are ancient texts they feel they have to obey but have forgotten how to interpret?
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Margaret Atwood |
6c167dd
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The sitting room is subdued, symmetrical; it's one of the shapes money takes when it freezes.
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Margaret Atwood |
2ffd0d3
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Each of the five tribes claims to have been the victorious attacker. Each recalls the slaughter with relish. Each believes it was ordained by their own god as righteous vengeance, because of the unholy practices carried on in the city. Evil must be cleansed with blood, they say. On that day the blood ran like water, so afterwards it must have been very clean.
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Margaret Atwood |
398e8b8
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I really don't know what men used to say. I had only their words for it.
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not-trusting
what-men-say
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Margaret Atwood |
82e23df
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All that wasted time, and he didn't even know who'd wasted it.
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Margaret Atwood |
95c066b
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All those paintings of women, in art galleries, surprised at private moments. Nymph Sleeping. Susanna and the Elders. Woman bathing, one foot in a tin tub - Renoir, or was it Degas? both, both women plump. Diana and her maidens, a moment before they catch the hunter's prying eyes. Never any paintings called Man Washing Socks in Sink.)
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Margaret Atwood |
d99bc03
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A sad pretty girl inspires the urge to console, unlike a sad old crone.
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Margaret Atwood |
410374b
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So we couldn't mingle with them, but we could eavesdrop. We got our knowledge that way--we caught it like germs.
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Margaret Atwood |
4a26589
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the hearts gone bubonic with jealousy and greed, glinting through the vests and sweaters of anyone at all.
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Margaret Atwood |
f746f46
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For if the world treats you well, Sir, you come to believe you are deserving of it. Mary
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Margaret Atwood |
d1508ac
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A Sister, dipped in blood
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Margaret Atwood |
249a6d9
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I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilized. I wish it showed me in a better light, if not happier, then at least more active, less hesitant, less distracted by trivia. I wish it had more shape. I wish it were about love, or about sudden realizations important to one's life, or even about sunsets, birds, rainstorms, or snow.
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Margaret Atwood |
3ea25df
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She was an infallible prophetess, and these powers came from her ability to look into the patterns of the universe.
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Margaret Atwood |
812f900
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The moment of betrayal is the worst, the moment when you know beyond any doubt that you've been betrayed: that some other human being has wished you that much evil.
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Margaret Atwood |
2ac6b78
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But I'm ravenous for news, any kind of news; even if it's false news, it must mean something.
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false-news
news
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Margaret Atwood |
d978fde
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In those timeless years between infancy and, say, seven what is has always been: in that way children inhabit the realm of myth.
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Margaret Atwood |
49812ca
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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 |
aba41e7
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Things, the word she used when whatever it stood for was too distasteful or filthy or horrible to pass her lips. A successful life for her was one that avoided things, excluded things. Such things do not happen to nice women.
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Margaret Atwood |
653a862
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You don't take a hammer - not to mention an electric screwdriver and a pipe wrench - to a guy's computer without being quite angry.
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Margaret Atwood |
584b0b4
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Think of yourselves as pearls. We, sitting in our rows, eyes down, we make her salivate morally. We are hers to define, we must suffer her adjectives. I think about pearls. Pearls are congealed oyster spit.
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rational
witty
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Margaret Atwood |
acfdad0
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Then there's the two of us. This word is far too short for us, it has only four letters, too sparse to fill those deep bare vacuums between the stars that press on us with their deafness. It's not love we don't wish to fall into, but that fear. This word is not enough but it will have to do. It's a single vowel in this metallic silence, a mouth that says O again and again in wonder and pain, a breath, a finger grip on a cliffside. You can h..
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poetry
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Margaret Atwood |
7f0c52c
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I wonder why trying to transcend time never even succeeds in stopping it...
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Margaret Atwood |
259bc33
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A return to traditional values. Waste not want not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want?
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Margaret Atwood |
6a74cfc
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I know I was alright on Friday when I got up; if anything I was feeling more stolid than usual.
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Margaret Atwood |
9be9bc4
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Also I could hear Amanda's voice: Why are you being so weak? Love's never a fair trade. So Jimmy's tired of you, so what, there's guys all over the place like germs, and you can pick them like flowers and toss them away when they're wilted. But you have to act like you're having a spectacular time and every day's a party.
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love
germs
jimmy
ren
flowers
party
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Margaret Atwood |
eddc9bd
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But I envy the Commander's Wife her knitting. It's good to have small goals that can be easily attained.
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Margaret Atwood |
f2473ae
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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.
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Margaret Atwood |
26f2eaa
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He's a young man, my own age or a little older, which is young for a man although not for a woman,
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Margaret Atwood |
3f162d7
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Why is war so much like a practical joke? she thinks. Hiding behind bushes, leaping out, with not much difference between Boo! and Bang! except the blood. The loser falls over with a scream, followed with a foolish expression, mouth agape, eyes akimbo. Those old biblical kings, setting their feet on conquered necks, stringing up rival kings on trees, rejoicing in piles of heads - there was an element of childish glee in all of that. Maybe i..
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Margaret Atwood |
e3080c7
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Did I really wear bathing suits, at the beach? I did, without thought, among men, without caring that my legs, my arms, my thighs and back were on display, could be seen. Shameful, immodest.
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Margaret Atwood |