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e44ba76
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For so much time, our history was written in bones only.
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Margaret Atwood |
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258a21d
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All she wants is a miracle, because anything else is hopeless.
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Margaret Atwood |
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54a5f8b
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This is "poetry," this song of the wind across teeth, this message from the flayed tongue to the flayed ear."
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Margaret Atwood |
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5d9508a
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Our fragments made us.
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Margaret Atwood |
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3c712bf
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With you I could have more than one skin, a blank interior, a repertoire of untold stories, a fresh beginning.
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Margaret Atwood |
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809fbe7
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Charis tried not to mind, since nothing that was or had been would perish, and the farm was still inside her, it was still hers because places belonged to the people who loved them.
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Margaret Atwood |
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f6ce238
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She is the witch you burned by daylight and crept from your home to consult & bribe at night. The love that tortured you you blamed on her.
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Margaret Atwood |
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eb23aad
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whatever else women want to see, it's not themselves; not in their worst light anyway.
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Margaret Atwood |
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785b6d2
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Attack, voracious eating, and flight: it's a sound routine for staying alive on edges.
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Margaret Atwood |
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3070eb5
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Why couldn't the two of them have gone on and on forever? Himself and Constance, sun and moon, each one of them shining, though in different ways. Instead of which he's here, forsaken by her, abandoned. In time, which fails to sustain him. In space, which fails to cradle him.
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Margaret Atwood |
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ce15473
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But in life, a tragedy is not one long scream. It includes everything that led up to it. Hour after trivial hours, day after day, year after year, and then the sudden moment: the knife stab, the shell-burst, the plummet of the car from the bridge.
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Margaret Atwood |
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181c083
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She did not believe he was a monster. He was not a monster, to her. Probably he had some endearing trait: he whistled, offkey, in the shower, he had a yen for truffles, he called his dog Liebchen and made it sit up for little pieces of raw steak. How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all. What an available temptation.
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Margaret Atwood |
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aaa387a
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recently returned from Boston, where she was staying with her Aunt, to broaden her education. She has turned out a charming young woman, everything one might wish for, and displayed a courtesy and gentle kindness many would admire, and which is worth so much
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Margaret Atwood |
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005f804
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The liver is evil and must be punished.
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Margaret Atwood |
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83ec090
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But Jimmy, you should know. All sex is real.
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Margaret Atwood |
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be84a34
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Sex is like drink, it's bad to start brooding about it too early in the day.
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Margaret Atwood |
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2d1f0be
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As a species we're doomed by hope, then?
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Margaret Atwood |
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ec6c004
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Why do you want to talk about ugly things?" she said. Her voice was silvery, like a music box. She waved one hand in the air to dry the nails. "We should think only beautiful things, as much as we can. There is so much beautiful in the world if you look around. You are looking only at the dirt under your feet, Jimmy. It's not good for you."
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Margaret Atwood |
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4e25d64
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As a species we're doomed by hope, then? You could call it hope. That, or desperation. But we're doomed without hope, as well, said Jimmy. Only as individuals, said Crake cheerfully.
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humanity
hope
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Margaret Atwood |
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1b9e0f1
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Women collect grievances, hold grudges and change shape. They pass hard, legitimate judgments, unlike the purblind guesses of men, fogged with romanticism and ignorance and bias and wish. Women know too much, they can neither be deceived nor trusted.
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Margaret Atwood |
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9f5f926
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There is something subversive about this garden of Serena's, a sense of buried things bursting upwards, wordlessly, into the light, as if to point, to say: Whatever is silenced will clamor to be heard, though silently.
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silence
secrets
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Margaret Atwood |
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1c35454
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He doesn't say what he thinks of my paintings, but I know anyway. He thinks they are irrelevant. In his mind, what I paint is lumped in with the women who paint flowers. Lumped is the word. The present tense is moving forward, discarding concept after concept, and I am off to the side somewhere, fiddling with egg tempera and flat surfaces, as if the twentieth century has never happened. There is freedom in this: because it doesn't matter w..
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Margaret Atwood |
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e86e350
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Translation was never possible. Instead there was always only conquest, the influx of the language of hard nouns, the language of metal, the language of either/or, the one language that has eaten all the others.
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Margaret Atwood |
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976fd4d
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Just remember this, when the scream at last has ended and you've turned on the lights: by the rules of the game, I must always lie.
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writing
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Margaret Atwood |
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5303fad
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Have I been conditioned to believe that if I am not solicitous, if I am not forthcoming, if I am not a never-ending cornicopia of entertaining delights, they will take their collections of milk-bottle tops and their mangy one-eared teddy bears and go away into the woods by themselves to play snipers? Probably. What my mother thinks was merely cute may have been lethal.
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mothers
cuteness
mothering
mothers-and-daughters
men-and-women
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Margaret Atwood |
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bc6e1b3
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Do you hunger for me, do you burn for me
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Margaret Atwood |
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0631db6
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Yes, they know her. They touch her lips, gather her words, fly away with the message, disappear into the dark. Pass through the membrane that separates this world from the unseen world that lies just underneath it.
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Margaret Atwood |
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0ca6a9a
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I reached the privy and emptied the slop pail, and so forth. And so forth, Grace? asks Dr.Jordan. I look at him. Really if he does not know what you do in a privy there is no hope for him. What I did was, I hoisted my skirts and sat down above the buzzing flies, on the same seat everyone in the house sat on, lady or lady's maid, they both piss and it smells the same, and not like lilac neither, as Mary Whitney used to say. What was in there..
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Margaret Atwood |
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2f5c56f
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The pen between my fingers is sensuous, alive almost, I can feel its power, the power of the words it contains.
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Margaret Atwood |
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088b35a
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Their youth is touching, but I know I can't be deceived by it. The young ones are often the most dangerous, the most fanatical, the jumpiest with their guns. They haven't yet learned about existence through time. You have to go slowly with them.
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Margaret Atwood |
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d7c5240
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But compassion takes work, and we were young.
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Margaret Atwood |
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88c0605
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I felt confused, and also inadequate; whatever he was asking or demanding, it was beyond me. this was the first time a man would expect more from me than i was capable of giving, but it wouldn't be the last.
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women
male-domination
male-supremacy
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Margaret Atwood |
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9718e0d
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Is this purgatory, and if it is, why is it so much like the first grade?
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Margaret Atwood |
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df94085
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She can outstare anyone, and I am almost as good. We're impervious, we scintillate, we are thirteen. We wear long wool coats with tie belts, the collars turned up to look like those of movie stars, and rubber boots with the tops folded down and men's work socks inside. In our pockets are stuffed the kerchiefs our mothers make us wear but that we take off as soon as we're out of their sight. We scorn head coverings. Our mouths are tough, cra..
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Margaret Atwood |
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bb4e621
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Kick in the door, and what did I tell you? Caught in the act, sinfully Scrabbling. Quick, eat those words.
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Margaret Atwood |
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ebb360d
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She sees where she is, she's here, by herself, she's stranded in the future. She doesn't know how to get back.
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Margaret Atwood |
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721ddcd
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He wanted me to play Scrabble with him, and kiss him as if I meant it. This was one of the most bizarre things that's happened to me, ever.
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Margaret Atwood |
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75a66b1
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Having long ago whispered , I now realize that this wish will indeed be fulfilled, and sooner rather than later. No matter that I've changed my mind about it.
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fulfilled
wish
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Margaret Atwood |
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2adc229
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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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e8bcbad
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Nothing takes place in the bed but sleep; or no sleep. I try not to think too much. Like other things now, thought must be rationed. There's a lot that doesn't bear thinking about. Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last.
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Margaret Atwood |
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a7da334
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How much misery . . . 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 -..
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sex
love
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Margaret Atwood |
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cc01931
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History, as I recall, was never this winsome, and especially not this clean, but the real thing would never sell: most people prefer a past in which nothing smells.
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Margaret Atwood |
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a2cc2b2
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Encyclopedia-selling was known to be the last resort of the feckless, the inept, and the desperate
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Margaret Atwood |
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b7f5c64
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I suffer from my own multiplicity. Two or three images would have been enough, or four, or five. That would be allowed for a firm idea: This is she. As it is, I'm watery, I ripple, from moment to moment I dissolve into my other selves.
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Margaret Atwood |