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Margaret Atwood

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...we must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing.
From The Year of the Flood
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Hope
Glenn used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, 'I'll be dead,' you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's how people got the idea of the immortality of the soul - it was a consequence of grammar.
From The Year of the Flood
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, she'd be thinking, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time.
From The Year of the Flood
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
There were a lot of gods. Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything.
From The Blind Assassin
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Religious people of any serious kind made her nervous: they were like men in raincoats who might or might not be flashers.
From Bluebeard's Egg
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Nature full strength is more than we can take, Adam One used to say. It's a potent hallucinogen, a soporific, for the untrained Soul. We're no longer at home in it. We need to dilute it. We can't drink it straight. And God is the same. Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered.
From The Year of the Flood
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
All you have to do, I tell myself, is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard.
From The Handmaid’s Tale
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
They didn't realize that her clumsiness was not the ordinary kind, not poor coordination. It was just because she wasn't sure where the edges of her body ended and the rest of the world began.
From The Robber Bride
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
A Paradox, the doughnut hole. Empty space, once, but now they've learned to market even that. A minus quantity; nothing, rendered edible. I wondered if they might be used-metaphorically, of course-to demonstrate the existence of God. Does naming a sphere of nothingness transmute it into being?
From Der blinde Mörder
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical, Religion
By now you must have guessed: I come from another planet. But I will never say to you, Take me to your leaders. Even I - unused to your ways though I am - would never make that mistake. We ourselves have such beings among us, made of cogs, pieces of paper, small disks of shiny metal, scraps of coloured cloth. I do not need to encounter more of them.

Instead I will say, Take me to your trees. Take me to your breakfasts, your sunsets, your bad dreams, your shoes, your nouns. Take me to your fingers; take me to your deaths.

These are worth it. These are what I have come for.
From Good Bones and Simple Murders
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
The reason they invented coffins, to lock the dead in, preserve them, they put makeup on them; they didn't want them spreading or changing into anything else. The stone with the name and date was on them to weight them down.
From Surfacing
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it.
From The Edible Woman
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Better not to invent her in her absence. Better to wait until she's actually here. Then he can make her up as she goes along.
From The Blind Assassin
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.
From The Handmaid’s Tale
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
You fit into me
like a hook into an eye
a fish hook
an open eye
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
I learned about religion the way most children learned about sex, [in the schoolyard]. . . . They terrified me by telling me there was a dead man in the sky watching everything I did and I retaliated by explaining where babies came from. Some of their mothers phoned mine to complain, though I think I was more upset than they were: they didn't believe me but I believed them.
From Surfacing
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
How could I be sleeping with this particular man.... Surely only true love could justify my lack of taste.
From Lady Oracle
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny, Relationships
I'm not senile," I snapped. "If I burn the house down it will be on purpose.
From The Blind Assassin
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I planned my death carefully, unlike my life, which meandered along from one thing to another, despite my feeble attempts to control it.
From Lady Oracle
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
The Chorus Line:
A Rope-Jumping Rhyme

we are the maids
the ones you killed
the ones you failed

we danced in air
our bare feet twitched
it was not fair

with every goddess, queen, and bitch
from there to here
you scratched your itch

we did much less
than what you did
you judged us bad

you had the spear
you had the word
at your command

we scrubbed the blood
of our dead
paramours from floors, from chairs

from stairs, from doors,
we knelt in water
while you stared

at our bare feet
it was not fair
you licked our fear

it gave you pleasure
you raised your hand
you watched us fall

we danced on air
the ones you failed
the ones you killed
From The Penelopiad
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
What you don’t know won’t hurt you. A dubious maxim: sometimes what you don’t know can hurt you very much.
From The Blind Assassin
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
Potential has a shelf life.
From Cat's Eye
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
One of the gravestones in the cemetery near the earliest church has an anchor on it and an hourglass, and the words In Hope.

In Hope. Why did they put that above a dead person? Was it the corpse hoping, or those still alive?
From The Handmaid's Tale
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death, Hope
If you worked out enough, maybe the man would too. Maybe you would be able to work it out together, as if the two of you were a puzzle that could be solved; otherwise, one of you, most likely the man, taking his addictive body with him and leaving you with bad withdrawal, which you could counteract by exercise. If you didn't work it out it was because one of you had the wrong attitude.
From The Handmaid’s Tale
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
...we must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing.
From The Year of the Flood
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Hope
Glenn used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, 'I'll be dead,' you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's how people got the idea of the immortality of the soul - it was a consequence of grammar.
From The Year of the Flood
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, she'd be thinking, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time.
From The Year of the Flood
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
There were a lot of gods. Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything.
From The Blind Assassin
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Religious people of any serious kind made her nervous: they were like men in raincoats who might or might not be flashers.
From Bluebeard's Egg
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Nature full strength is more than we can take, Adam One used to say. It's a potent hallucinogen, a soporific, for the untrained Soul. We're no longer at home in it. We need to dilute it. We can't drink it straight. And God is the same. Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered.
From The Year of the Flood
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
All you have to do, I tell myself, is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard.
From The Handmaid’s Tale
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
They didn't realize that her clumsiness was not the ordinary kind, not poor coordination. It was just because she wasn't sure where the edges of her body ended and the rest of the world began.
From The Robber Bride
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
A Paradox, the doughnut hole. Empty space, once, but now they've learned to market even that. A minus quantity; nothing, rendered edible. I wondered if they might be used-metaphorically, of course-to demonstrate the existence of God. Does naming a sphere of nothingness transmute it into being?
From Der blinde Mörder
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical, Religion
By now you must have guessed: I come from another planet. But I will never say to you, Take me to your leaders. Even I - unused to your ways though I am - would never make that mistake. We ourselves have such beings among us, made of cogs, pieces of paper, small disks of shiny metal, scraps of coloured cloth. I do not need to encounter more of them.

Instead I will say, Take me to your trees. Take me to your breakfasts, your sunsets, your bad dreams, your shoes, your nouns. Take me to your fingers; take me to your deaths.

These are worth it. These are what I have come for.
From Good Bones and Simple Murders
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
The reason they invented coffins, to lock the dead in, preserve them, they put makeup on them; they didn't want them spreading or changing into anything else. The stone with the name and date was on them to weight them down.
From Surfacing
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it.
From The Edible Woman
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Better not to invent her in her absence. Better to wait until she's actually here. Then he can make her up as she goes along.
From The Blind Assassin
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.
From The Handmaid’s Tale
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
You fit into me
like a hook into an eye
a fish hook
an open eye
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
I learned about religion the way most children learned about sex, [in the schoolyard]. . . . They terrified me by telling me there was a dead man in the sky watching everything I did and I retaliated by explaining where babies came from. Some of their mothers phoned mine to complain, though I think I was more upset than they were: they didn't believe me but I believed them.
From Surfacing
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
How could I be sleeping with this particular man.... Surely only true love could justify my lack of taste.
From Lady Oracle
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny, Relationships
I'm not senile," I snapped. "If I burn the house down it will be on purpose.
From The Blind Assassin
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I planned my death carefully, unlike my life, which meandered along from one thing to another, despite my feeble attempts to control it.
From Lady Oracle
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
The Chorus Line:
A Rope-Jumping Rhyme

we are the maids
the ones you killed
the ones you failed

we danced in air
our bare feet twitched
it was not fair

with every goddess, queen, and bitch
from there to here
you scratched your itch

we did much less
than what you did
you judged us bad

you had the spear
you had the word
at your command

we scrubbed the blood
of our dead
paramours from floors, from chairs

from stairs, from doors,
we knelt in water
while you stared

at our bare feet
it was not fair
you licked our fear

it gave you pleasure
you raised your hand
you watched us fall

we danced on air
the ones you failed
the ones you killed
From The Penelopiad
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
What you don’t know won’t hurt you. A dubious maxim: sometimes what you don’t know can hurt you very much.
From The Blind Assassin
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
Potential has a shelf life.
From Cat's Eye
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
One of the gravestones in the cemetery near the earliest church has an anchor on it and an hourglass, and the words In Hope.

In Hope. Why did they put that above a dead person? Was it the corpse hoping, or those still alive?
From The Handmaid's Tale
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death, Hope
If you worked out enough, maybe the man would too. Maybe you would be able to work it out together, as if the two of you were a puzzle that could be solved; otherwise, one of you, most likely the man, taking his addictive body with him and leaving you with bad withdrawal, which you could counteract by exercise. If you didn't work it out it was because one of you had the wrong attitude.
From The Handmaid’s Tale
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
...we must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing.
From The Year of the Flood
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Hope
Glenn used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, 'I'll be dead,' you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's how people got the idea of the immortality of the soul - it was a consequence of grammar.
From The Year of the Flood
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, she'd be thinking, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time.
From The Year of the Flood
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
There were a lot of gods. Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything.
From The Blind Assassin
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Religious people of any serious kind made her nervous: they were like men in raincoats who might or might not be flashers.
From Bluebeard's Egg
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Nature full strength is more than we can take, Adam One used to say. It's a potent hallucinogen, a soporific, for the untrained Soul. We're no longer at home in it. We need to dilute it. We can't drink it straight. And God is the same. Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered.
From The Year of the Flood
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
All you have to do, I tell myself, is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard.
From The Handmaid’s Tale
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
They didn't realize that her clumsiness was not the ordinary kind, not poor coordination. It was just because she wasn't sure where the edges of her body ended and the rest of the world began.
From The Robber Bride
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
A Paradox, the doughnut hole. Empty space, once, but now they've learned to market even that. A minus quantity; nothing, rendered edible. I wondered if they might be used-metaphorically, of course-to demonstrate the existence of God. Does naming a sphere of nothingness transmute it into being?
From Der blinde Mörder
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical, Religion
By now you must have guessed: I come from another planet. But I will never say to you, Take me to your leaders. Even I - unused to your ways though I am - would never make that mistake. We ourselves have such beings among us, made of cogs, pieces of paper, small disks of shiny metal, scraps of coloured cloth. I do not need to encounter more of them.

Instead I will say, Take me to your trees. Take me to your breakfasts, your sunsets, your bad dreams, your shoes, your nouns. Take me to your fingers; take me to your deaths.

These are worth it. These are what I have come for.
From Good Bones and Simple Murders
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
The reason they invented coffins, to lock the dead in, preserve them, they put makeup on them; they didn't want them spreading or changing into anything else. The stone with the name and date was on them to weight them down.
From Surfacing
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it.
From The Edible Woman
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Better not to invent her in her absence. Better to wait until she's actually here. Then he can make her up as she goes along.
From The Blind Assassin
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.
From The Handmaid’s Tale
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
You fit into me
like a hook into an eye
a fish hook
an open eye
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
I learned about religion the way most children learned about sex, [in the schoolyard]. . . . They terrified me by telling me there was a dead man in the sky watching everything I did and I retaliated by explaining where babies came from. Some of their mothers phoned mine to complain, though I think I was more upset than they were: they didn't believe me but I believed them.
From Surfacing
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
How could I be sleeping with this particular man.... Surely only true love could justify my lack of taste.
From Lady Oracle
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny, Relationships
I'm not senile," I snapped. "If I burn the house down it will be on purpose.
From The Blind Assassin
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I planned my death carefully, unlike my life, which meandered along from one thing to another, despite my feeble attempts to control it.
From Lady Oracle
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
The Chorus Line:
A Rope-Jumping Rhyme

we are the maids
the ones you killed
the ones you failed

we danced in air
our bare feet twitched
it was not fair

with every goddess, queen, and bitch
from there to here
you scratched your itch

we did much less
than what you did
you judged us bad

you had the spear
you had the word
at your command

we scrubbed the blood
of our dead
paramours from floors, from chairs

from stairs, from doors,
we knelt in water
while you stared

at our bare feet
it was not fair
you licked our fear

it gave you pleasure
you raised your hand
you watched us fall

we danced on air
the ones you failed
the ones you killed
From The Penelopiad
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
What you don’t know won’t hurt you. A dubious maxim: sometimes what you don’t know can hurt you very much.
From The Blind Assassin
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
Potential has a shelf life.
From Cat's Eye
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
One of the gravestones in the cemetery near the earliest church has an anchor on it and an hourglass, and the words In Hope.

In Hope. Why did they put that above a dead person? Was it the corpse hoping, or those still alive?
From The Handmaid's Tale
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death, Hope
If you worked out enough, maybe the man would too. Maybe you would be able to work it out together, as if the two of you were a puzzle that could be solved; otherwise, one of you, most likely the man, taking his addictive body with him and leaving you with bad withdrawal, which you could counteract by exercise. If you didn't work it out it was because one of you had the wrong attitude.
From The Handmaid’s Tale
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
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