Quotes from Margaret Atwood

What was the rationale for all this pillaging? Souvenirs. These people needed something to remember themselves by. An odd thing, souvenir-hunting: now becomes then even while it is still now. You don't really believe you're there, and so you nick the proof, or something you mistake for it.

I am still a coward, still fearful; none of that has changed. But I turn and walk away from her. It's like stepping off a cliff, believing the air will hold you up. And it does. I see that I don't have to do what she says, and worse and better, I've never had to do what she says. I can do what I like.

Becka had a lot of these control-yourself techniques. I tried to practise them. They worked some of the time.

She's truly a woman?" said Aunt Gabbana, eyeing me shrewdly. "Of course," said Paula. "None of that's padding?" said Aunt Gabbana, nodding towards my chest. "Certainly not!" said Paula. "You'd be amazed at what some families try. She has nice wide hips, none of these narrow pelvises. Let me see your teeth, Agnes.

Do you know what it came from? said Luke. Mayday? It's French, he said. From m'aidez. Help me.

With no orders to follow, she occupies her mind by painting her nails, which is a very soothing thing to do when you're anxious and keyed up. Some people like to throw objects, such as glasses of water or rocks, but nail painting is more positive. If more world leaders would take it up there would be less overall suffering, in her opinion.

if you want people to leave you alone you should act crazy.

It's French, he said. From m'aidez. Help me.

Maybe they'll just take her someplace else, like an island, with the other people on it who are like her. People who don't fit in, but not criminal elements. Surely that's what they'll do.

But compassion takes work, and we were young.

The answer can only be that God has given Adam free will, and therefore Adam may do things that God Himself cannot anticipate in advance.

As a species we're doomed by hope, then?

There's a moon now, almost full. Good luck for owls; bad luck for rabbits, who often choose to cavort riskily but sexily in the moonlight, their brains buzzing with pheromones.

Death always comes without knocking. Why now? is the cry. Why so soon? It's the cry of a child being called home at dusk, it's the universal protest against Time. Just remember, dear Friends: What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question.

Alcohol's a depressant, it will let me down later.

Then she lent me her red flannel petticoat until I should get one of my own, and showed me how to fold and pin the cloths, and said hat some called it Eve's curse but she thought that was stupid, and the real curse of Eve was having to put up with the nonsense of Adam, who as soon as there was any trouble, blamed it all on her.

Beads can be used for counting. As in rosaries. But I don't like stones around my neck.

take your time, leave mine alone

Too good to be true, I will think. Too good for this earth. Good, be thou my evil.

Perfection exacts a price, but it's the imperfect who pay it.

She breathes in the cold air; pellets of blown ice whip against her face. The wind's getting up, as the TV said it would. Nonetheless there's something brisk about being out in the storm, something energizing: it whisks away the cobwebs, it makes you inhale.

All right, I say. I don't smile. Why tempt her to friendship?

But a chair, sunlight, flowers: these are not to be dismissed. I am alive, I live, I breathe, I put my hand out, unfolded, into the sunlight. Where I am is not a prison but a privilege, as Aunt Lydia said, who was in love with either/or.

The doctor tapped my ribs and eavesdropped on my heart.