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Quotes About Betrayal

But it's love that does us in.
~ Margaret Atwood
At school, he enacted a major piece of treachery against his parents. His right hand was Evil Dad, and his left was Righteous Mom. Evil Dad blustered and theorized and dished out pompous bullshit. Righteous Mom complained and accused. In Righteous Mom's cosmology, Evil Dad was the sole source of hemmoroids, kleptomania, global conflict, bad breath, tectonic-plate fault lines, and clogged drains, as well as every migraine headache and menstrual cramp Righteous Mom had ever suffered.
~ Margaret Atwood
Yes, good, kind Crake. Please stop singing or I can't go on with the story.
~ Margaret Atwood
Fuck , thinks Stan. She knows about the chickens.
~ Margaret Atwood
A Sister, dipped in blood
~ Margaret Atwood
Their faces were the way women's faces are when they've been talking about you behind your back and they think you've heard: embarrassed, but also a little defiant, as if it were their right.
~ Margaret Atwood
None of them were the men we knew. The newspaper stories were like dreams to us, bad dreams dreamt by others.
~ Margaret Atwood
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.
~ Margaret Atwood
It wasn't just the sex." A dark smile from her: that's better. "You know 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.
~ Margaret Atwood
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.
~ Margaret Atwood
Why were the bad people doing that? Because of Money. Money was invisible, like Fuck. They thought that Money was their helper; they thought he was a better helper than Fuck. But they were wrong about that. Money was not their helper. Money goes away just when you need it. But Fuck is very loyal.
~ Margaret Atwood
And if I talk to him, I'll say something wrong, give something away. I can feel it coming, a betrayal of myself.
~ Margaret Atwood
I bet it's your mouldy socks," said Jimmy. "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten these little socks.
~ Margaret Atwood
after the man had left, the mothers who had sold their children felt empty and sad. They felt as if this act, done freely by themselves (no one had forced them, no one had threatened them) had not been performed willingly. They felt cheated as well, as if the price had been too low. Why hadn't they demanded more?
~ Margaret Atwood
Roz is crying again. What she's mourning is her own good will. She tried so hard, she tried so hard to be kind and nurturing, to do the best thing. But Tony and the twins were right: no matter what you do, somebody always gets boiled.
~ Margaret Atwood
We fight in whispers or well out of the way, because if we're caught we will both be punished. For this reason we don't tell on each other. We know from experience that the satisfactions of betrayal are scarcely worth it.
~ Margaret Atwood
Everyone believed him of course, but you always knew with Salome that if anyone's head was going to roll it wouldn't be hers.
~ Margaret Atwood
Zenia has stolen something from him, the one thing he always kept safe before, from all women, even from Roz. Call it his soul. She slipped it out of his breast pocket when he wasn't looking, easy as rolling a drunk, and looked at it, and bit it to see if it was genuine, and sneered at it for being so small after all, and then tossed it away, because she's the kind of woman who wants what she doesn't have and gets what she wants and then despises what she gets. What
~ Margaret Atwood
But by that time Janine was like a puppy that's been kicked too often, by too many people, at random: she'd roll over for anyone, she'd tell anything, just for a moment of approbation. (...) Janine looked down at the floor. Whatever it was, she knew she would not be blamed for it, she was blameless. But what use had that been to her in the past, to be blameless? So at the same time she felt guilty, and as if she was about to be punished.
~ Margaret Atwood
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. It was like being in an elevator cut loose at the top. Falling, falling, and not knowing when you will hit.
~ Margaret Atwood
How furious she must be, now that she's been taken at her word.
~ Margaret Atwood
But if Crake wanted her to stay longer on any given night, do it again maybe, she'd make some excuse—jet lag, a headache, something plausible. Her inventions were seamless, she was the best poker-faced liar in the world, so there would be a kiss goodbye for stupid Crake, a smile, a wave, a closed door, and the next minute there she would be, with Jimmy.
~ Margaret Atwood
This was the story of the Concubine Cut into Twelve Pieces.
~ Margaret Atwood
I stand there on the top step, frozen with hate. What I hate is not Grace or even Cordelia. I can't go as far as that. I hate Mrs. Smeath, because what I thought was a secret, something going on among girls, among children, is not one. It has been discussed before, and tolerated. Mrs. Smeath has known and approved. She has done nothing to stop it. She thinks it serves me right.
~ Margaret Atwood