Quote

Things might have been different if she hadn't been able to drift if she'd had to concentrate on her next meal, instead of dwelling on all the injuries she felt we'd done her. An unearned income encourages self-pity in those already prone to it.

Margaret Atwood

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Margaret Atwood
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: November 18
Essayist
Inventor
Literary Critic
Non-Fiction Writer
Novelist
Pedagogue
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Ottawa (Ontario)
Margaret Eleanor Atwood
Might
Hadn
Prone
Self
Pity
Drift
Done
Income
Encourages
Different
Instead
Dwelling
Things
Already
Meal
Felt
Concentrate
Next
Meals
Unearned
Able
Injury
Injuries

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Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space.
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But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling.
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Like the trains, she's never on time and always departing.
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You can’t buy it, but it has a price,” said Oryx. “Everything has a price.
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A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason. Think of it as the altar of the Muse Oblivion, to whom you sacrifice your botched first drafts, the tokens of your human imperfection.
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The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don't think I solve problems in my poetry I think I uncover the problems.
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The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner.
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She knows the rituals, she knows how we're supposed to be behaving...But I think these things are impenetrable and fraudulent, and I can't do them without feeling I'm acting.
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You can examine the whole 19th century from the point of view of who would have maxed out their credit cards. Emma Bovary would have maxed hers out. No question. Mr. Scrooge would not have. He would have snipped his up.
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This is what I miss, Cordelia: not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. Two old women giggling over their tea.
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We shouldn't be saying 'Save the planet' we should be saying: 'Save viable conditions in which people can live.' That's what we're dealing with here.
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Fear has a smell, as love does.
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A movie about the past is not the same as the past.
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and each of his voices left his body in a different colored soul and floated up towards the sun still singing.
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Then sail, my fine lady, on the billowing wave - The water below is as dark as the grave, And maybe you'll sink in your little blue boat - It's hope, and hope only, that keeps us afloat
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Each form has its pluses and its minuses.
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For if the world treats you well, Sir, you come to believe you are deserving of it.
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She had no images of this love. She could offer no anecdotes. It was a belief rather than a memory.
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Show me a character totally without anxieties and I will show you a boring book.
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While in a vintage restaurant...the past isn't quaint while you're in it. Only at a safe distance, later, when you see it as decor, not as the shape your life's been squeezed into.
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