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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 - make it cyclical and also inevitable, as in the other mammals. You'd never want someone you couldn't have."
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Exlpore more Emotion quotes
"There is nothing inherently painful about being cheated on."
"There is a resemblance between men and women, not a contrast. When a man begins to recognize his feeling, the two unite. When men accept the sensitive side of themselves, they come alive."
"I lost my illusions in a black rain of bitterness - now what do you see in my eyes? How can you still love me? How can I be tender? ..."
"You think I read your thoughts, but it's your eyes that speak to me. When they glisten with moisture, I see a depth of emotion stirring behind them. One tearful glance begs me for a reassuring embrace. When your gaze glazes over like a misty morning, I know I've lost you to personal cares. A sharp, narrow look will keep me at bay while a wink and twinkle and the flirty flutter of your dark eyelashes invite my company. The strength and duration of a stare gives your feelings towards me away. And when those wary eyes dart to avoid my notice, all of your hidden secrets are betrayed."
"For the sight of the angry weather saddens my soul and the sight of the town, sitting like a bereaved mother beneath layers of ice, oppresses my heart."
"She's been used to hiding her feelings for so long, no wonder her manner can be a little awkward."
"I am emotionally fluid and safe."
Explore more quotes by 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."
"Her face is silting up, like a pond; layers are accumulating. Every once in a while, when she can afford the time, she spends a few days at a spa north of the city, drinking vegetable juice and having ultrasound treatments, in search of her original face, the one she knows is under there somewhere; she comes back feeling toned up and virtuous, and hungry."
"How could I be sleeping with this particular man.... Surely only true love could justify my lack of taste."
"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?"
"There were places you didn't want to walk, precautions you took that had to do with locks on windows and doors, drawing the curtains, leaving on lights. These things you did were like prayers; you did them and you hoped they would save you. And for the most part they did. Or something did; you could tell by the fact that you were still alive."
"The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love."
"I sink down into my body as into a swamp, fenland, where only I know the footing. I'm a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping. Inside it is a space, huge as the sky at night and dark and curved like that, though black-red rather than black."
"But thoughtless ingratitude is the armour of the young; without it, how would they ever get through life? The old wish the young well, but they wish them ill also: they would like to eat them up, and absorb their vitality, and remain immortal themselves. Without the protection of surliness and levity, all children would be crushed by the past - the past of others, loaded on their shoulders. Selfishness is their saving grace."
"Can I be blamed for wanting a real body, to put my arms around? Without it I too am disembodied. I can listen to my own heartbeat against the bedsprings...but there's something dead about it, something deserted."
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