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"So by the time the morning came, Odysseus and I were indeed friends, as Odysseus had promised we would be. Or let me put it another way: I myself had developed friendly feelings towards him - more than that, loving and passionate ones - and he behaved as if he reciprocated them. Which is not quite the same thing."
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Explore more quotes by Margaret Atwood
"He wants to see, he wants to know, only to see and know. I'm aware that it is this mentality, this curiosity, which is responsible for the hydrogen bomb and the imminent demise of civilization and that we would all be better off if we were still at the stone-worshipping stage. Though surely it is not this affable inquisitiveness that should be blamed."
"How could I have been so ignorant? she thinks. So stupid, so unseeing, so given over to carelessness. But without such ignorance, such carelessness, how could we live? If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next-if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions-you'd be doomed. You'd be as ruined as God. You'd be a stone. You'd never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You'd never love anyone, ever again. You'd never dare to."
"All you have to do, I tell myself, is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard."
"Things that are falling apart encourage me: whatever else, I'm in better shape than they are."
"Men and women tried each other on, casually, like suits, rejecting whatever did not fit."
"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."
"Confronted by too much emptiness, said Adam One, the brain invents. Loneliness creates company as thirst creates water. How many sailors have been wrecked in pursuit of islands that were merely a shimmering?"
"We want to get there faster. Get where? Wherever we are not. But a human soul can only go as fast as a man can walk, they used to say. In that case, where are all the souls? Left behind. They wander here and there, slowly, dim lights flickering in the marshes at night, looking for us. But they're not nearly fast enough, not for us, we're way ahead of them, they'll never catch up. That's why we can go so fast: our souls don't weigh us down."
Exlpore more Relationship quotes
"A kind stranger is better than an uncaring friend."
"The more you are able to forgive then the more you are able to love."
"If you take a stand [for God] and mean it, you may suffer persecution. Some of your friends will drift away. They don't want to be with people like you. You speak to their conscience. They feel uncomfortable in your presence because you live for God."
"Trying to engage with an unapproachable person can lead to embarrassment, alienation, and resistance. Why would we set ourselves up for that kind of pain and failure? It's no wonder that people may avoid them-the risk of rejection is too great."
"Love is such a tremendous force of feeling! When you can't stop loving, you simply cannot stop it."
"For few matters you need to be solo, for some matters you need soul mate and for many matters you need society."
"Our relationship must be right with God before it can be right with man."
"Was Deirdre right about me purposely wanting relationships that were impossible?"
"Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal."
"Problem does not lie in being a husband, the problem is with acting as a husband (being bossy)."
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