Margaret Atwood citáty

strana 6

„Žijte v přítomnosti, co nejvíc ji využívejte, nic jiného nemáte.“

„Pokud je národní duševní nemocí Spojených států megalomanie, v Kanadě je to paranoidní schizofrenie.“

„Moje seznámení s náboženstvím proběhlo způsobem, jakým se většina dětí v té době seznamovala se sexem, ne na ulici, ale na betonovém školním dvoře se štěrkovými cestičkami, během zimních měsíců, kdy jsem chodila do školy. Děti tu postávaly ve skupinkách, držely se za ruce v palčácích a špitaly si. Strašily mě líčením, že na nebi je nějaký mrtvý stařec, který vidí všechno, co dělám, a já jsem se jim pomstila tím, že jsem jim řekla, jak se rodí miminka. Některé matky pak telefonovaly mojí matce a stěžovaly si na mě, ale já jsem přesvědčená, že mě jejich děti vyděsily víc než já je: ony mi nevěřily, zato já jim ano.“

„V určitém okamžiku se musel můj krk nějak uzavřít, jako když zamrzne rybník nebo se zacelí rána, a já jsem zůstala uvězněná ve své hlavě; od té chvíle se ode mě všechno odráželo, jako bych byla uvnitř nějaké skleněné vázy nebo procházela vesnicí, jejíž obyvatele sice vidím, ale neslyším, protože jim nerozumím. Stěny lahve zkreslují obraz i vnějšímu pozorovateli: žába ve sklenici vypadá široká; když se na mě dívali, musela jsem jim připadat směšná.“

„Minulost je mnohem bezpečnější, protože cokoli v ní je, se už stalo. Nelze to změnit, takže se svým způsobem není čeho bát.“

“If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.”

“You want the truth, of course. You want me to put two and two together. But two and two doesn’t necessarily get you the truth. Two and two equals a voice outside the window. Two and two equals the wind. The living bird is not its labeled bones.”

“Today on the way home, it snows. Big, soft caressing flakes fall onto our skin like cold moths; the air fills with feathers.”

“How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all.”

“I see that there will be no end to imperfection, or to doing things the wrong way. Even if you grow up, no matter how hard you scrub, whatever you do, there will always be some other stain or spot on your face or stupid act, somebody frowning.”

“Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.”

“So this was the rest of his life. It felt like a party to which he'd been invited, but at an address he couldn't actually locate. Someone must be having fun at it, this life of his; only, right at the moment, it wasn't him.”

“Now that I am dead, I know everything.”

“Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life sized.”

“I did not know how to paint or even what to paint, but I knew I had to begin.”

“The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. The difference betweenand. Lay is always passive.”

“Sanity is a valuable possession; I hoard it the way people once hoarded money. I save it, so I will have enough, when the time comes.”

“For if the world treats you well, Sir, you come to believe you are deserving of it.”

“No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn't do too badly by one another, we did as well as most.”

“Genius is an infinite capacity for causing pain.”

“Canadians are fond of a good disaster, especially if it has ice, water, or snow in it. You thought the national flag was about a leaf, didn't you? Look harder. It's where someone got axed in the snow.”

“But my dreaming self refuses to be consoled. It continues to wander, aimless, homeless, alone. It cannot be convinced of its safety by any evidence drawn from my waking life.”

“I stand on the corner, pretending I am a tree.”

“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.”

“There's always something to occupy the inquiring mind.”

“Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly. Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God.”

“Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase. Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself:. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor.”

“EXTINCTATHON, Monitored by MaddAddam. Adam named the living animals, MaddAddam names the dead ones. Do you want to play?”

“In my dreams of this city I am always lost.”

“he might die for her, but living for her would be quite different.”

“Fatigue is here, in my body, in my legs and eyes. That is what gets you in the end. Faith is only a word, embroidered.”

“You aren't sick & unhappy
only alive & stuck with it.”

“The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner.”

“At moments like this I envy those who have found a safe haven in which to bestow their hearts; or perhaps I envy them for having a heart to bestow. I often feel that I myself am without one, and possess in its stead merely a heart shaped stone.”