Margaret Atwood, CAT'S EYE. Quotes

Potential has a shelf life.

Forgiving men is so much easier than forgiving women.

Never pray for justice, because you might get some.

Vanity is becoming a nuisance, I can see why women give it up, eventually. But I'm not ready for that yet.

It isn't chic for women to be drunk. Men drunks are more excusable, more easily absolved, but why? It must be thought they have better reasons.

I lie on the floor, washed by nothing and hanging on. I cry at night. I am afraid of hearing voices, or a voice. I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over.

This is what I miss, Cordelia: not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. Two old women giggling over their tea.

In my dreams of this city I am always lost.

There is never only one, of anyone

Alcohol's a depressant, it will let me down later.

I've forgotten about these things all winter, but here they are again, and when I see them I remember them, I know them, I greet them as if they are home.

Galleries are frightening places, places of evaluation, of judgement.

I remember my mean mouth, I remember how wise I thought I was. But I was not wise then. Now I am wise.

Home, I think. But it's nowhere I can go back to.

Things that are falling apart encourage me: whatever else, I’m in better shape than they are.

I used to jog but it's bad for the knees. Too much beta carotene turns you orange, too much calcium gives you kidney stones. Health kills.

I am a believer in sensible choices, so different from many of my own. Also in sensible names for children.

The past isn't quaint while you're in it. Only at a safe distance, later, when you can see it as décor, not as the shape your life's been squeezed into.

I can't remember what I really felt. Maybe nothing happened, maybe these emotions I remember are not the right emotions.

The fact is that I hate this city. I've hated it so long I can hardly remember feeling any other way about it.

Last night I felt the approach of nothing. Not too close but on its way, like a wingbeat, like the cooling of the wind, the slight initial tug of an undertow.