Creating Some God For One's Inspirations Was Always A Good Way To Avoid Accusations Of Pride Should The Scheme Succeed, As Well As The Blame If Did Not.

-Margaret Atwood

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Creating Some God For

Margaret Atwood

Creating Some God For One's Inspirations Was Always A Good Way To Avoid Accusations Of Pride Should The Scheme Succeed, As Well As The Blame If Did Not.

Topic

Inspiration

Pride

Creating

More From Margaret Atwood

If We Were All On Trial For Our Thoughts, We Would All Be Hanged.

Trials

Our Thoughts

Ifs

There Is So Much Going On All Over The World That It's Impossible For One Person To Keep Up. And I Can't.

World

Impossible

Persons

The Future Of Narrative? Built In, Part Of The Human Template. Not Going Away.

Going Away

Narrative

Humans

Confronted By Too Much Emptiness ... 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?

Loneliness

Islands

Water

I Tend To Feel If People Say They're Going To Do Something, They Will, If Given The Chance.

People

Chance

Given

There May Not Be One Truth - There May Be Several Truths - But Saying That Is Not To Say That Reality Doesn't Exist.

Reality

May

We Lived In The Gaps Between The Stories

Stories

Gaps

Handmaids Tale

I Learned To Read Very Early So I Could Read The Comics, Which I Then Started To Draw.

Draws

Now I Can See How That Can Happen. You Can Fall In Love With Anybody--a Fool, A Criminal, A Nothing. There Are No Good Rules.

Falling In Love

Criminals

Fool

I Tell, Therefore You Are.

I've Been Involved In Activities With Other People Who Were Put In Jail. We Were Protesting The Closing Of The Prison Farm Program At The Prison I Used In A Previous Book, Alias Grace. Some Of Us Also Put Up Money In Order To Save The Heirloom Herd Of Cows There. So I Own Half A Cow!

Book

Order

Jail

Snowman Wakes Before Dawn.

Dawn

Snowman

I Believe In The Resistance As I Believe There Can Be No Light Without Shadow; Or Rather, No Shadow Unless There Is Also Light.

Believe

Light

Shadow

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.

Distance

Past

Vintage

It Had Helped To Keep Her Sane, That Writing. Then, When Time Had Begun Again And Real People Had Entered It, She'd Abandoned It Here. Now It's A Whisper From The Past. Is That What Writing Amounts To? The Voice Your Ghost Would Have, If It Had A Voice?

Real

Writing

Past

We Thought We Were Running Away From The Grownups, And Now We Are The Grownups.

Running

Romance

Running Away

I Have Been Known To Buy E-versions Of My Books Because I Was In A Hotel Room And I Needed One Right Away To Look Up Something In It; Very Handy For That - You Can Have It Just The Next Minute; You Can Press The Button And Just Have It.

Book

Buttons

Looks

We Yearned For The Future. How Did We Learn It, That Talent For Insatiability?

Talent

Handmaids Tale

Handmaids

It Was Very Interesting To Me That When Louisiana Was Destroyed In That Flood The Fundamentalists Were Very Quick To Say, It's The Punishment Of God On A Sinful City. Now That The Oil Industry Has Been So Hard Hit In Galveston, Are They Up On Their Pulpits Saying, God Is Punishing The Oil Industry? No, No, No!

Punishment

Cities

Oil

And Sometimes It Happened, For A Time. That Kind Of Love Comes And Goes And Is Hard To Remember Afterwards, Like Pain. You Would Look At The Man One Day And You Would Think, I Loved You, And The Tense Would Be Past, And You Would Be Filled With A Sense Of Wonder, Because It Was Such An Amazing And Precarious And Dumb Thing To Have Done; And You Would Know Too Why Your Friends Have Been Evasive About It, At The Time.

Love

Pain

Past

When You're Unhinged, Things Make Their Way Out Of You That Should Be Kept Inside, And Other Things Get In That Ought To Be Shut Out. The Locks Lose Their Powers. The Guards Go To Sleep. The Passwords Fail.

Sleep

Locks

Way

The Act Of Making A Photograph Is Less A Question Of What Is Being Looked At Than How.

Photography

Photograph

The Internet Is 95 Percent Porn And Spam

Internet

Spam

Percent

Under The Old System - Which Is Now So Archaic That A Lot Of People Can't Remember It - If You Wanted Money You Had To Go To The Bank And Take The Money Out In Cash Form, And You Couldn't Take Out Money That You Didn't Have. But With The Credit Card You Can Spend Money You Don't Have, And That Is Just So Tempting.

People

Cards

Credit

When You Are In The Middle Of A Story It Isn't A Story At All, But Only A Confusion; A Dark Roaring, A Blindness, A Wreckage Of Shattered Glass And Splintered Wood; Like A House In A Whirlwind, Or Else A Boat Crushed By The Icebergs Or Swept Over The Rapids, And All Aboard Powerless To Stop It. It's Only Afterwards That It Becomes Anything Like A Story At All. When You Are Telling It, To Yourself Or To Someone Else.

Dark

Glasses

Confusion

What’s With Her?” Says The Painter. “she’s Mad Because She’s A Woman,” Jon Says. This Is Something I Haven’t Heard For Years, Not Since High School. Once It Was A Shaming Thing To Say, And Crushing To Have It Said About You, By A Man. It Implied Oddness, Deformity, Sexual Malfunction. I Go To The Living Room Doorway. “i’m Not Mad Because I’m A Woman,” I Say. “i’m Mad Because You’re An Asshole.

Crush

School

Men

If Social Stability Goes Pear-shaped, You Have A Choice Between Anarchy And Dictatorship. Most People Will Opt For More Security, Even If They Have To Give Up Some Personal Freedom.

Giving Up

People

Choices

A Hot Wind Was Blowing Around My Head, The Strands Of My Hair Lifting And Swirling In It, Like Ink Spilled In Water.

Hair

Wind

Water

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.

Mother

Children

Ideas

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.

Real

Body

Arms

Marshall Mcluhan Is Absolutely Right, We Are Always Looking In The Rear View Mirror.

Mirrors

Views

Perspective

Good Writing Takes Place At Intersections, At What You Might Call Knots, At Places Where The Society Is Snarled Or Knotted Up.

Writing

Might

Knots

You Can Mean More Than One. You Can Mean Thousands. I'm Not In Any Immediate Danger, I'll Say To You. I'll Pretend You Can Hear Me. But It's No Good, Because I Know You Can't.

Mean

Danger

Knows

Once You Publish A Book, It Is Out Of Your Control. You Cannot Dictate How People Read It.

Book

People

Publish

Love Is Giving, Marriage Is Buying And Selling. You Can't Put Love Into A Contract.

Love

Giving

Age

I Myself Have 12 Hats And Each One Represents A Different Personality. Why Just Be Yourself.

Being Yourself

Personality

Different

Toast Was A Pointless Invention From The Dark Ages. Toast Was An Implement Of Torture That Caused All Those Subjected To It To Regurgitate In Verbal Form The Sins And Crimes Of Their Past Lives. Toast Was A Ritual Item Devoured By Fetishists In The Belief That It Would Enhance Their Kinetic And Sexual Powers. Toast Cannot Be Explained By Any Rational Means. Toast Is Me. I Am Toast.

Mean

Dark

Past

It Isn't Running Away They're Afraid Of. We Wouldn't Get Far. It's Those Other Escapes, The Ones You Can Open In Yourself, Given A Cutting Edge.

Running

Cutting

Given

You Aren't Sick & Unhappy Only Alive & Stuck With It.

Sick

Unhappy

Alive

An Eye For An Eye Only Leads To More Blindness.

Inspirational

Life

Eye

It's A Lifelong Failing: She Has Never Been Prepared. But How Can You Have A Sense Of Wonder If You're Prepared For Everything? Prepared For The Sunset. Prepared For The Moonrise. Prepared For The Ice Storm. What A Flat Existence That Would Be.

Life

Sunset

Ice

Those Who Live Alone Slide Into The Habit Of Vertical Eating: Why Bother With The Niceties When There's No One To Share Or Censure? But Laxity In One Area May Lead To Derangement In All.

May

Slides

Eating

Farewells Can Be Shattering, But Returns Are Surely Worse. Solid Flesh Can Never Live Up To The Bright Shadow Cast By Its Absence.

Farewell

Shadow

Flesh

My Brother And I Were Both Teenage Writers, And He Was, I Have To Say, Better Than I Was, But He Went Into Science, And I Went Into Writing.

Brother

Teenage

Writing

I Have Always Known That There Were Spellbinding Evil Parts For Women. For One Thing, I Was Taken At An Early Age To See Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. Never Mind The Protestant Work Ethic Of The Dwarfs. Never Mind The Tedious Housework-is-virtuous Motif. Never Mind The Fact That Snow White Is A Vampire -- Anyone Who Lies In A Glass Coffin Without Decaying And Then Comes To Life Again Must Be. The Truth Is That I Was Paralysed By The Scene In Which The Evil Queen Drinks The Magic Potion And Changes Her Shape. What Power, What Untold Possibilities!

Queens

Lying

Taken

The Society In 'the Handmaid's Tale' Is A Throwback To The Early Puritans Whom I Studied Extensively At Harvard Under Perry Miller, To Whom The Book Is Dedicated.

Book

Puritan

Harvard

We Have Been Shark To One Another, But Also Lifeboat.

Sharks

Lifeboats

Has Beens

Without The Protection Of Surliness And Levity, All Children Would Be Crushed By The Past—the Past Of Others, Loaded Onto Their Shoulders. Selfishness Is Their Saving Grace.

Children

Past

Grace

The Darkness Is Really Out There. It's Not Something That's In My Head, Just. It's In My Work Because It's In The World.

Darkness

World

Love Was Like A Steamroller. There Was No Avoiding It; It Went Over You And You Came Out Flat.

Broken Heart

Over You

Avoiding

Even An Obvious Fabrication Is Some Comfort When You Have Few Others.

Comfort

Obvious

Fabrication

Does Feminist Mean Large Unpleasant Person Who'll Shout At You Or Someone Who Believes Women Are Human Beings. To Me It's The Latter, So I Sign Up

Inspirational

Women

Believe

A Movie About The Past Is Not The Same As The Past.

Past

My Father Was A Forest Entomologist, Which Means He Was Aware That Spraying Forests For Spruce Budworm Was Counterproductive In That It Didn't Really Work, And It Killed Everything Else In The Forests, And It Wasn't Good For The People Who Were Exposed To It, Either. So He Was An Early Proponent Of Not Doing That, But, Of Course, Nobody Listened.

Father

Mean

People

Americans Don't Usually Have To Think About Canadian-american Relations, Or, As They Would Put It, American-canadian Relations. Why Think About Something Which You Believe Affects You So Little? We, On The Other Hand, Have To Think About You Whether We Like It Or Not.

Believe

Thinking

Hands

Books Are Frozen Voices, In The Same Way That Musical Scores Are Frozen Music. The Score Is A Way Of Transmitting The Music To Someone Who Can Play It, Releasing It Into The Air Where It Can Once More Be Heard. And The Black Alphabet Marks On The Page Represent Words That Were Once Spoken, If Only In The Writer's Head. They Lie There Inert Until A Reader Comes Along And Transforms The Letters Into Living Sounds. The Reader Is The Musician Of The Book: Each Reader May Read The Same Text, Just As Each Violinist Plays The Same Piece, But Each Interpretation Is Different.

Lying

Book

Air

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.

Real

Dark

Night

This Is What I Miss, Cordelia: Not Something That’s Gone, But Something That Will Never Happen. Two Old Women Giggling Over Their Tea.

Two

Missing

Tea

Instead I Will Say, "take Me To Your Trees. Take Me To Your Breakfasts, Your Sunsets, Your Bad Dreams, Your Shoes, Your Nouns. Take Me To Your Fingers; Take Me To Your Deaths." These Are Worth It. These Are What I Have Come For.

Dream

Sunset

Shoes

When I Was 16 I Started Publishing All Kinds Of Things In School Magazines. My Main Feedback Came From My English Teacher, Miss Bessie B. Billings, Who Said, 'i Can't Understand This At All, Dear, So It Must Be Good.

Teacher

Encouragement

School

Axiom: You Are A Sea. Your Eye- Lids Curve Over Chaos My Hands Where They Touch You, Create Small Inhabited Islands Soon You Will Be All Earth: A Known Land, A Country.

Country

Eye

Islands

The World Is Being Run By People My Age, Men My Age, With Falling-out Hair And Health Worries, And It Frightens Me. When The Leaders Were Older Than Me I Could Believe In Their Wisdom, I Could Believe They Had Transcended Rage And Malice And The Need To Be Loved. Now I Know Better. I Look At The Faces In Newspapers, In Magazines, And Wonder: What Greeds, What Furies Drive Them On?

Running

Believe

Fall

My Own View Of Myself Was That I Was Small And Innocuous, A Marshmallow Compared To The Others. I Was A Poor Shot With A 22, For Instance, And Not Very Good With An Ax. It Took Me A Long Time To Figure Out That The Youngest In A Family Of Dragons Is Still A Dragon From The Point Of View Of Those Who Find Dragons Alarming.

Dragons

Views

Long

If We Read Books All The Time We Would Be Very Unhealthy, As We Would Not Get Any Fresh Air, Exercise, Or Contact With Nature. Also We Would Not Spend Time With Other People. There Are A Lot Of Plusses To Reading - It's An Interactive Brain Workout - But Like Everything Else That's Beneficial In Moderation, Overdoses Can Be Dangerous.

Workout

Book

Reading

Night Falls. Or Has Fallen. Why Is It That Night Falls, Instead Of Rising, Like The Dawn? Yet If You Look East, At Sunset, You Can See Night Rising, Not Falling; Darkness Lifting Into The Sky, Up From The Horizon, Like A Black Sun Behind Cloud Cover. Like Smoke From An Unseen Fire, A Line Of Fire Just Below The Horizon, Brushfire Or A Burning City. Maybe Night Falls Because It’s Heavy, A Thick Curtain Pulled Up Over The Eyes. Wool Blanket.

Fall

Sunset

Eye

I Wish You Good Writing And Good Luck. Even If You've Already Done The Good Writing, You'll Still Need The Good Luck. It's A Shark-filled Lagoon Out There. Cross Your Fingers And Watch Your Back.

Writing

Good Luck

Sharks

You Don't Look Back Along Time But Down Through It, Like Water. Sometimes This Comes To The Surface, Sometimes That, Sometimes Nothing. Nothing Goes Away.

Time

Water

Looks

How Could I Be Sleeping With This Particular Man.... Surely Only True Love Could Justify My Lack Of Taste.

Relationship

Sleep

Men

A Wave Of Blood Goes Up To My Head, My Stomach Shrinks Together, As If Something Dangerous Has Just Missed Hitting Me. It's As If I've Been Caught Stealing, Or Telling A Lie; Or As If I've Heard Other People Talking About Me, Saying Bad Things About Me, Behind My Back. There's The Same Flush Of Shame, Of Guilt And Terror, And Of Cold Disgust With Myself. But I Don't Know Where These Feelings Have Come From, What I've Done.

Lying

Blood

Talking

I Have Long Since Decided If You Wait For The Perfect Time To Write, You'll Never Write. There Is No Time That Isn't Flawed Somehow.

Writing

Long

Perfect

Their Mothers Had Finally Caught Up To Them And Been Proven Right. There Were Consequences After All But They Were The Consequences To Things You Didn't Even Know You'd Done.

Inspiring

Mothers Day

Done

Old Lovers Go The Way Of Old Photographs, Bleaching Out Gradually As In A Slow Bath Of Acid: First The Moles And Pimples, Then The Shadings. Then The Faces Themselves, Until Nothing Remains But The General Outlines.

Moles

Way

Faces

Ah Men, Why Do You Want All This Attention? I Can Write Poems For Myself, Make Love To A Doorknob If Absolutely Necessary. What Do You Have To Offer Me I Can't Find Otherwise Except Humiliation? Which I No Longer Need.

Writing

Men

Making Love

Tell What Is Yours To Tell. Let Others Tell What Is Theirs.

It's A Critical Fallacy Of Our Times ... That A Writer Should 'grow,' 'change,' Or 'develop.' This Fallacy Causes Us To Expect From Children Or Radishes: 'grow,' Or There's Something Wrong With You. But Writers Are Not Radishes. If You Look At What Most Writers Actually Do, It Resembles A Theme With Variations More Than It Does The Popular Notion Of Growth.

Children

Growth

Doe

For If The World Treats You Well, Sir, You Come To Believe You Are Deserving Of It.

Believe

World

Treats

Human Reason Is A Pin Dancing On The Head Of An Angel, So Small Is It In Comparison To The Divine Vastness That Encircles Us.

Angel

Dancing

Vastness

Walking Along Past The Store Windows, Into Which She Peers With Her Usual Eagerness, Her Usual Sense That Maybe, Today, She Will Discover Behind Them Something That Will Truly Be Worth Seeing, She Feels As If Her Feet Are Not On Cement At All But On Ice. The Blade Of The Skate Floats, She Knows, On A Thin Film Of Water, Which It Melts By Pressure And Which Freezes Behind It. This Is The Freedom Of The Present Tense, This Sliding Edge.

Past

Feet

Ice

In His Student Days, He Used To Argue That If A Woman Has No Other Course Open To Her But Starvation, Prostitution, Or Throwing Herself From A Bridge, Then Surely The Prostitute, Who Has Shown The Most Tenacious Instinct For Self-preservation, Should Be Considered Stronger And Saner Than Her Frailer And No Longer Living Sisters. One Couldn't Have It Both Ways, He'd Pointed Out: If Women Are Seduced And Abandoned They're Supposed To Go Mad, But If They Survive, And Seduce In Their Turn, Then They Were Mad To Begin With.

Self

Bridges

Mad

Canada Was Built On Dead Beavers.

Canada

Beavers

Built

The Newspaper Stories Were Like Dreams To Us, Bad Dreams Dreamt By Others. How Awful, We Would Say, And They Were, But They Were Awful Without Being Believable. They Were Too Melodramatic, They Had A Dimension That Was Not The Dimension Of Our Lives. We Were The People Who Were Not In The Papers. We Lived In The Blank White Spaces At The Edges Of Print. It Gave Us More Freedom. We Lived In The Gaps Between The Stories.

Dream

White

Space

What A Lost Person Needs Is A Map Of The Territory, With His Own Position Marked On It So He Can See Where He Is In Relation To Everything Else.

Territory

Needs

Maps

Something Is Unfolding, Being Revealed To Me. I See That There's A Whole World Of Of Girls And Their Doings That Has Been Unknown To Me, And That I Can Be Part Of Without Making Any Effort At All. I Don't Have To Keep Up With Anyone, Run As Fast, Aim As Well, Make Loud Explosive Noises, Decode Messages, Die On Cue. I Don't Have To Think About Whether I Do These Things Well, As Well As A Boy. All I Have To Do Is Sit On The Floor And Cut Frying Pans Our Of The Eaton's Catalogue With Embroidery Scissors, And Say I've Done It Badly.

Girl

Running

Cutting

Maybe The Life I Think I'm Living Is A Paranoid Delusion...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.

Thinking

People

Way

It's A Feature Of Our Age That If You Write A Work Of Fiction, Everyone Assumes That The People And Events In It Are Disguised Biography — But If You Write Your Biography, It's Equally Assumed You're Lying Your Head Off.

Lying

Book

Writing

Time Has Not Stood Still. It Has Washed Over Me, Washed Me Away, As If I'm Nothing More Than A Woman Of Sand, Left By A Careless Child Too Near The Water.

Time

Children

Water

We Are Silent, Considering Shortfalls. There's Not Much Time Left, For Us To Become What We Once Intended. Jon Had Potential, But It's Not A Word That Can Be Used Comfortably Any More. Potential Has A Shelf-life.

Silent

Used

Shelves

Poetry Is Where The Language Is Renewed.

Poetry

Language

Poetry Is

Where Do The Words Go When We Have Said Them?

Said

God Gave Unto The Animals A Wisdom Past Our Power To See: Each Knows Innately How To Live, Which We Must Learn Laboriously.

Animal

Past

Knows

The Use Of "religion" As An Excuse To Repress The Freedom Of Expression And To Deny Human Rights Is Not Confined To Any Country Or Time.

Country

Rights

Expression

His Mouth Is On Me, His Hands, I Can't Wait And He's Moving, Already, Love, It's Been So Long, I'm Alive In My Skin, Again, Arms Around Him, Falling And Water Softly Everywhere, Never-ending.

Moving

Fall

Hands

Don't Misunderstand Me. I Am Not Scoffing At Goodness, Which Is Far More Difficult To Explain Than Evil, And Far More Complicated. But Sometimes It's Hard To Put Up With.

Evil

Sometimes

Complicated

I'm Not Senile," I Snapped. "if I Burn The House Down It Will Be On Purpose.

House

Purpose

Senile

A Truth Should Exist, It Should Not Be Used Like This. If I Love You Is That A Fact Or A Weapon?

Truth

Love You

Weapons

I Stand On The Corner, Pretending I Am A Tree.

Tree

Pretending

Corners

There's Nothing Like A Shovel Full Of Dirt To Encourage Literacy.

Dirt

Literacy

Shovels

Time Is Not A Thing That Passes ... It's A Sea On Which You Float.

Time

Sea

Floats

The Cat Jumps Up On The Bed And Tries To Get Onto My Head. It's His Way Of Telling Whether Or Not I'm Dead. If I'm Not, He Wants To Be Scratched; If I Am - He'll Think Of Something

Cat

Thinking

Trying

It's True That There Is A Rescue Thing In People, And Not Just Rescuing The Family, Which Is Kind Of Obvious From A Biological Point Of View. But Why Is It That Some People Will Jump Into A Freezing River And Swim Out To A Downed Plane For Total Strangers? What Is That About? And It Seems To Be That It's Part Of Your Concept Of Who You Are. That's Why Some People Run Into The Burning Buildings, Because If They Don't, Their Concept Of Who They Are Will Be Violated. They Wouldn't Be Who They Thought They Were.

Running

Rivers

Views

A Voice Is A Human Gift; It Should Be Cherished And Used, To Utter Fully Human Speech As Possible. Powerlessness And Silence Go Together.

Bad Ass

Voice

Silence

This Afternoon Held That Special Quality Of Mournful Emptiness I've Connected With Late Sunday Afternoons Ever Since Childhood: The Feeling Of Having Nothing To Do.

Sunday

Childhood

Feelings

As Charles Darwin Said,'the Economy Shown By Nature In Her Resources Is Striking,'' Says The Spirit. 'all Wealth Comes From Nature. Without It, There Wouldn't Be Any Economics. The Primary Wealth Is Food, Not Money. Therefore Anything That Concerns The Handling Of The Land Also Concerns Me.

Land

Spirit

Wealth

I Am Rather Saddened At The End Of A Book. I Think Most Writers Find This. It's Like A Friend Departing On A Voyage.

Book

Thinking

Saddened

All Stories Are About Wolves. All Worth Repeating, That Is. Anything Else Is Sentimental Drivel.

Wolf Packs

Stories

Sentimental

Knowing Was A Temptation. What You Don't Know Won't Tempt You.

Fear

Knowing

Temptation

The Only Way You Can Write The Truth Is To Assume That What You Set Down Will Never Be Read.

Writing

Way

Assuming

It's Rather Useless To Write A Gripping Narrative With Nothing In It But Climate Change Because Novels Are Always About People Even If They Purport To Be About Rabbits Or Robots.

Writing

People

Climate

There Is Never Only One, Of Anyone

There Are Some Women Who Seem To Be Born Without Fear, Just As There Are People Who Are Born Without The Ability To Feel Pain ... Providence Appears To Protect Such Women, Maybe Out Of Astonishment.

Pain

Fear

People

I Am Certain That A Sewing Machine Would Relieve As Much Human Suffering As A Hundred Lunatic Asylums, And Possibly A Good Deal More.

Suffering

Machines

Lunatic Asylums

He Was Deciding Whether To Cut Her Throat Or Love Her Forever.

Cutting

Forever

Throat

People Dressed In A Certain Kind Of Clothing Are Never Wrong. Also They Never Fart.

People

Kind

Fart

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.

Dream

Self

Safety

When I Was Young I Believed That "nonfiction" Meant "true." But You Read A History Written In, Say, 1920 And A History Of The Same Events Written In 1995 And They're Very Different. There May Not Be One Truth - There May Be Several Truths - But Saying That Is Not To Say That Reality Doesn't Exist.

Reality

Different

Writing Is Very Improvisational. It's Like Trying To Fix A Broken Sewing Machine With Safety Pins And Rubber Bands. A Lot Of Tinkering.

Writing

Safety Pins

Broken

Things Written Down Can Cause A Great Deal Of Harm. All Too Often, People Don't Consider That.

People

Causes

Harm

I'm The Only Person You've Ever Met Who Has Read Longfellow.

Mets

Persons

Writing Is Alone, But I Don't Think It's Lonely. Ask Any Writer If They Feel Lonely When They're Writing Their Book, And I Think They'll Say No.

Lonely

Book

Writing

When We Think Of The Past It's The Beautiful Things We Pick Out. We Want To Believe It Was All Like That.

Beautiful

Believe

Past

I’m Not Used To Girls, Or Familiar With Their Customs. I Feel Awkward Around Them, I Don’t Know What To Say. I Know The Unspoken Rules Of Boys, But With Girls I Sense That I Am Always On The Verge Of Some Unforeseen, Calamitous Blunder.

Girl

Boys

Awkward

What A Moron I Was To Think You Were Sweet And Innocent, When It Turns Out You Were Actually College-educated The Whole Time!

Sweet

College

Thinking

People Talking About Politics Usually Start From The Ass End Backwards In That They Think You Have A Political Agenda, And Then You Make Your Work Fit That Cookie Cutter. It's The Other Way Around. One Works By Simple Observation, Looking Into Things. It's Usually Called Insight And Out Of That Comes Your View - Not That You Have The View First And Then Squash Everything To Make It Fit. I'm Not Interested In Cutting The Feet Off My Characters Or Stretching Them To Make Them Fit My Certain Political View.

Character

Cutting

Simple

... Remember That Forgiveness Too Is A Power. To Beg For It Is A Power, And To Withold Or Bestow It Is A Power, Perhaps The Greatest.

Remember

If You Really Want To Stay The Same Age You Are Now Forever And Ever, She'd Be Thinking, Try Jumping Off The Roof: Death's A Sure-fire Method For Stopping Time.

Thinking

Fire

Jumping

We Slept In What Had Once Been The Gymnasium.

Gymnasiums

You Fit Into Me Like A Hook Into An Eye A Fish Hook An Open Eye

Eye

Hook

Fit

When People In My Generation Started To Write, We Did Not Actually Have Much Of A Movie Industry, Much Of A Theater Scene, Much Of A Television Industry Or Other Creative Outlets. But We Had A Lot Of Aspiring Writers. All That Has Changed. We Now Have A Movie Industry, Television Industry And Lots Of Theater. But We Have Retained A Large Contingent Of Writers And A Dedicated Readership. The Larger Number Of People In Society Who Value Writing, The Larger Number Of Good Writers Will Be Produced. That's My Belief. It Raises The Bar.

Writing

People

Creative

When Any Civilization Is Dust And Ashes," He Said, "art Is All That's Left Over. Images, Words, Music. Imaginative Structures. Meaning—human Meaning, That Is—is Defined By Them. You Have To Admit That.

Art

Dust

Civilization

You're Dead, Cordelia.' No I'm Not. 'yes You Are. You're Dead. Lie Down.

Lying

Cordelia

Some Of Our Earliest Writing, In Cuneiform, Was About Who Owes What.

Writing

Cuneiform

As All Historians Know, The Past Is A Great Darkness, And Filled With Echoes.

Past

Echoes

Darkness

My Parents Were Gardeners Themselves, And Perforce They Used Environmental Techniques Because It Was During The War, And You Didn't Have The New Sorts Of Chemicals.

War

Parent

Environmental

Don’t Sit Down In The Middle Of The Woods. If You’re Lost In The Plot Or Blocked, Retrace Your Steps To Where You Went Wrong. Then Take The Other Road. And/or Change The Person. Change The Tense. Change The Opening Page.

Plot

Pages

Woods

That Was When They Suspended The Constitution. They Said It Would Be Temporary. There Wasn't Even Any Rioting In The Streets. People Stayed Home At Night, Watching Television, Looking For Some Direction. There Wasn't Even An Enemy You Could Put Your Finger On.

Home

Night

People

There's A Difference Between Describing And Evoking Something. You Can Describe Something And Be Quite Clinical About It. To Evoke It, You Call It Up In The Reader. That's What Writers Do When They're Good.

Differences

Evoke

Reader

A Fist Is More Than The Sum Of Its Fingers.

Mathematical Logic

Greek

Fists

You Shouldn't Do That," Said Laura. "you Could Set Yourself On Fire.

Ambition

Fire

Laura

She Knows Herself To Be At The Mercy Of Events, And She Knows By Now That Events Have No Mercy.

Events

Mercy

Knows

The Answers You Get From Literature Depend On The Questions You Pose.

Reality

Answers

Literature

The Thing About Delirium Is You Think It's Great, But It Actually Isn't.

Thinking

Delirium

Knowledge Is Power Only As Long As You Keep Your Mouth Shut.

Knowledge

Long

Mouths

Because I Am A Mother, I Am Capable Of Being Shocked: As I Never Was When I Was Not One.

Mother

Shocked

Capable

I Used To Act In College, But Always Comedy. Didn't Do [william] Shakespeare - Did Ben Jonson.

College

Comedy

Used

Extinctathon, Monitored By Maddaddam. Adam Named The Living Animals, Maddaddam Names The Dead Ones. Do You Want To Play?

Animal

Play

Names

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.

Eye

Body

Legs

I'm Working On My Own Life Story. I Don't Mean I'm Putting It Together; No, I'm Taking It Apart.

Mean

Together

Stories

Storytelling Is A Very Old Human Skill That Gives Us An Evolutionary Advantage. If You Can Tell Young People How You Kill An Emu, Acted Out In Song Or Dance, Or That Uncle George Was Eaten By A Croc Over There, Don't Go There To Swim, Then Those Young People Don't Have To Find Out By Trial And Error.

Song

Uncles

Errors

Somebody Has Been A Complete Ratbag All Their Life And They've Gotten Away With It, And They Die Happy And Rich, We So Much Want To Believe That They're Going Off To The Halls Of Judgment, That Their Heart Will Be Weighed Against The Feather Of Truth, That It Will Be Heavy With Sin And It Will Be Eaten By A Crocodile. It's Almost Essential To Our Well-being To Have A Fallback Position Like That. It May Appear As If You've Gotten Away With It, But You'll Pay For It Later.

Believe

Heart

Essentials

Poetry Isn't Written From The Idea Down. It's Written From The Phrase, Line And Stanza Up, Which Is Different From What Your Teacher Taught You To Do In School.

Teacher

School

Ideas

I Am Not A Saint Or A Cripple, I Am Not A Wound; Now I Will See Whether I Am A Coward.

Coward

Saint

Cripples

Touch Comes Before Sight, Before Speech. It Is The First Language And The Last, And It Always Tells The Truth.

Philosophy

Sight

Medicine

Inside The Peach, There Is A Stone.

Peaches

Stones

Hope Drives Us To Invent New Fixes For Old Messes, Which In Turn Create Ever More Dangerous Messes. Hope Elects The Politician With The Biggest Empty Promise; And As Any Stockbroker Or Lottery Seller Knows, Most Of Us Will Take A Slim Hope Over Prudent And Predictable Frugality. Hope, Like Greed, Fuels The Engine Of Capitalism.

Greed

Promise

Fuel

There Is Good And Mediocre Writing Within Every Genre.

Writing

Genre

Mediocre

I Was Warped Early By Ray Bradbury And Edgar Allan Poe. I Was Very Fond Of Franz Kafka.

Rays

Allan Poe

Bradbury

Mary Baker Eddy Is Said To Have Had A Phone Installed In Her Coffin Just In Case She Happened To Wake Up. I've Been Told That's An Urban Myth. Somebody Should Check It Out.

Phones

Bakers

Coffins

Walter Turned On The Radio: Electric Violins Wailing, Twisted Romance, The Four-square Beat Of Heartbreak. Trite Suffering, But Suffering Nonetheless. The Entertainment Business. What Voyeurs We Have All Become.

Music

Squares

Romance

You Cannot Teach Somebody To Write A Masterpiece, But You Can Certainly Teach Them How To Improve Their Writing Skills. And You Can Teach Them That They Can Make Their Own Voices More Effective By Being Able To Communicate More Clearly And Forcefully. It Makes People Feel More Capable When They Can Write - For Instance To Make A Request - Of A Politician - And When They Are Able To Receive A Reply.

Writing

People

Politician

Not Real Can Tell Us About Real.

Real

I Knew What Love Was Supposed To Be: Obsession With Undertones Of Nausea.

Nausea

Obsession

Supposed To Be

I Wanted To Forget The Past, But It Refused To Forget Me; It Waited For Sleep, Then Cornered Me.

Sleep

Past

Forget

In View Of The Fading Animals The Proliferation Of Sewers And Fears The Sea Clogging, The Air Nearing Extinction We Should Be Kind, We Should Take Warning, We Should Forgive Each Other Instead We Are Opposite, We Touch As Though Attacking, The Gifts We Bring Even In Good Faith Maybe Warp In Our Hands To Implements, To Manoeuvres

Animal

Air

Views

We Understand More Than We Know.

Understanding

Knows

Today On The Way Home, It Snows. Big, Soft Caressing Flakes Fall Onto Our Skin Like Cold Moths; The Air Fills With Feathers.

Fall

Home

Air

Genres Aren't Closed Boxes. Stuff Flows Back And Forth Across The Borders All The Time.

Borders

Stuff

Flow

You Can Think Clearly Only With Your Clothes On.

Inspiring

Thinking

Clothes

There's More Than One Way To Skin A Cat, My Father Used To Say; It Bothered Me, I Didn't See Why They Would Want To Skin A Cat Even One Way.

Father

Cat

Skins

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.

Self

Dwelling

Meals

Love's Never A Fair Trade.

Love

Trade

Fair Trade

What Else Can I Do? Once You've Gone This Far You Aren't Fit For Anything Else. Something Happens To Your Mind. You're Overqualified, Overspecialized, And Everybody Knows It. Nobody In Any Other Game Would Be Crazy Enough To Hire Me. I Wouldn't Even Make A Good Ditch-digger, I'd Start Tearing Apart The Sewer-system, Trying To Pick-axe And Unearth All Those Chthonic Symbols - Pipes, Valves, Cloacal Conduits... No, No. I'll Have To Be A Slave In The Paper-mines For All Time.

Crazy

Games

Mind

He Has To Find More And Better Ways Of Occupying His Time. His Time, What A Bankrupt Idea, As If He's Been Given A Box Of Time Belonging To Him Alone, Stuffed To The Brim With Hours And Minutes That He Can Spend Like Money. Trouble Is, The Box Has Holes In It And The Time Is Running Out, No Matter What He Does With It.

Running

Ideas

Doe

Money As Such Is, As Oscar Wilde Said, Perfectly Useless. You Can't Eat It, Drink It, Shelter Yourself From The Cold With It, Wear It, Or Make Love With It Unless Deeply Disturbed. In And Of Itself, It Has No Emotions, No Mind, And No Conscience. It Doesn't Put Out Flowers Or Have Children, And It Makes A Lousy Pet. It Has Meaning Only When It Circulates, And Is Exchanged For Other Things; And Money Doesn't Do That For Itself. People Do That, Using Money As A Symbolic Token.

Children

Flower

People

A Lot Of Being A Poet Consists Of Willed Ignorance. If You Woke Up From Your Trance And Realized The Nature Of The Life-threatening And Dignity-destroying Precipice You Were Walking Along, You Would Switch Into Actuarial Sciences Immediately.

Ignorance

Poetry

Dignity

The Eskimos Had Fifty-two Names For Snow Because It Was Important To Them: There Ought To Be As Many For Love.

Love

Valentines Day

Names

I Think The Book You Always Like Best Is The One You're About To Write.

Book

Philosophical

Writing

Nature Full Strength Is More Than We Can Take, Adam One Used To Say. It's A Potent Hallucinogen, A Soporific, For The Untrained Soul. We're No Longer At Home In It. We Need To Dilute It. We Can't Drink It Straight. And God Is The Same. Too Much God And You Overdose. God Needs To Be Filtered.

Home

Soul

Needs

I'm A Red Tory. To Get A Fix On This Category, You Have To Go Back To The 19th Century. The Tories Were The Ones Who Believed That Those In Power Had A Responsibility To The Community, That Money Should Not Be The Measure Of All Things.

Responsibility

Community

19th Century

It's Clear, It's Fresh, Like A Mint Candy.

Mint

Clear

Candy

How Old Do You Have To Get Before Wisdom Descends Like A Plastic Bag Over Your Head And You Learn To Keep Your Big Mouth Shut? Maybe Never. Maybe You Get More Frivolous With Age.

Age

Bags

Mouths

Amazing How The Heart Clutches At Anything Familiar, Whimpering Mine!mine!

Heart

Familiar

Clutch

If You're Put On A Pedestal, You're Supposed To Behave Yourself Like A Pedestal Type Of Person. Pedestals Actually Have A Limited Circumference. Not Much Room To Move Around.

Moving

Pedestal

Rooms

The Three Of Them Were Beautiful, In The Way All Girls Of That Age Are Beautiful. It Can't Be Helped, That Sort Of Beauty, Nor Can It Be Conserved; It's A Freshness, A Plumpness Of The Cells, That's Unearned And Temporary, And That Nothing Can Replicate. None Of Them Was Satisfied With It, However; Already They Were Making Attempts To Alter Themselves Into Some Impossible, Imaginary Mould, Plucking And Pencilling Away At Their Faces. I Didn't Blame Them, Having Done The Same Once Myself.

Beautiful

Girl

Cells

The One Good Thing To Be Said About Announcing Yourself As A Writer In The Colonial Canadian Fifties Is That Nobody Told Me I Couldn't Do It Because I Was A Girl. They Simply Found The Entire Proposition Ridiculous. Writers Were Dead And English, Or Else Extremely Elderly And American; They Were Not Sixteen Years Old And Canadian.

Girl

Elderly

Years

And Yet It Disturbs Me To Learn I Have Hurt Someone Unintentionally. I Want All My Hurts To Be Intentional.

Hurt

Want

Hurts Someone

All Observations Of Life Are Harsh, Because Life Is. I Lament That Fact, But I Cannot Change It.

Facts

Life Is

Harsh

This Is The Middle Of My Life, I Think Of It As A Place, Like The Middle Of A River, The Middle Of A Bridge, Halfway Across, Halfway Over. I'm Supposed To Have Accumulated Things By Now: Possessions, Responsibilities, Achievements, Experience And Wisdom. I'm Supposed To Be A Person Of Substance.

Responsibility

Thinking

Bridges

I Hate To Break This To You: One Of These Days I'm Going To Die. I Expect That When I Croak I'll No Longer Be Using Twitter, Unless I Can Do It From The Grave.

Hate

Break

Graves

I Sometimes Felt As If These Marks On My Body Were A Kind Of Code, Which Blossomed, Then Faded, Like Invisible Ink Held To A Candle. But If They Were A Code, Who Held The Key To It? I Was Sand, I Was Snow — Written On, Rewritten, Smoothed Over.

Keys

Snow

Invisible Ink

Is Anything Wrong, Dear? The Old Joke Went. No, Why? You Moved. Just Don't Move.

Moving

Old Jokes

Dear

If I Waited For Perfection... I Would Never Write A Word.

Writing

Perfect

Writers Block

I Didn't Want Him To Become Gray And Multi-dimensional And Complicated Like Everyone Else. Was Every Heathcliff A Linton In Disguise?

Want

Complicated

Heathcliff

For Me The Novel Is A Social Vehicle, It Reflects Society.

Social

Novel

Vehicle

But I Began Then To Think Of Time As Having A Shape, Something You Could See, Like A Series Of Liquid Transparencies, One Laid On Top Of Another.

Thinking

Liquid

Shapes

Like Many Modern Poets, I Tend To Conceal Rhymes By Placing Them In The Middle Of Lines, And To Avoid Immediate Alliteration And Assonance In Favor Of Echoes Placed Later In The Poems.

Echoes

Lines

Favors

Science And Fiction Both Begin With Similar Questions: What If? Why? How Does It All Work? But They Focus On Different Areas Of Life On Earth.

Focus

What If

Doe

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

Dark

Blue

Water

There's Nothing Like Drawing A Thing To Make You Really See It.

Art

Drawing

Before The Civil War, Canada Was At The Top Of The Underground Railroad. If You Made It Into Canada, You Were Safe Unless Someone Came And Hauled You Back. That Was Also True During The Vietnam War For Draft Resisters.

War

Safe

Canada

There Would Be No Sherlock Holmes If It Were Not For Serial Publication.

Would Be

Holmes

Publication

Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.

2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.

2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.

2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.

3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.

3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.

3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.

4. Proper Usage of Quotes

4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.

4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.

4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

5. Common Mistakes to Avoid

5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.

5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.

5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.

6. Quotes in Different Contexts

6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.

6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.

6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.

7. Punctuation and Formatting

Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:

Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.

Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.

Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.

8. Ethical Considerations

Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes

Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.

Conclusion

Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.

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