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Time Is Compressed Like The Fist I Close On My Knee... I Hold Inside It The Clues And Solutions And The Power For What I Must Do Now.

-Margaret Atwood

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Time Is Compressed Like

Margaret Atwood

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Time Is Compressed Like The Fist I Close On My Knee... I Hold Inside It The Clues And Solutions And The Power For What I Must Do Now.

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Truly Amazing, What People Can Get Used To, As Long As There Are A Few Compensations.

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

I Don't Think I Solve Problems In My Poetry; I Think I Uncover The Problems.

It Doesn't Really Matter What "genre" Your Book Is. What Matters Is That It's A Good Book Of Its Kind. Whatever That Kind May Be.

Even In The Tragedies, Shakespeare Always Put In Parts For The Comic Actors Because His Audience Was Mixed. He Puts In People Who Talk Like Aristocrats. He Puts In Idiots And Fools. He Puts In Certain Middle-range Characters. And When You Go To The Globe, You Realize How That All Works. The People Who Paid More Sat In Seats Around The Edge. Everybody Else Paid A Penny. They Put It Into A Tin Box - That's Why We Call It The "box Office." They Stood In The Pit, But They Were Very Close, So When Hamlet Was Doing His Soliloquy, It Was Addressed To You, The Audience - Right There.

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.

To Want Is To Have A Weakness.

I Marvel Again At The Nakedness Of Men's Lives: The Showers Right Out In The Open, The Body Exposed For Inspection And Comparison, The Public Display Of Privates. What Is It For? What Purposes Of Reassurance Does It Serve? The Flashing Of A Badge, Look, Everyone, All Is In Order, I Belong Here. Why Don't Women Have To Prove To One Another That They Are Women? Some Form Of Unbuttoning, Some Split-crotch Routine, Just As Casual. A Doglike Sniffing.

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.

But Some People Can't Tell Where It Hurts. They Can't Calm Down. They Can't Ever Stop Howling.

Science Never Makes Things That Do Not Have To Do With What We Feel, By Which I Mean What We Want And What We Fear.

You Quickly Find, When You Are A Hand-reader As I Am, That Nothing Interests People So Much As Themselves.

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.

Despite Their Cool Poses They Wear Their Cravings On The Outside, Like The Suckers On A Squid. They Want It All.

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?

We Slept In What Had Once Been The Gymnasium.

It's Only Afterwards That It Becomes Anything Like A Story At All. When You're Telling It, To Yourself Or To Someone Else.

Shattered Glass

Writing Of The Narrative Kind, And Perhaps All Writing, Is Motivated Deep Down, By A Fear Or And Fascination With Mortality - By A Desire To Make The Risky Trip To The Underworld And To Bring Something Or Someone Back From The Dead.

Remember That, My Child. Remember You Are Half Water. If You Can't Go Through An Obstacle, Go Around It. Water Does.

Gardening Is Not A Rational Act.

Perhaps They Were Looking For Passion; Perhaps They Delved Into This Book As Into A Mysterious Parcel - A Gift Box At The Bottom Of Which, Hidden In Layers Of Rustling Tissue Paper, Lay Something They'd Always Longed For But Couldn't Ever Grasp.

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.

Beginnings Are Sudden, But Also Insidious. They Creep Up On You Sideways, They Keep To The Shadows, They Lurk Unrecognized. Then, Later, They Spring.

It Made Him Feel Invisible—not That He Wanted To Feel Anything Else.

There's Always Something To Occupy The Inquiring Mind.

Inquiring Minds

The Trickle-down Theory Of Economics Has It That It's Good For Rich People To Get Even Richer Because Some Of Their Wealth Will Trickle Own, Through Their No Doubt Lavish Spending, Upon Those Who Stand Below Them On The Economic Ladder. Notice That The Metaphor Is Not That Of A Gushing Waterfall But Of A Leaking Tap: Even The Most Optimistic Endorsers Of This Concept Do Not Picture Very Much Real Flow, As Their Language Reveals" Pg. 102.

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

I Want Everything Back, The Way It Was. But There Is No Point To It, This Wanting.

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

The Future Of Narrative? Built In, Part Of The Human Template. Not Going Away. The Future Of The Codex Book, With Pages And So Forth? A Platform For Transmitting Narratives.

I'm Interested In The Gothic Novel Because It's Very Much A Woman's Form. Why Is There Such A Wide Readership For Books That Essentially Say, 'your Husband Is Trying To Kill You'?

Winning Intoxicates You, And Numbs You To The Sufferings Of Others.

Suffering Of Others

How Easy It Is, Treachery. You Just Slide Into It.

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.

Why Are We Designed To See The World As Supremely Beautiful Just As We're About To Be Snuffed? Do Rabbits Feel The Same As The Fox Teeth Bite Down On Their Necks? Is It Mercy?

A Paradox, The Doughnut Hole. Empty Space, Once, But Now They've Learned To Market Even That. A Minus Quantity; Nothing, Rendered Edible. I Wondered If They Might Be Used-metaphorically, Of Course-to Demonstrate The Existence Of God. Does Naming A Sphere Of Nothingness Transmute It Into Being?

Nothing Is More Difficult Than To Understand The Dead, I've Found; But Nothing Is More Dangerous Than To Ignore Them.

Hunger Is A Powerful Reorganizer Of The Conscience.

I Have A Fork And A Spoon, But Never A Knife… As If I’m Lacking Manual Skills Or Teeth. I Have Both, However. That’s Why I’m Not Allowed A Knife.

The Scroll Is Coming Back (twitter Is A Scroll.)

The Goals Of The Feminist Movement Have Not Been Achieved, And Those Who Claim We're Living In A Post-feminist Era Are Either Sadly Mistaken Or Tired Of Thinking About The Whole Subject.

These Things Sneak Up On Him For No Reason, These Flashes Of Irrational Happiness. It's Probably A Vitamin Deficiency.

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.

So That’s What Art Is, For The Artist,” Said Crake. “an Empty Drainpipe. An Amplifier. A Stab At Getting Laid.

Because You Are Never Here But Always There, I Forget Not You But What You Look Like You Drift Down The Street In The Rain, Your Face Dissolving, Changing Shape, The Colours Running Together My Walls Absorb You, Breathe You Forth Again, You Resume Yourself, I Do Not Recognize You You Rest On The Bed Watching Me Watching You, We Will Never Know Each Other Any Better Than We Do Now

It's Doors I'm Afraid Of Because I Can't See Through Them, Its The Door Opening By Itself In The Wind I'm Afraid Of.

We Love Each Other, That’s True Whatever It Means, But We Aren’t Good At It; For Some It’s A Talent, For Others Only An Addiction.

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.

Forgiving Men Is So Much Easier Than Forgiving Women.

Oil Paints...the Look Of Licked Lips.

The Only Way You Can Write The Truth Is To Assume That What You Set Down Will Never Be Read. Not By Any Other Person, And Not Even By Yourself At Some Later Date. Otherwise You Begin Excusing Yourself. You Must See The Writing As Emerging Like A Long Scroll Of Ink From The Index Finger Of Your Right Hand; You Must See Your Left Hand Erasing It.

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.

Support Your Libraries... Or Else!

What People Want Is Perfection," Said The Man. "in Themselves." "but They Need The Steps To It To Be Pointed Out," Said The Woman. "in A Simple Order," Said The Man. "with Encouragement," Said The Woman. "and A Positive Attitude.

Whatever Is Silenced Will Clamor To Be Heard, Though Silently.

As An Artist Your First Loyalty Is To Your Art. Unless This Is The Case, You're Going To Be A Second-rate Artist. I Don't Mean There's Never Any Overlap. You Learn Things In One Area And Bring Them Into Another Area. But Giving A Speech Against Racism Is Not The Same As Writing A Novel. The Object Is Very Clear In The Fight Against Racism; You Have Reasons Why You're Opposed To It. But When You're Writing A Novel, You Don't Want The Reader To Come Out Of It Voting Yes Or No To Some Question. Life Is More Complicated Than That. Reality Simply Consists Of Different Points Of View.

The Heart With Letters On It Shining Like A Light Bulb Through The Trim Hole Painted In The Chest, Art History.

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

It Is My Contention That The Process Of Reading Is Part Of The Process Of Writing, The Necessary Completion Without Which Writing Can Hardly Be Said To Exist.

I’m Not Sure Which Is Worse: Intense Feeling, Or The Absence Of It.

Starlet Sex Scandal. Giant Squid Involved.

You Can't Keep A Cool Head When You're Drowning In Love. You Just Trash Around A Lot And Scream, And Wear Yourself Out.

do Back Exercises. Pain Is Distracting.

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.

If You're Not Annoying Somebody, You're Not Really Alive.

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.

I Was Unfair To Him, Of Course, But Where Would I Have Been Without Unfairness? In Thrall, In Harness. Young Women Need Unfairness, It's One Of Their Few Defenses. They Need Their Callousness, They Need Their Ignorance. They Walk In The Dark, Along The Edges Of High Cliffs, Humming To Themselves, Thinking Themselves Invulnerable.

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

All You Have To Do, I Tell Myself, Is Keep Your Mouth Shut And Look Stupid. It Shouldn't Be That Hard.

The Weapons That Were Once Outside Sharpening Themselves On War Are Now Indoors There, In The Fortress, Fragile In Glass Cases; Why Is It (i'm Thinking Of The Careful Moulding Round The Stonework Archways) That In This Time, Such Elaborate Defences Keep Things That Are No Longer (much) Worth Defending?

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

The Problem With Meditating Is I Generally Go To Sleep, And That's Because I'm Doing It Wrong.

Social Media Is Called Social Media For A Reason. It Lends Itself To Sharing Rather Than Horn-tooting.

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.

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

Why Does The Mind Do Such Things? Turn On Us, Rend Us, Dig The Claws In. If You Get Hungry Enough, They Say, You Start Eating Your Own Heart. Maybe It's Much The Same.

It Used To Be That Your Bloodlines Dictated Who You Were. But The U.s. Became The Land Of The Self-made Man, In Which Not Only Did You Make A Fortune But You Could Make Up Everything Else About Yourself As Well. You Move Into A New Town With A Spurious Pedigreed Background And You Just Make Yourself Up.

A Home Filled With Nothing But Yourself. It's Heavy, That Lightness. It's Crushing, That Emptiness.

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

When They're Gone Out Of His Head, These Words, They'll Be Gone, Everywhere, Forever. As If They Had Never Been.

Just As If You Do A Mash-up Of Reality From The Point Of View Of African Americans In This Country, You're Going To End Up With Something That Will Say, "this Is Black Lives Matter." It's Not That People Necessarily Have Started Out From That Premise. But If You're Looking At Reality, That Will Be The Result Because That Is Reality.

Too Much God And You Overdose. God Needs To Be Filtered.

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.

All Creatures Know That Some Must Die That All The Rest May Take And Eat; Sooner Or Later, All Transform Their Blood To Wine, Their Flesh To Meat. But Man Alone Seeks Vengefulness, And Writes His Abstract Laws On Stone; For This False Justice He Has Made, He Tortures Limb And Crushes Bone. Is This The Image Of A God? My Tooth For Yours, Your Eye For Mine? Oh, If Revenge Did Move The Stars Instead Of Love, They Would Not Shine.

Everyone Thinks Writers Must Know More About The Inside Of The Human Head, But That's Wrong. They Know Less, That's Why They Write. Trying To Find Out What Everyone Else Takes For Granted.

Debt Is Not Just A Money Thing. It's About Owing And Being Owed. Money Is Just One Thing You Can Exchange. You Can Exchange Good Deeds, You Can Exchange Revenge, You Can Exchange Murders.

Why Aren't We Investing More In Alternate Tech? The Saudi Arabians Are, Scottish Power Is. I Was Just There. Could It Be That We're Counting On The Oil Going On Forever And Ever And Ever And Us Having All Of It And Getting Very Rich?

I Hate To Tell You This, But You Will Never Actually Go To A Galaxy Far, Far Away And Encounter Darth Vader. That's Science Fiction; It Isn't Going To Happen.

The Human Moral Keyboard Is Limited ... There's Nothing You Can Play On It That Hasn't Been Played Before. And, My Dear Friends, I Am Sorry To Say This, But It Has Its Lower Notes.

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!

Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down. I Repeat This To Myself But It Conveys Nothing. You Might As Well Say, Don't Let There Be Air; Or Don't Be. I Suppose You Could Say That.

If I Love You, Is That A Fact Or A Weapon?

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

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

Communications Technology Changes Possibilities For Communication, But That Doesn't Mean It Changes The Inherited Structure Of The Brain. So You May Think That You're Addicted To Online Reading, But As Soon As It Isn't Available Anymore, Your Brain Will Pretty Immediately Adjust To Other Forms Of Reading. It's A Habit Like All Habits.

She Had Her Reasons. Not That They Were The Same As Anybody Else's Reasons.

I Was Once A Graduate Student In Victorian Literature, And I Believe As The Victorian Novelists Did, That A Novel Isn't Simply A Vehicle For Private Expression, But That It Also Exists For Social Examination. I Firmly Believe This.

Time Is Compressed Like The Fist I Close On My Knee... I Hold Inside It The Clues And Solutions And The Power For What I Must Do Now.

Publishing A Book Is Like Stuffing A Note Into A Bottle And Hurling It Into The Sea. Some Bottles Drown, Some Come Safe To Land, Where The Notes Are Read And Then Possibly Cherished, Or Else Misinterpreted, Or Else Understood All Too Well By Those Who Hate The Message. You Never Know Who Your Readers Might Be.

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.

I Want, I Don’t Want. How Can One Live With Such A Heart?

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.

I Have Never Had Any Problems With Editors Who Wanted Me To Change My Methods Or Point Of View. I Pay A Lot Of Attention To Editors, But In A Different Way. They Sometimes Catch Mistakes And Help With The Order Of Poems In A Book. I Do Not Underestimate Them! Indeed, I Have Been One Myself.

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.

All Writers Must Go From Now To Once A Upon A Time; All Must Go From Here To There; All Must Descend To Where The Stories Are Kept; All Must Take Care Not To Be Captured And Held Immobile By The Past.

The True Story Is Vicious And Multiple And Untrue After All. Why Do You Need It? Don’t Ever Ask For The True Story.

Little Girls Are Cute And Small Only To Adults. To One Another They Are Not Cute. They Are Life-sized.

You Could Tell 'the Handmaid's Tale' From A Male Point Of View. People Have Mistakenly Felt That The Women Are Oppressed, But Power Tends To Organise Itself In A Pyramid. I Could Pick A Male Narrator From Somewhere In That Pyramid. It Would Interesting.

You Refuse To Own Yourself, You Permit Others To Do It For You

Some Travelers Think They Want To Go To Foreign Places But Are Dismayed When The Places Turn Out Actually To Be Foreign.

As Human Beings, We Are Always Torn Between Individual Freedom And The Ability Of Choose Our Actions, And The Need For At Least Enough Social Structure So That Anarchy, Chaos, And Warlordery - Or The War Of All Against All - Can Be Avoided.

Madness Is Only An Amplification Of What You Already Are.

While He Writes, I Feel As If He Is Drawing Me; Or Not Drawing Me, Drawing On Me - Drawing On My Skin - Not With The Pencil He Is Using, But With An Old-fashioned Goose Pen, And Not With The Quill End But With The Feather End. As If Hundreds Of Butterflies Have Settled All Over My Face, And Are Softly Opening And Closing Their Wings.

When I Am Lonely For Boys It’s Their Bodies I Miss. I Study Their Hands Lifting The Cigarettes In The Darkness Of The Movie Theaters, The Slope Of A Shoulder, The Angle Of A Hip. Looking At Them Sideways, I Examine Them In Different Lights. My Love For Them Is Visual: That Is The Part Of Them I Would Like To Possess. Don’t Move, I Think. Stay Like That, Let Me Have That.

As Soon As You Have A Language That Has A Past Tense And A Future Tense You're Going To Say, 'where Did We Come From, What Happens Next?' The Ability To Remember The Past Helps Us Plan The Future.

Potential Has A Shelf Life.

That Is What You Have To Do Before You Kill, I Thought. You Have To Create An It, Where None Was Before.

War Is What Happens When Language Fails.

The Reason They Invented Coffins, To Lock The Dead In, Preserve Them, They Put Makeup On Them; They Didn't Want Them Spreading Or Changing Into Anything Else. The Stone With The Name And Date Was On Them To Weight Them Down.

Though As He'd Say, What Is 'belief' But A Willingness To Suspend The Negatives?

Why Is It We Want So Badly To Memorialize Ourselves? Even While We're Still Alive. We Wish To Assert Our Existence, Like Dogs Peeing On Fire Hydrants.

You Most Likely Need A Thesaurus, A Rudimentary Grammar Book, And A Grip On Reality. This Latter Means: There's No Free Lunch. Writing Is Work. It's Also Gambling. You Don't Get A Pension Plan. Other People Can Help You A Bit, But essentially You're On Your Own. Nobody Is Making You Do This: You Chose It, So Don't Whine.

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.

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.

When Women Let Their Hair Down, It Means Either Sexiness Or Craziness Or Death, The Three By Victorian Times Having Become Virtually Synonymous.

The Astrologers Would Tell That The U.s. Is Ruled By Fire And Canada Is Ruled By Water. Short Version: You Pep Us Up, We Cool You Down.

An Eye For An Eye Only Leads To More Blindness.

Our Generation In The West Was Lucky: We Had Readymade Gateways. We Had Books, Paper, Teachers, Schools And Libraries. But Many In The World Lack These Luxuries. How Do You Practice Without Such Tryout Venues?

I Think Every Age Lives In A Blend Of Technology So There's Always Older Ones Mixed In With Newer Ones, And When The New Technology Goes Down, The Immediate Fallback Position Is Either That Technology Just Before That Or One Several Technologies Back.

One Of The Reasons [william] Shakespeare Is So Endlessly Fascinating Is That You Can Look At That Figure From About 10 Different Angles: Caliban In Shakespeare's Day Was Probably Viewed As A Sort Of Comic, Barbarian Type, But Into The 19th Century There Were Productions Where Caliban Was The Hero. He's A Potential Rapist Of A Minor. Is That A Good Thing? No, It Is Not. On The Other Hand, Prospero's Got Him Cooped Up In A Cave And Tortures Him If He Doesn't Do What Prospero Wants. Is That A Good Thing? No. Shakespeare Doesn't Let You Off Easy.

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.

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.

You Can’t Buy It, But It Has A Price,” Said Oryx. “everything Has A Price.

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.

A Fist Is More Than The Sum Of Its Fingers.

Mathematical Logic

For The Children With Their Greedy Little Mouths Represent The Future, Which Like Time Itself Will Devour All Now Alive.

Anything That Suffers And Dies Instead Of Us Is Christ; If They Didn't Kill Birds And Fish They Would Have Killed Us. The Animals Die That We May Live, They Are Substitute People, Hunters In The Fall Killing The Deer, That Is Christ Also. And We Eat Them, Out Of Cans Or Otherwise; We Are Eaters Of Death, Dead Christ-flesh Resurrecting Inside Us, Granting Us Life. Canned Spam, Canned Jesus, Even The Plants Must Be Christ.

And She Finds It Difficult To Believe—that A Person Would Love Her Even When She Isn't Trying. Trying To Figure Out What Other People Need, Trying To Be Worthy.

The Truly Fearless Think Of Themselves As Normal.

I Spent Much Of My Childhood In Northern Quebec, And Often There Was No Radio, No Television - There Wasn't A Lot To Entertain Us. When It Rained, I Stayed Inside Reading, Writing, Drawing.

Happy As A Clam, Is What My Mother Says For Happy. I Am Happy As A Clam: Hard-shelled, Firmly Closed.

As We Know From The Study Of History, No New System Can Impose Itself Upon A Previous One Without Incorporating Many Of The Elements To Be Found In The Latter.

There Is Something Powerful In The Whispering Of Obscenities, About Those In Power. There's Something Delightful About It, Something Naughty, Secretive, Forbidden, Thrilling. It's Like A Spell, Of Sorts. It Deflates Them, Reduces Them To The Common Denominator Where They Can Be Dealt.

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.

There Is No Fool Like An Educated Fool.

As With All Knowledge, Once You Knew It, You Couldn't Imagine How It Was That You Hadn't Known It Before.

Farewells Can Be Shattering, But Returns Are Surely Worse. Solid Flesh Can Never Live Up To The Bright Shadow Cast By Its Absence. Time And Distance Blur The Edges; Then Suddenly The Beloved Has Arrived, And It's Noon With Its Merciless Light, And Every Spot And Pore And Wrinkle And Bristle Stands Clear.

We Have Begun To Slam Doors, And To Throw Things. I Throw My Purse, An Ashtray, A Package Of Chocolate Chips, Which Breaks On Impact. We Are Picking Up Chocolate Chips For Days. Jon Throws A Glass Of Milk, The Milk, Not The Glass: He Knows His Own Strength, As I Do Not. He Throws A Box Of Cheerios, Unopened. The Things I Throw Miss, Although They Are Worse Things. The Things He Throws Hit, But Are Harmless. I Begin To See How The Line Is Crossed, Between Histrionics And Murder.

Choice Of Evils Debates Always Produce Extremism - People Choose What They Hope Is The Lesser Evil, Then Call It Good And Demonize The Other Choice. It Will Be A Challenge For Your Generation To Synthesize - To Move Beyond Us Versus Them, To We.

Writing Poetry Is A State Of Free Float.

I've Never Understood Why People Consider Youth A Time Of Freedom And Joy. It's Probably Because They Have Forgotten Their Own.

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

I'm Not An Activist By Nature. I Am Suspicious Of Utopian Thinking And Equally Suspicious Of Its Alternate. I Would Prefer To Stay In The Writing Burrow And Play With My Imaginary Friends And Enemies. I Get Sucked Into These Things.

The Problem Is Huge. We've Just Added Seventy-five Million People To The Already Large Proportion Of People In The World Who Are Malnourished All The Time, Whose Bodies Are Being Starved.

Making Final Judgements About Poets, Cities Or Regions On The Basis Of An Anthology Is Always Dangerous: Anthologies Are Mirages Created, Finally, By Their Editors.

I Tried To Visualize My Jealousy As A Yellowy-brown Cloud Boiling Around Inside Me, Then Going Out Through My Nose Like Smoke And Turning Into A Stone And Falling Down Into The Ground. That Did Work A Little. But In My Visualization A Plant Covered With Poison Berries Would Grow Out Of The Stone, Whether I Wanted It To Or Not.

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.

I'm A Refugee From The Past, And Like Other Refugees I Go Over The Customs And Habits Of Being I've Left Or Been Forced To Leave Behind Me, And It All Seems Just As Quaint, From Here, And I Am Just As Obsessive About It.

We Still Think Of A Powerful Man As A Born Leader And A Powerful Woman As An Anomaly.

I Felt White, Drained Of Blood, Cared For, Purified. Peaceful.

The Body Is So Easily Damaged, So Easily Disposed Of, Water And Chemicals Is All It Is, Hardly More To It Than A Jellyfish Drying On Sand.

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.

The Bell That Measures Time Is Ringing

Science Fiction Is Filled With Martians And Space Travel To Other Planets, And Things Like That.

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.

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

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.

Some People Mistakenly Think Nature Is Very Nice And Benevolent And Never Betrays.

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.

Better Never Means Better For Everyone... It Always Means Worse, For Some.

Walking Was Not Fast Enough, So We Ran. Running Was Not Fast Enough, So We Galloped. Galloping Was Not Fast Enough, So We Sailed. Sailing Was Not Fast Enough, So We Rolled Merrily Along On Long Metal Tracks. Long Metal Tracks Were Not Fast Enough, So We Drove. Driving Was Not Fast Enough, So We Flew. Flying Isn't Fast Enough For Us. 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.

The Genesis Of A Poem For Me Is Usually A Cluster Of Words. The Only Good Metaphor I Can Think Of Is A Scientific One: Dipping A Thread Into A Supersaturated Solution To Induce Crystal Formation. I Don't Think I Solve Problems In My Poetry; I Think I Uncover The Problems.

Maybe That's What Love Is, I Thought: It's Being Pissed Off.

I'm From The Generation That Had The Boys' Door And The Girls' Door When You Went To School, And You Got In Big Trouble If You Went In The Wrong One.

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.

But In The End, Back She Comes. There's No Use Resisting. She Goes To Him For Amnesia, For Oblivion. She Renders Herself Up, Is Blotted Out; Enters The Darkness Of Her Own Body, Forgets Her Name. Immolation Is What She Wants, However Briefly. To Exist Without Boundaries.

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.

Better Not To Invent Her In Her Absence. Better To Wait Until She's Actually Here. Then He Can Make Her Up As She Goes Along.

Knowing Too Much About Other People Puts You In Their Power, They Have A Claim On You, You Are Forced To Understand Their Reasons For Doing Things And Then You Are Weakened.

The Heart Of Jesus Glowed, Because It Was Holy. Holy Things Glowed In General.

Women Are Human Beings, And Human Beings Are A Very Mixed Lot. I've Always Been Against The Idea That Women Were Victorian Angels, That They Could Do No Wrong. I've Always Thought It Was Horseshit And Does Nobody Any Good. Remember, Lizzie Borden Got Off Largely Because The Cultural Agenda Had Convinced People That Women Were Morally Superior To Men, So Lizzie Borden Was "incapable" Of Taking The Ax And Giving Her Mother 40 Whacks.

The Fact Is That Blank Pages Inspire Me With Terror. What Will I Put On Them? Will It Be Good Enough? Will I Have To Throw It Out?

Every Budding Dictatorship Begins By Muzzling The Artists, Because They're A Mouthy Lot And They Don't Line Up And Salute Very Easily.

I Didn't Much Like It, This Grudge-holding Against The Past.

Reality Simply Consists Of Different Points Of View.

The Newspaper Journalists Like To Believe The Worst; They Can Sell More Papers That Way, As One Of Them Told Me Himself; For Even Upstanding And Respectable People Dearly Love To Read Ill Of Others.

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.

A Man Is Just A Woman's Strategy For Making Other Women.

I Never Have [suffered Writer’s Block], Although I’ve Had Books That Didn’t Work Out. I Had To Stop Writing Them. I Just Abandoned Them. It Was Depressing, But It Wasn’t The End Of The World. When It Really Isn’t Working, And You’ve Been Bashing Yourself Against The Wall, It’s Kind Of A Relief. I Mean, Sometimes You Bash Yourself Against The Wall And You Get Through It. But Sometimes The Wall Is Just A Wall. There’s Nothing To Be Done But Go Somewhere Else.

Fear Has A Smell, As Love Does.

Speculative Fiction Encompasses That Which We Could Actually Do. Sci-fi Is That Which We're Probably Not Going To See.

Speculative Fiction

Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down.

You Can Think Clearly Only With Your Clothes On.

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.

Reading And Writing, Like Everything Else, Improve With Practice. And, Of Course, If There Are No Young Readers And Writers, There Will Shortly Be No Older Ones. Literacy Will Be Dead, And Democracy - Which Many Believe Goes Hand In Hand With It - Will Be Dead As Well.

Where To Start Is The Problem, Because Nothing Begins When It Begins And Nothing's Over When It's Over, And Everything Needs A Preface: A Preface, A Postscript, A Chart Of Simultaneous Events.

Stick A Shovel Into The Ground Almost Anywhere And Some Horrible Thing Or Other Will Come To Light. Good For Trade, We Thrive On Bones; Without Them There'd Be No Stories.

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

It Is Better To Hope Than To Mope!

I Walk Away From Him. It's Enormously Pleasing To Me, This Walking Away. It's Like Being Able To Make People Appear And Vanish, At Will.

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