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.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a deep appreciation for physical beauty and a longing for connection.
In this quote, Margaret Atwood expresses a complex longing for boys that transcends mere companionship. Instead, it highlights a fascination with their physical forms and the beauty found in their movements and postures, suggesting that her affection is rooted in a visual admiration rather than emotional intimacy. This longing captures a desire to possess and hold onto fleeting moments of beauty and presence, emphasizing the intricacies of attraction and desire.
In practice
This quote is perfect for a discussion on the nature of attraction in a literature class.
If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go; but it’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength.
I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.
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.
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.
I've learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.
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.
Love is what we are in our essence, and the more love we feel in our hearts, the more it will be brought to us.
My mother is not a model. She is not perfect. That awareness is part of learning to love someone. Predicting the actions of someone is an act of love. We persist, even when we get it wrong. That's the beauty of love.
The fact is that love is of two kinds, one which commands, and one which obeys. The two are quite distinct, and the passion to which the one gives rise is not the passion of the other.
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)
If you love something - and there are things that I love - you do want more and more and more of it, but that's not the way to produce good work.
She might be a great person, but life's so much bigger than just loving someone.
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