Some people mistakenly think nature is very nice and benevolent and never betrays.
Interpretation
Nature is often seen as kind, but it can be unpredictable and harsh.
In this quote, Margaret Atwood highlights the misconception that nature is always gentle and kind. While many view the natural world as benevolent and nurturing, it is important to recognize that it can also be unforgiving and harsh, often betraying our expectations with its unpredictability and power.
In practice
This quote could be shared in a nature conservation meeting to remind participants of the duality of nature.
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.
When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everthing in me that is bewildered and confused.
Whoever wants me to talk, I'll come over and tell them about the necessity of preserving the Everglades.
In the world in which we live, it is almost a necessity to be able to regain one's strength of body and spirit, especially for those who live in the city, where the conditions of life, often feverish, leave little room for silence, reflection and relaxed contact with nature.
The stones were sharp, The wind came at my back; Walking along the highway, Mincing like a cat.
The mainstream audience has a certain picture of what climbing is all about: man conquering mountain. But you can't conquer a mountain, though it may conquer you.
Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature.
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