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21 " It was true she had never specifically forbidden us to do anything - that would be too crude a violation of her law of nuance - but this only makes me feel I am actually forbidden to do everything. "
― Margaret Atwood , The Edible Woman
22 " That’s the nice thing about me. I’m very flexible, I’m the universal substitute.” He reached up over her head and turned off the light. "
23 " 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 of those chthonic symbols - pipes, valves, cloacal conduits... No, no. I'll have to be a slave to the paper-mines for all time. "
24 " Words,” he said, looking in my direction finally but with his eyes strangely unfocussed, as though he was really looking at a point several inches beneath my skin, “are beginning to lose their meanings. "
25 " But such messages can be dangerous. Think twice before you wish, and especially before you wish to make yourself into the hand of fate.(Think twice,said Reenie. Laura said,Why only twice? ) "
26 " Into the plastic basket went my selections, and off I set, step by step, sideways down the stairs, like Little Red Riding Hood on her way to Granny’s house via the underworld. Except that I myself am Granny, and I contain my own bad wolf. Gnawing away, gnawing away. "
27 " Now young lady,’ he said to me, ‘I’m not going to chastize you personally because I can see you are a nice girl and only the innocent means to this abominable end. But you will be so kind as to give these tracts to your employers. Who can tell but that their hearts may yet be softened? The propagation of drink and of drunkenness to excess is an iniquity, a sin against the Lord. "
28 " I suppose you’re wondering what happened to the mirror,’ he said. ‘Well …’ ‘I smashed it. Last week. With the frying-pan.’ ‘Oh,’ she said. "
29 " That’s the nice thing about me. I’m very flexible, I’m the universal substitute. "
30 " The thing is,” he said at last, “it’s the inertia. You never feel you’re getting anywhere; you get bogged down in things, water-logged. Last week, I set fire to the apartment, partly on purpose. I think I wanted to see what they would do. Maybe I wanted to see what I would do. "