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Dearly QUOTES

Dearly QUOTES

1 " The hands reaching in
among the leaves and spines
were once my mother's.
I've passed them on.
Decades ahead, you'll study your own
temporary hands, and you'll remember.
Don't cry, this is what happens. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

2 " Here are the tulips,
budded and full-blown,
their swoops and dips, their gloss and poses,
the satin of their darks. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

3 " The world that we think we see
is only our best guess. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

4 " Lions don’t know they are lions.
They don’t know how brave they are. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

5 " That room has been static for me so long:
an emptiness. a void. a silence
containing an unheard story
ready for me to unlock.

Let there be plot. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

6 " If you were a song
What song would you be?

Would you be the voice that sings,
Would you be the music?

When I am singing this song for you
You are not empty air

You are here,
One breath and then another:

You are here with me... "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

7 " If there were no emptiness, there would be no life. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

8 " Me, it’s the heart:
that’s the part lacking.
I used to want one:
a dainty cushion of red silk
dangling from a blood ribbon,
fit for sticking pins in.
But I’ve changed my mind.
Hearts hurt.

— Margaret Atwood, from “The Tin Woodwoman Gets a Massage ,” Dearly: New Poems (Ecco, 2020) "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

9 " You’ll be here but not here,
a muscle memory, like hanging a hat
on a hook that’s not there any longer. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

10 " After we're gone
the work of our knives will survive this. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

11 " That's who is waiting for me:
an invisible man
defined by a dotted line:

the shape of an absence
in your place at the table,
sitting across from me,
eating toast and eggs as usual
or walking ahead up the drive,
a rustling of the fallen leaves,
a slight thickening of the air.

It's you in the future,
we both know that.
You'll be here but not here,
a muscle memory, like hanging a hat
on a hook that's not there any longer. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

12 " Poetry deals with the core of human existence: life, death, renewal, change; as well as fairness and unfairness, injustice and sometimes justice. The world in all its variety. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

13 " The world that we think we see
is only our best guess. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

14 " Dearly beloved, gathered here together in this closed drawer, fading now, I miss you. I miss the missing, those who left earlier. I miss even those who are still here. I miss you all dearly. Dearly do I sorrow for you. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

15 " Oh yes, In Love,
that demented rose-red circus tent
whose half-light forgives all visuals,
fig-leaves our lovers,
and softens our own brains
and the pain of our sawdust pratfalls.
 
So tempting, that midway faux-marble arch,
both funfair and classical—
so Greek, so Barnum,
such a beacon,
with a sign in gas-blue neon:
 
Love! This way!
In! "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

16 " Outside we see a shrivelling,
but from within, as felt
by heart and breath and inner skin, how different,
how vast how calm how part of everything
how starry dark. Last breath. Divine
perhaps. Perhaps relief. The lovers caught
and sealed inside a cavern,
voices raised in one last hovering
duet, until the small wax light
goes out. Well anyway
I held your hand and maybe
you held mine
as the stone or universe closed in
around you.
Though not me. I'm still outside. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

17 " After we’re gone the work of our knives will survive us. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

18 " It’s an old word, fading now. Dearly did I wish. Dearly did I long for. I loved him dearly. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

19 " Life, life, you sang with every cell, compelled into dancing as the spell held you enchained and you burned air. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly

20 " It was a problem in comic books: drawing an invisible man. "

― Margaret Atwood , Dearly