Alias Grace

by Margaret Atwood

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.

They are like birdcages; but what is being caged in? Legs, the legs of ladies; legs penned in so they cannot get out and go rubbing up against the gentlemen’s trousers. The

why don’t you ever smile or laugh, we never see you smiling, and I say I suppose Miss I have gotten out of the way of it, my face won’t bend in that direction any more. But if I laughed out loud I might not be able to stop;

People dressed in a certain kind of clothing are never wrong.

Once you start feeling sorry for yourself they’ve got you where they want you.

He’s a young man, my own age or a little older, which is young for a man although not for a woman, as at my age a woman is an old maid but a man is not an old bachelor until he’s fifty, and even then there’s still hope for the ladies,

Help is what they offer but gratitude is what they want, they roll around in it like cats in the catnip.

One need not be a Chamber—to be Haunted— One need not be a House— The Brain has Corridors—surpassing— Material Place— Ourself behind ourself, concealed— Should startle most— Assassin hid in our Apartment Be Horror’s least.… —EMILY DICKINSON, C. 1863.

His father was self-made, but his mother was constructed by others, and such edifices are notoriously fragile.

in this world you have to take your bits and ends of kindness where you can find them, as they do not grow on trees.

They hold dreams, like somnambulism, to be a manifestation of the animal life that continues below consciousness, out of sight, beyond reach of the will.

This puts him in an instructive mood, and I can see he is going to teach me something, which gentlemen are fond of doing.

the difference between stupid and ignorant was that ignorant could learn.

some called it Eve’s curse but she thought that was stupid, and the real curse of Eve was having to put up with the nonsense of Adam,

For if the world treats you well, Sir, you come to believe you are deserving of it.

it is not always the one that strikes the blow, that is the actual murderer;

Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve; For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.

hindsight is always accurate.

it is hard to put an end to suspicion once it has begun.

made a pain in my heart, as when you cannot tell whether you are happy or sad;

There is no use crying over spilt milk if you don’t know whether the milk is spilt or not, and if God alone knew, then God alone could tidy it up if necessary.

The future lies hid in the present, for those that can read it.

On the palm of my hand there’s a disaster.

he used to argue that if a woman has no other course open to her but starvation, prostitution, or throwing herself from a bridge, then surely the prostitute, who has shown the most tenacious instinct for self-preservation, should be considered stronger and saner than her frailer and no longer living sisters. One couldn’t have it both ways, he’d point out: if women are seduced and abandoned they’re supposed to go mad, but if they survive, and seduce in their turn, then they were mad to begin with. He’d

You won’t find her there, you will have to look below, she is a carcass—and

And I thought that things did make sense, and have a design to them, if you only pondered them long enough.

The mind, he reflects, is like a house—thoughts which the owner no longer wishes to display, or those which arouse painful memories, are thrust out of sight, and consigned to attic or cellar; and in forgetting, as in the storage of broken furniture, there is surely an element of will at work. Grace’s

But what should a Keepsake Album be? Should it be only the good things in your life, or should it be all of the things?

the murdered have the reputation of walking.

What is believed in society, is not always the equivalent of what is true; but as regards a woman’s reputation, it amounts to the same thing.

There is nothing so discouraging as hopes raised and then dashed again, it is almost worse than not having the hopes raised in the first place.

Not to know—to snatch at hints and portents, at intimations, at tantalizing whispers—it is as bad as being haunted. Sometimes

am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened.