The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam, #2)

by Margaret Atwood

Your enemies could use your writing against you, I thought, but also you could use it against them.

Adam One used to say that people can believe two opposite things at the same time, and now I knew it was true.

And Doves, though harmless to us, are extremely aggressive to other Doves: a male will harass and kill a less dominant male if occasion offers.

Among the Ancient Greeks, serpents were sacred to the god of healing. In other religions, the Serpent with its tail in its mouth refers to the cycle of Life, and to the beginning and end of Time. Because they shed their skins, Serpents have also symbolized Renewal — the Soul casting off its old self, from which it emerges resplendent.

I knew there were things wrong in the world, they were referred to, I’d seen them in the onscreen news. But the wrong things were wrong somewhere else.

“There’s a penalty without God in the story too, needless to say. But people are less likely to credit that. If there’s a penalty, they want a penalizer. They dislike senseless catastrophe.”

We must cast a wide net, said Adam One, although some of the fish may be small. Also we must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there’s nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing.

Toby had already smelled something that came close to the aroma of the bone-stock soup her mother used to make. Though she was ashamed of herself, it made her hungry. Hungry, and also sad. Maybe sadness was a kind of hunger, she thought. Maybe the two went together.

We’re not selling only beauty, the AnooYoo Corp said in their staff instructionals. We’re selling hope.

Adam One used to say, If you can’t stop the waves, go sailing. Or else, What can’t be mended may still be tended. Or else, Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance. Which meant that even bad things did some good because they were a challenge and you didn’t always know what good effects they might have.

I’d lock the door on my side of our shared bathroom because the guys on the football team were known for date rape and I didn’t think Buddy would even bother with the date part of it,

the Internet was such a jumble of false and true factoids that no one believed what was on it any more, or else they believed all of it, which amounted to the same thing.

I said maybe I was too sad for the job: didn’t they want a more upbeat personality in their girls? But Mordis smiled with his shiny black-ant eyes and said, as if he was patting me: “Ren. Ren. Everyone’s too sad for everything.”

Now she said, “I’m up to the four-letter words.” And I said, “You mean the dirty ones, like shit?” And she laughed and said, “Worse ones than that.” And I said, “You mean the c-word and the f-word?” and she said, “No. Like love.”

Maybe that’s what love is, I thought: it’s being pissed off.

Don’t carry so much weight that you burn more calories than you can eat, says the voice of Zeb. Tools are more important than food. Your best tool is your brain.

Farewell is the song Time sings, Adam One used to say.

Nature may be dumb as a sack of hammers, Zeb used to say, but it’s smarter than you.

The Gardeners taught that you should never drink right from a stream, especially one near a city: you should make a hole beside it, so the water would be filtered at least a little.

If there’s two bad choices take the lesser evil, Zeb would say.

Zeb’s rule was: Animals shun fire, humans are drawn to it.

guys hate to picture other guys doing sex things with you that they want to do themselves.

It’s make-believe. Wishful thinking, I know I shouldn’t do it: I should face reality. But reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows. The Adams and the Eves used to say, We are what we eat, but I prefer to say, We are what we wish. Because if you can’t wish, why bother?

it is better to journey than to arrive,

For in the effort is the Goal,

It is not only the body that travels, Adam One used to say, it is also the Soul. And the end of one journey is the beginning of another.