The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam, #2)

by Margaret Atwood

and at least she had something of marketable value, namely her young ass, and therefore she wouldn’t starve to death, and nobody had to feel guilty.

In any case, time is not a thing that passes, said Pilar: it’s a sea on which you float.

She found herself stepping into ritual as if into a pair of stone shoes.

Maybe sadness was a kind of hunger, she thought. Maybe the two went together.

Beauty is only skin deep, she thought. But why did they always say only?

If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, she’d be thinking, try jumping off the roof: death’s a sure-fire method for stopping time.

Saint Odigha of Nigeria, among

Just remember, dear Friends: What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question.

edge. The water slides up, then falls back with a gentle hiss, like a big snake breathing.