Wentzel Lombard > Wentzel's Quotes

“It's far less important to me to be liked these days than to be understood.”
― Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin

“Children live in the same world we do. To kid ourselves that we can shelter them from it isn't just naive it's a vanity.”
― Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin

“Holocausts do not amaze me. Rapes and child slavery do not amaze me. And Franklin, I know you feel otherwise, but Kevin does not amaze me. I am amazed when I drop a glove in the street and a teenager runs two blocks to return it. I am amazed when a checkout girl flashes me a wide smile with my change, though my own face had been a mask of expedience. Lost wallets posted to their owners, strangers who furnish meticulous directions, neighbors who water each other's houseplants - these things amaze me.”
― Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin

“So when I said I'd miss him, I meant I would miss what we had not experienced, and I don't know what that's called: nostalgia for what didn't happen.”
― Lionel Shriver, Big Brother

“Everyone you lost was still there with you, and so maybe no one was ever lost at all.”
― Joe Hill, NOS4A2

“If I thought this would never happen again I would die. But this is wrong, nobody dies from lack of sex. It's lack of love we die from.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“Don't let the bastards grind you down.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“The truth can cause a lot of trouble for those who are not supposed to know it.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“As they say, history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“You don’t believe the sky is falling until a chunk of it falls on you.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“And how easily a hand becomes a fist.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“Nobody is any authority on the fucks other people give,”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“The inventor of the mirror did few of us any favours: we must have been happier before we knew what we looked like.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“Being able to read and write did not provide answers to all questions. It led to other questions, and then to others.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“But it can put a lot of pressure on a person to be told they need to be strong.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“No one wants to die,” said Becka. “But some people don’t want to live in any of the ways that are allowed.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“I was the age at which parents suddenly transform from people who know everything into people who know nothing. —”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“Life is not about hair,” I said then, only half jocularly. Which is true, but it is also true that hair is about life. It is the flame of the body’s candle, and as it dwindles the body shrinks and melts away.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“I was buying time. One is always buying something.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“How can I have behaved so badly, so cruelly, so stupidly? you will ask. You yourself would never have done such things! But you yourself will never have had to.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“But sins must not be overlooked simply because the sinner is skilled.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“Love is a discipline, like prayer,” I said.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“The muscles of my face were beginning to hurt. Under some conditions, smiling is a workout.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“I always made dough men, I never made dough women, because after they were baked I would eat them, and that made me feel I had a secret power over men. It was becoming clear to me that, despite the urges Aunt Vidala said I aroused in them, I had no power over them otherwise.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“Sorry solves nothing”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“Wedlock: it had a dull metallic sound, like an iron door clicking shut.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“Not for nothing do we at Ardua Hall say ‘Pen Is Envy.’ ”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“Keep your friends close but your enemies closer. Having no friends, I must make do with enemies.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“When a shameful thing is done to you, the shamefulness rubs off on you. You feel dirtied.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“At the time I thought, Why cry, you should be happy, you got out. But after all that’s happened to me since that day, I understand why. You hold it in, whatever it is, until you can make it through the worst part. Then, once you’re safe, you can cry all the tears you couldn’t waste time crying before.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments