Why does the mind do such things? Turn on us, rend us, dig the claws in. If you get hungry enough, they say, you start eating your own heart. Maybe it's much the same.
Margaret AtwoodWhat a lost person needs is a map of the territory, with his own position marked on it so he can see where he is in relation to everything else.
Margaret AtwoodVanity is becoming a nuisance, I can see why women give it up, eventually. But I'm not ready for that yet.
Margaret AtwoodWhat I need is perspective. The illusion of depth, created by a frame, the arrangement of shapes on a flat surface. Perspective is necessary. Otherwise there are only two dimensions. Otherwise you live with your face squashed up against a wall, everything a huge foreground, of details, close-ups, hairs, the weave of the bedsheet, the molecules of the face. Your own skin like a map, a diagram of futility, criscrossed with tiny roads that lead nowhere. Otherwise you live in the moment. Which is not where I want to be.
Margaret Atwood