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Quote by Margaret Atwood

Work

Bluebeard's Egg

This collection delves into the complexities of human nature and society through a series of interconnected tales, each exploring themes of desire, fear, and the consequences of hidden truths. more

Author

Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood is a renowned Canadian poet, novelist, playwright, and critic, born on November 18, 1939. Her works are known for their unique style and profound insights into social issues, with notable titles including 'The Handmaid's Tale' and 'Cat's Eye'. more

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“Chris’ second letter was less noble. She started off by rhapsodizing once again about Dick’s face: “I started looking at your face that night in the restaurant—oh wow, isn’t that like the first line in the Ramones song, ‘Needles & Pins’? ‘I saw your face/It was the face I loved/And I knew’—and I got the same feeling from it that I get every-time I hear that song, and when you called my heart was pounding and then I thought that maybe we could do something together, something that is to adolescent romance what the Ramone’s cover of the song is to the original. The Ramones give ‘Needles & Pins’ the possibility of irony, but the irony doesn’t undercut the song’s emotion, it makes it stronger and more true. Søren Kierkegaard called this “the Third Remove.” In his book ‘The Crisis In The Life Of An Actress’, he claims no actress can play 14-year-old Juliette until she’s at least 32. Because acting’s art, and art involves reaching through some distance. Playing the vibrations between here and there and then and now. And don’t you think reality is best attained through dialectics? PS, Your face is mobile, craggy, beautiful…”

“With the advent of the first truly revolutionary means of reproduction, photography, simultaneously with the rise of socialism, art sensed the approaching crisis which has become evident a century later. At the time, art reacted with the doctrine of l'art pour l'art, that is, with a theology of art. This gave rise to what might be called a negative theology in the form of the idea of "pure" art, which not only denied any social function of art but also any categorizing by subject matter.”

“One of the soul's great tragedies is to execute a work and then realize, once it's finished, that it's not any good. The tragedy is especially great when one realizes that the work is the best he could have done. But to write a work, knowing beforehand that it's bound to be flawed and imperfect; to see while writing it that it's flawed and imperfect--this is the height of spiritual torture and humiliation.”

“Un linguaggio si parlava, a occhiate, nobile e segreto, che pure abbracciava tutto il mondo visibile e anche un gran tempo, oltre la vita umana: in un'eterna accademia di maestri di cui Orazio portava il segno e il giudizio. E dopo il necessario silenzio, furon scambiate le parole libere ed efficaci dell'arte e una incantata parità di espressione si stabilì, che oltrepassava la contingenza di età, di sesso, di parentela.”

Book:Artemisia