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 i… - Margaret Atwood

If you get hungry enough, they say, you start eating your own heart.

Charis herself gave up Christianity a long time ago. For one thing, the Bible is full of meat: animals being sacrificed, lambs, bullocks, doves. Cain was right to offer up the vegetables, God was wrong to refuse them. And there's too much blood: people in the Bible are always having their blood spilled, blood on their hands, their blood licked up by dogs. There are too many slaughters, too much suffering, too many tears.

She used to think some of the Eastern religions would be more serene; she was a Buddhist for a while, before she discovered how many hells they had. Most religions are so intent on punishment.

How tedious is a tyranny in the throes of enactment. It’s always the same plot.

I should have known better than to rely on pills. You can't buy unconsciousness quite so cheaply.