Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a sentiment of feeling out of place or less mature compared to others of the same age.
Margaret Atwood's quote expresses the idea that while she shares an age with her peers, she does not identify with their adultness and feels she is playing a role or putting on a facade. This feeling can resonate with many who experience imposter syndrome or doubt their own maturity and accomplishments in comparison to others.
In practice
In a speech about self-acceptance, one might use this quote to illustrate feelings of inadequacy.
If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go; but it’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength.
I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.
What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it. Nobody in any other game would be crazy enough to hire me. I wouldn't even make a good ditch-digger, I'd start tearing apart the sewer-system, trying to pick-axe and unearth all those chthonic symbols - pipes, valves, cloacal conduits... No, no. I'll have to be a slave in the paper-mines for all time.
We love each other, that’s true whatever it means, but we aren’t good at it; for some it’s a talent, for others only an addiction.
I've learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.
Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.
Like the practice of breath control, meditation on the forms of God, repetition of mantras, food restrictions, etc., are but aids for rendering the mind quiescent.
The main task of the spirit is to free man from his ego.
Her own misery filled her heart—there was no room in it for other people's sorrow.
You are not wood, you are not stones, but men.
In a democracy, someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it.
There was no air; only the dead, still night fired by the dog days of August. Not a breath. I had to suck in the same air I exhaled, cupping it in my hands before it escaped. I felt it, in and out, less each time…until it was so thin it slipped through my fingers forever. I mean, forever.
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