You think I'm not a goddess? Try me. This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn.
Interpretation
The speaker declares their powerful seductive and artistic nature, inviting challenge while warning of the consequences.
In this quote, Margaret Atwood emphasizes the duality of strength and vulnerability in art and femininity. The metaphor of being a 'goddess' suggests divine power and allure, while the reference to a 'torch song' indicates deep emotional intensity. The invitation to 'try me' suggests confidence and resilience, while the warning of 'you'll burn' highlights the potential risks of engaging with such potent energy, reflecting the complexity of female identity and creative expression.
In practice
This quote would be powerful in a speech about female empowerment.
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.
The essential elements of singing are voice, musicianship, and story. It is the rare artist that has all three in abundance.
I have always wanted my art to service my people - to reflect us, to relate to us, to stimulate us, to make us aware of our potential. We have to create an art for liberation and for life.
The world has kissed my Soul with its pain, asking for its return in Songs.
When I'm dying, I want to think I did what I felt was best for the words I was writing. This may mean, at any time, that I won't be publishable anymore.
Movie actors earn their living and learn their craft through listening and reacting.
This much we know: Journalism is not a precise science. It's, on its best day, is a crude art. We make mistakes; I make mistakes. With more than 50 years as a journalist, I have at least had the opportunity to blow more stories, make more mistakes than maybe anybody in television.
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