Edible Woman Quotes

What a moron I was to think you were sweet and innocent, when it turns out you were actually college-educated the whole time!

I always thought eating was a ridiculous activity anyway. I'd get out of it myself if I could, though you've got to do it to stay alive, they tell me.

...she was afraid of losing her shape, spreading out, not being able to contain herself any longer, beginning (that would be worst of all) to talk a lot, to tell everybody, to cry.

This afternoon held that special quality of mournful emptiness I've connected with late Sunday afternoons ever since childhood: the feeling of having nothing to do.

We get along by a symbiotic adjustment of habits and with a minimum of that pale-mauve hostility you often find among women.

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.

She's against it on principle, and life isn't run on principles but by adjustments

That’s what you get for being food.

I can tell you're admiring my febrility. I know it's appealing, I practice at it; every woman loves an invalid. But be careful. You might do something destructive: hunger is more basic than love. Florence Nightingale was a cannibal you know.

Her metaphors for her children included barnacles encrusting a ship and limpets clinging to a rock.

For an instant she felt them, their identities, almost their substance, pass over her head like a wave. At some time she would be — or no, already she was like that too; she was one of them, her body the same, identical, merged with that other flesh that choked the air in the flowered room with its sweet organic scent; she felt suffocated by this thick sargasso-sea of femininity.

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.

Looking down, she became aware of the water, which was covered with a film of calcinous hard-water particles of dirt and soap, and of the body that was sitting in it, somehow no longer quite her own. All at once she was afraid that she was dissolving, coming apart layer by layer like a piece of cardboard in a gutter puddle.

What fiendishness went on in kitchens across the country, in the name of providing food!

I know I was alright on Friday when I got up; if anything I was feeling more stolid than usual.

I wonder why trying to transcend time never even succeeds in stopping it...

They had been pathetically eager to have the wedding in the family church. Their reaction though, as far as she could estimate the reactions of people who were now so remote from her, was less elated glee than a quiet, rather smug satisfaction, as though their fears about the effects of her university education, never stated but aways apparent, had been calmed at last. They had probably been worried she would turn into a high-school teacher or a maiden aunt or a dope addict or a female executive, or that she would undergo some shocking physical transformation, like developing muscles and a deep voice or growing moss.

I sort of like watching them," he said; "I watch laundromat washers the way other people watch television, it's soothing because you always know what to expect and you don't have to think about it. Except I can vary my programmes a little; if I get tired of watching the same stuff I can always put in a pair of green socks or something colourful like that.

The imprint left on her mind by the long famished body that had seemed in the darkness to consist of nothing by sharp crags and angles, the memory of its painfully-defined almost skeletal ribcage, a pattern of ridges like a washboard, was fading as rapidly as any other transient impression on a soft surface.

It was true she had never specifically forbidden us to do anything - that would be too crude a violation of her law of nuance - but this only makes me feel I am actually forbidden to do everything.

Words,” he said, looking in my direction finally but with his eyes strangely unfocussed, as though he was really looking at a point several inches beneath my skin, “are beginning to lose their meanings.

She had caught herself lately watching herself with an abstracted curiosity, to see what she would do.

That’s the nice thing about me. I’m very flexible, I’m the universal substitute.” He reached up over her head and turned off the light.

I suppose you’re wondering what happened to the mirror,’ he said. ‘Well …’ ‘I smashed it. Last week. With the frying-pan.’ ‘Oh,’ she said.

That’s the nice thing about me. I’m very flexible, I’m the universal substitute.

But such messages can be dangerous. Think twice before you wish, and especially before you wish to make yourself into the hand of fate. (Think twice,said Reenie. Laura said,Why only twice? )

They all say, Go on to graduate studies, and they give you a bit of money; so you do, and you think, Now I'm going to find out the real truth. But you don't find out, exactly, and things get pickier and pickier and more and more stale, and it all collapses in a welter of commas and shredded footnotes, and after a while it's like anything else: you've got stuck in it and you can't get out, and you wonder how you got there in the first place.

Into the plastic basket went my selections, and off I set, step by step, sideways down the stairs, like Little Red Riding Hood on her way to Granny’s house via the underworld. Except that I myself am Granny, and I contain my own bad wolf. Gnawing away, gnawing away.

Skin care must be good enough to eat!

By such mutual refrainings – I assume they are mutual since there must be things I do that she doesn’t like – we manage to preserve a reasonably frictionless equilibrium.

At least," I said, "she's got what she thinks she wants, and I suppose that's something.

[L]ife isn't run by principles but by adjustments.

Now that I was thinking of myself in the first person singular again I found my own situation much more interesting than his.

Now young lady,’ he said to me, ‘I’m not going to chastize you personally because I can see you are a nice girl and only the innocent means to this abominable end. But you will be so kind as to give these tracts to your employers. Who can tell but that their hearts may yet be softened? The propagation of drink and of drunkenness to excess is an iniquity, a sin against the Lord.

After he had listened to the telephone commercial he scratched the hair on his chest thoughtfully and gave the sort of enthusiastic response for which a whole seminary of admen had no doubt been offering daily prayers.

He switched on the reading-lamp over the bed, took a cigarette from a pack which he replaced in his back pocket, lit it, and sat holding the cigarette before him, his hands cupped, like a starved buddha burning incense to itself.

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 of those chthonic symbols - pipes, valves, cloacal conduits... No, no. I'll have to be a slave to the paper-mines for all time.

The thing is,” he said at last, “it’s the inertia. You never feel you’re getting anywhere; you get bogged down in things, water-logged. Last week, I set fire to the apartment, partly on purpose. I think I wanted to see what they would do. Maybe I wanted to see what I would do.

Many argue, pointing out that the majority of top chefs are male and while I accept that I could never hope to compete with their colourful turns of phrase, I maintain that when it comes to good, traditional, edible cuisine what you really need is a woman. And a can opener. And a microwave.

The rest of the park was plain grass, which had turned yellow; it crackled underfoot. This day was going to be like the one before, windless and oppressive. The sky was cloudless but not clear: the air hung heavily, like invisible steam, so that the colours and outlines of objects in the distance were blurred.

I suppose you’re wondering what happened to the mirror,’ he said. ‘Well …’ ‘I smashed it. Last week. With the frying-pan.’ ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I got tired of being afraid I’d walk in there some morning and wouldn’t be able to see my own reflection in it. So I went and grabbed the frying-pan out of the kitchen and gave it a whack.

Especially Trevor, subconsciously he thinks he’s my mother; it’s rather hard on him. It doesn’t bother me that much, I’m used to it, I’ve been running away from understudy mothers ever since I can remember, there’s a whole herd of them behind me trying to catch up and rescue me, god knows what from, and give me warmth and comfort and nourishment and make me quit smoking, that’s what you get for being an orphan.

In her every small movement she was the woman of the future, a type that would swagger and curse, fall headlong, flaming into the hell of war, be as brave and tough as men, take the overflowing diarrhea of nervous frontline troops without grimacing, speak loudly and devastatingly, kick brain matter off their shoes and go unhurriedly on. When he looked at Bern, Viktor saw the future, and it was lovely and clean and as equal as things between men and women, between prole and patrician, could be.

took the pamphlets he handed me, but felt enough loyalty to Seymour Surveys to say, ‘Our company doesn’t have anything to do with selling the beer, you know.’ ‘It is the same thing,’ he said sternly, ‘it is all the same thing, “Those who are not with me are against me, saith the Lord.” Do not try to whiten the sepulchres of those traffickers in human misery and degradation.’ He was about to turn away, but said to me as an afterthought, ‘You might read those yourself, young lady. Of course you never pollute your lips with alcohol, but no soul is utterly pure and proof against temptation. Perhaps the seed will not fall by the wayside, nor yet on stony ground.

In the section with edible flowers I stopped short, a bright yellow-and-purple pansy in my hands, hearing my mother's voice from long ago. Pansies are the showgirls of the flower world, but they taste a little grassy, she'd confided to me once as we pulled the weeds in her herb and flower garden. I put a dozen pansies in my cart and moved on to carnations. Carnations are the candy of the flower world, but only the petals. The white base is bitter, she'd instructed, handing me one to try. In my young mind carnations had been in the same category as jelly beans and gumdrops. Treats to enjoy. "Impatiens." I browsed the aisles of Swansons, reading signs aloud. "Marigolds." Marigolds taste a little like citrus, and you can substitute them for saffron. My mother's face swam before my eyes, imparting her kitchen wisdom to little Lolly. It's a poor woman's saffron. Also insects hate them; they're a natural bug deterrent. I placed a dozen yellow-and-orange marigolds into my cart along with a couple different varieties of lavender and some particularly gorgeous begonias I couldn't resist. I had a sudden flash of memory: my mother's hand in her floral gardening glove plucking a tuberous begonia blossom and popping it in her mouth before offering me one. I was four or five years old. It tasted crunchy and sour, a little like a lemon Sour Patch Kid. I liked the flavor and sneaked a begonia flower every time I was in the garden for the rest of the summer.

Tiana is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. I don’t know what I expected her to be like, but it was definitely not the angel seated beside me. She smells like vanilla cupcakes. Sweet and fucking edible.

Arin was in the still room, trying to soothe the anxiety of a woman who was saying that she had just preserved the jams, and must all of them be used for the banquet, every last one? She didn’t think the Dacrans appreciated ilea fruit. Why serve something they wouldn’t love as much as the Herrani did? It would be best, surely, to keep at least those jars for winter. Trying to explain the politics of such lavish consumption tangled Arin up in frustrated half sentences, because it didn’t make much sense to him, either, to consume every edible thing in one night. And then he heard Roshar’s accented voice in Herrani drifting down the hall from the ktichens. “…you don’t understand. The piece of meat must be the finest, cut from the loin, seasoned with this spice, not that one…” Arin excused himself, told the woman he’d discuss jams later, and followed the prince’s voice. “…and it must be well roasted on the outside, almost charred, yet bloody inside. Bright pink. Listen. This is crucial. If anything goes wrong, the banquet will be ruined.” Arin entered the main kitchen to find the prince haranguing the head cook, who slid a half-lidded look of annoyed sufferance at Arin. “There you are.” Roshar beamed. “I need your help, Arin.” “For the preparation of meat?” “It’s very important. You must impress this importance upon your cook here. The fate of political relations between my country and yours hangs in the balance.” “Because of meat.” “It’s for his tiger,” said the cook. Arin palmed his face, eyes squeezed shut. “Your tiger.” “He’s very particular,” said Roshar. “You can’t bring the tiger to the banquet.” “Little Arin has missed me. I will not be parted from him.” “Would you consider changing his name?” “No.” “What if I begged?” “Not a chance.” “Roshar, the tiger has grown.” “And what a sweet big boy he is.” “You can’t bring him into a dining hall filled with hundreds of people.” “He’ll behave. He has the mien and manners of a prince.” “Oh, like you?” “I resent your tone.” “I’m not sure you can control him.” “Has he ever been aught but the gentlest of creatures? Would you deny your namesake the chance to bear witness to our victorious celebration? And, of course, to the vision of you and Kestrel: side by side, Herrani and Valorian, a love for the ages. The stuff of songs, Arin! How you’ll get married, and make babies--” “Gods, Roshar, shut up.

Arin was in the still room, trying to soothe the anxiety of a woman who was saying that she had just preserved the jams, and must all of them be used for the banquet, every last one? She didn’t think the Dacrans appreciated ilea fruit. Why serve something they wouldn’t love as much as the Herrani did? It would be best, surely, to keep at least those jars for winter. Trying to explain the politics of such lavish consumption tangled Arin up in frustrated half sentences, because it didn’t make much sense to him, either, to consume every edible thing in one night. And then he heard Roshar’s accented voice in Herrani drifting down the hall from the ktichens. “…you don’t understand. The piece of meat must be the finest, cut from the loin, seasoned with this spice, not that one…” Arin excused himself, told the woman he’d discuss jams later, and followed the prince’s voice. “…and it must be well roasted on the outside, almost charred, yet bloody inside. Bright pink. Listen. This is crucial. If anything goes wrong, the banquet will be ruined.” Arin entered the main kitchen to find the prince haranguing the head cook, who slid a half-lidded look of annoyed sufferance at Arin. “There you are.” Roshar beamed. “I need your help, Arin.” “For the preparation of meat?” “It’s very important. You must impress this importance upon your cook here. The fate of political relations between my country and yours hangs in the balance.

Candles and waterproof matches.” “Check.” “Weather radio, flashlight, batteries…” “Check, check, check…” “Hurricane-tracking chart, potable water, freeze-dried food, can opener, organic toilet paper, sensible clothes, upbeat reading material, baseball gloves, compass, whistle, signal mirror, first-aid kit, snake-bite kit, mess kit, malaria tablets, smelling salts, flints, splints, solar survival blanket, edible-wild-plant field almanac, trenching tool, semaphores, gas masks, Geiger counter, executive defibrillator, railroad flares, lemons in case of scurvy, Austrian gold coins in case paper money becomes scoffed at, laminated sixteen-language universal hostage-negotiation ‘Kwik-Guide’ (Miami-Dade edition), extra film, extra ammunition, firecrackers, handcuffs, Taser, pepper spray, throwing stars, Flipper lunch box, Eden Roc ashtray, Cypress Gardens felt pennant, alligator snow globe, miniature wooden crate of orange gumballs, acrylic seashell thermometer and pen holder, can of Florida sunshine…” “Check, check, check…. What about my inflatable woman?

I built an idea in my head of the hero I wanted to be, a grab bag of traits from heroes, villains, and side characters. I did not have book role models, I had book blueprints. But there remained a huge gap between the person I wanted to be and the person who I was. This was because no matter how many book blueprints I had, as much as I wanted to make myself the hero of my own life, it didn’t matter as long as I kept telling the story wrong. Nowadays, as a storyteller, I know what the problem was. I had all the elements I needed to tell a good story. But I was telling it the wrong way, so I could never get to the ending I wanted. If you tell yourself you’re a winner, you know what kind of story you’re telling, and you will march toward that... Likewise, if you tell yourself you’re a loser, you’ve made that your story, and you will march toward that instead. The same setbacks could happen in the loser’s story as in the winner’s story, but the self-defined loser would let them be proof that they were never going to be anything. Here’s the story I was telling myself back when I was little edible child waiting to be carried away by hawks and making OCD rituals for herself: once upon a time, there was a girl who was afraid of everything. When I was 16, I realized that I knew what this story looked like and how it ended, and it wasn’t the life I wanted for myself. If I wanted my ending to look different, I needed to change the kind of story I was telling about myself. I needed to shape my events into a different genre: once upon a time, there was a woman who was afraid of nothing. At age 16, I legally changed my name from my birthname — Heidi — to one I thought sounded like the hero I wanted to be: Maggie. And I vowed that I would never be afraid of anything ever again. Did it work? No, of course not. Not right away. But it became a mission statement, my hero’s journey.

...I believe he meant that my little ink sketch was a good approximation of reality--which is exactly how we appraise art when we are young. We want our horses to look like living beings, a loaf of bread to look edible, and a woman's dress to look like satin. We want a painting or a sketch of a thing to replicate it faithfully. The closer a work of art is to reality, the greater the power of the artist. All of that is perfectly acceptable and right--in children. [Édouard Manet]

When she found unfamiliar edibles, she would slice them with her knife and touch her tongue lightly to the fresh flesh. If nothing happened—no tingling or burning—she would carry the morsel with her and, a few hours later, take a tiny bite. Only after several samplings over a period of time would she dare to start consuming a new food.

But fuck, Tiana is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. I don’t know what I expected her to be like, but it was definitely not the angel seated beside me. She smells like vanilla cupcakes. Sweet and fucking edible.

The worst kind of marriage is the one that aims for happiness. Don’t tell me that every marriage should have that grand aspiration. A marriage reaching for happiness is like any average Joe wanting to make a cake as tall as Mount Everest and as colorful as a tropical island. And on top of that, to make it edible. I’m not saying it’s impossible. But tell me how many people can afford that kind of happiness? We can make do with a sloppy cake as long as it doesn’t topple over. Cracked, fine. A bit dense, no problem. Oversweetened, we can live with that. Underbaked, it won’t kill you. Once I watched a movie in which a woman baked a birthday cake for her husband. And then she thought it was not perfect, and she dumped it into the trash can. Oh, I laughed so hard someone had to shush me in the theater. But people can be stubborn. I shouldn’t have laughed at the woman in the movie. Lucy wanted her life to turn out like that perfect cake. It did not, so she dumped it, along with everything else. Katherine, perhaps your marriage to Andy will still have some hope: if you both can learn to love a lopsided cake.

Books on display in Al-Asmari’s 24-Hour Bookstore in September 1969, on the table labeled MO’S PICKS: The High King, Lloyd Alexander I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou Naked Came the Stranger, Penelope Ashe The Edible Woman, Margaret Atwood The Drowned World, J. G. Ballard In Watermelon Sugar, Richard Brautigan Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick The Secret Meaning of Things, Lawrence Ferlinghetti Fantastic Four #89, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin The Armies of the Night, Norman Mailer Behold the Man, Michael Moorcock Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth City of the Chasch, Jack Vance Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe