You can never see yourself the way you are to someone else - to a man looking at you, from behind, when you don't know - because in a mirror your own head is always cranked around over your shoulder. A coy, inviting pose. You can hold up another mirror to see the back view, but then what you see is what so many painters have loved to paint - Woman Looking In Mirror, said to be an allegory of vanity. Though it is unlikely to be vanity, but the reverse: a search for flaws. What is it about me? can so easily be construed as What is wrong with me? . Margaret Atwood
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Vanity is becoming a nuisance, I can see why women give it up, eventually. But I'm not ready for that yet. - Margaret Atwood

  2. Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company. Francois de La Rochefoucauld - Gabriela Popa

  3. Oh wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursel's as ithers see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us And foolish notion. - James Drummond Burns

  4. We all know you're beautiful, Scott. - Becca Fitzpatrick

  5. I was sorry for her; I was amazed, disgusted at her heartless vanity; I wondered why so much beauty should be given to those who made so bad a use of it, and denied to some who would make it a benefit to both themselves... - Anonymous

More Quotes By Margaret Atwood
  1. I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.

  2. Falling in love, we said; I fell for him. We were falling women. We believed in it, this downward motion: so lovely, like flying, and yet at the same time so dire, so extreme, so unlikely. God is love, they once said, but we reversed...

  3. How could I be sleeping with this particular man.... Surely only true love could justify my lack of taste.

  4. A truth should exist, it should not be usedlike this. If I love youis that a fact or a weapon?

  5. Hatred would have been easier. With hatred, I would have known what to do. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love.

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