Margaret Atwood Quotes

Winning intoxicates you, and numbs you to the sufferings of others.

The moment of betrayal is the worst, the moment when you know beyond any doubt that you've been betrayed: that some other human being has wished you that much evil

Tell what is yours to tell. Let others tell what is theirs.

he might die for her, but living for her would be quite different.

Today on the way home, it snows. Big, soft caressing flakes fall onto our skin like cold moths; the air fills with feathers.

Once you publish a book, it is out of your control. You cannot dictate how people read it.

If you're waiting for the perfect moment, you'll never write a thing because it will never arrive. I have no routine. I have no foolproof anything. There's nothing foolproof.

The past is a closed door.

People cry at weddings for the same reason they cry at happy endings: because they so desperately want to believe in something they know is not credible.

Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance.

Optimism means better than reality; pessimism means worse than reality. I'm a realist.

Writing poetry is a state of free float.

I am rather saddened at the end of a book. I think most writers find this. It's like a friend departing on a voyage.

Where do you draw the line, between love and greed? We never did know, we always wanted more. We want to take it all in, for one last time, we want to eat the world with our eyes.

Craziness was considered funny, like all other things that were in reality frightening and profoundly shameful.

Some people mistakenly think nature is very nice and benevolent and never betrays.

I used to act in college, but always comedy. Didn't do [William] Shakespeare - did Ben Jonson.

The future of narrative? Built in, part of the human template. Not going away. The future of the codex book, with pages and so forth? A platform for transmitting narratives.

I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will.

A man is just a woman's strategy for making other women.

It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you're telling it, to yourself or to someone else.

At the very least we want a witness. We can't stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.

Don't let the bastards grind you down. I repeat this to myself but it conveys nothing. You might as well say, Don't let there be air; or Don't be. I suppose you could say that.

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.

There's always something to occupy the inquiring mind.

we lived in the gaps between the stories

That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before.

If you DJ reality, that is, if you make a mash-up of actual reality, you're going to end up with something that inevitably people will say, "This is feminist." Because you cannot avoid that.

I wanted to forget the past, but it refused to forget me; it waited for sleep, then cornered me.

Confronted by too much emptiness ... the brain invents. Loneliness creates company as thirst creates water. How many sailors have been wrecked in pursuit of islands that were merely a shimmering?

Show me a character totally without anxieties and I will show you a boring book.

It isn't chic for women to be drunk. Men drunks are more excusable, more easily absolved, but why? It must be thought they have better reasons.

To want is to have a weakness.

These things sneak up on him for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency.

I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened.

If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive.

We thought we had such problems. How were we to know we were happy?

Write down the thoughts and even more, write down a specific line. If you don't, it'll fly away forever.

Writing is alone, but I don't think it's lonely. Ask any writer if they feel lonely when they're writing their book, and I think they'll say no.

a handful of crumpled stars

You can forget who you are if you're alone too much.

My brother and I were both good at science, and we were both good at English literature. Either one of us could have gone either way.

Don't wait until you're 'in the mood.' Get into the mood by writing.

I grew up with the biologists. I know how they think.

There's something final about saying you were married once. It's like saying you were dead once. It shuts them up.

Although from you I far must roam, do not be broken hearted. We two, who in the souls are one, are never truly parted.

Things musicals taught me: All your problems will go away if you sing about it.

Writing is very improvisational. It's like trying to fix a broken sewing machine with safety pins and rubber bands. A lot of tinkering.

Time is not a thing that passes ... it's a sea on which you float.

The goals of the feminist movement have not been achieved, and those who claim we're living in a post-feminist era are either sadly mistaken or tired of thinking about the whole subject.