Human tool-makers always make tools that will help us get what we want, and what we want hasn't changed for thousands of years because as far as we can tell the human template hasn't changed either. We still want the purse that will always be filled with gold, and the Fountain of Youth. We want the table that will cover itself with delicious food whenever we say the word, and that will be cleaned up afterwards by invisible servants. We want the Seven-League Boots so we can travel very quickly, and the Hat of Darkness so we can snoop on other people without being seen. We want the weapon that will never miss, and the castle that will keep us safe. We want excitement and adventure; we want routine and security. We want to have a large number of sexually attractive partners, and we also want those we love to love us in return, and be utterly faithful to us. We want cute, smart children who will treat us with the respect we deserve. We want to be surrounded by music, and by ravishing scents and attractive visual objects. We don't want to be too hot or too cold. We want to dance. We want to speak with the animals. We want to be envied. We want to be immortal. We want to be gods. But in addition, we want wisdom and justice. We want hope. We want to be good.
Margaret Atwood
Related Each of us views life through a different lens. What we think is colored by the baggage we carry, an... LAURIE BUCHANAN, PHD The words you can’t find, you borrow. We read to know we’re not alone. We read because w... GABRIELLE ZEVIN If we all look at life we think how nice, then we look at death and everybody goes oh you can say th... GARY F EVANS... If you love someone you must set them free like the wind and give them the respect they deserve.If y... GARY F EVANS... If we're honest with ourselves, most of us know the one thing we lack. CRAIG GROESCHEL In every passing moment that is not appreciated time cannot give it back to you. So in moments of id... GARY F EVANS... "Since we don't always get we want, the growth is in making what we get, what we want." - Simcha Glu... SIMCHA GLUCK We are far from perfect but willing to be different. CRAIG GROESCHEL We may claim to believe in God, but we don't want to believe so much that it makes us different. CRAIG GROESCHEL What will happen if we go to 0 day? ... Everything has been wipe out from the techno... DEYTH BANGER She is sugar, curiosity, and rain. E. LOCKHART we sat there smoking cigarettes at 5 in the morning. CHARLES BUKOWSKI He blesses us so we can be different. CRAIG GROESCHEL See the world as it is, not as you wish it would be E. LOCKHART The more we give, the more we reap the benefits of feeling good in helping others. We are all capabl... ANGIE KARAN And why love things you were destined to lose? Why let yourself feel things if the feelings were doo... GARTH RISK HALLBERG I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made ... RALPH WALDO EMERSON A couple of customers interrupted [...] who wanted to know if we had some YA book about ants and ali... SHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSON When we want to be something other than the thing God wants us to be, we must be want what, in fact,... C.S. LEWIS I am aware that everyone that exists has a story, and we all exist because that story is important f... ARZELL I don't know where to go. I don't know what comes now." "Don't worry," Will said. "We'll figur... LAUREN OLIVER To say to that you will never forget ,is always a sincere and an honest way to express ones self to ... GARY F EVANS... When we die our deeds shall be left for humanity to judge & our flesh shall become dust for humanity... DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) Dae FATE NAYAE Nanagha Vandhuttoom Da, Sandy , Na Nata, London Lass,Russian Grapes, Ellorum Ippa Van... SATHESH KUMAR M The island is ours. Here, in some way, we are young forever. E.LOCKHART اگر میخواهید جایی زندگی کنید که مردمش از موش ها نمیترسن... EMILY LOCKHART You hate cake doughnuts." "Of course," says Mirren. "But we didn't get the cake, we got glazed ... E.LOCKHART There are parallel universes in which different events have happened to the same people. An alternat... E. LOCKHEART There is not even a scrabble word for how bad I feel. E. LOCKHEART He was contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. E. LOCKHART Johnny, he is bounce, effort, and snark. Mirren, she is sugar, curiosity, and rain. Gat, h... E.LOCKHART Everything doesn't seem like anything when you love someone. Especially when you're young. E. LOCKHART We're all the same, and we all want the same thing. We all want to be secure. We all want food o... THANDIE NEWTON We don't want that, Charlie. We don't want to fight, but we can't just go on like this. We deserve t... KIMBERLY DERTING As a unit, we want to be No. 1 in the league, we want a shutdown secondary (and) we want to be notic... DELTHA O'NEAL We love to be fucked. Plain and simple. By our government, by our jobs, by our so-called friends who... ANTHONY MAGESTRO I'm already gone. I died that night on the side of that road with my sister. TRISHA LEAVER Perfection isn't everything," she said as she turned and walked away. "I think the flaws are what ma... TRISHA LEAVER With her I'd buried myself, every memory of who I was now, six feet under with the sister I'd put th... TRISHA LEAVER And when I saw you kissing that girl My heart, it shattered and my eyes, they watered And ... KATE NASH It was pivotal in making you but you don't remember it. Or do you? Do we understand the events that ... DOUGLAS COUPLAND We want to be accurate. We want to know who the descendants of Thomas Jefferson are. And, if Sally H... ROBERT GILLESPIE We want it jammed, we want it a hot ticket. We want it to sell out, we want people lining up for tic... CHERYL LEVICK We have a right to life, not on it. DANIEL MELGAçO Convinced that we're living the whole time that we're dying. We decide to go out walking the wh... TEGAN QUIN We want to have control over our lives. We want to be able to choose who we work with without having... CHAD SINANIAN Even if things aren't going the way we want right now, we will always get through it. STACEY T. HUNT Everything passes by, and we are left with just our memories BEN OAK We are happy with that. We want to be undefeated in district and the state playoffs. That's what we ... WAKE WOOD We may not get to choose how we die, but we can chose how we live. The universe may for... SHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSON Dreams are hopeful because they exist as pure possibility. Unlike memories, which are fossils, long ... SHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSON We hate Simple Minds. They were no.1 in our Top Five Bands or Musicians who will have to be shot com... NICK HORNBY When We have Patience in our minds and Love in our hearts, Nothing appears to be impossible or unrea... PHILIP T.M We want that designation because we want to see that the area is maintained. We want to preserve its... MIKE STARCK We don't want to be spectators. We don't want to be working the desk and stuff like that. We want to... DAVE MULDAWER It's a lie to think that you are not good enough. It's a lie to think that you are not beautiful. It... DISON ARNIBAL That's what we want our identity to be. We want to be a defense that runs and hits. That's what we w... DUANE AKINA We should not blame people by the mistakes of others. DANIEL MELGAçO There's no "i" in we, but it is in egoic. When you think about we instead of me, then and only then ... CELESTINE L. GRAY Adults like to pretend that our feelings aren’t as big and important as theirs—that we’re too ... COLLEEN HOOVER We're always contradicting ourselves. We want people to tell us apart.... ...yet we don't ... BISCO HATORI We don't want anything special; the only thing we want is the atmosphere and facilities to be educat... ABDUL RAHIM As unique as we all are, an awful lot of us want the same things. We want to shake up our current le... BRENE BROWN People are attracted to who we are more than what we do. LORRIN L. LEE Are shadows a shadowy reflection of the soul or is it a reflection of who we really are, or possibly... GARY F EVANS... Could it be possible for humanity to put their differences aside for the survival of our species, un... GARY F EVANS... You either have the feeling or you don’t. DANIEL HANDLER We want to nip this in the bud so that Chuck's directive can be changed. We are meeting with the Pue... ROD SLYHOFF We are where we want to be and doing what we want to be doing. CASSY MOON Conference USA has been a terrific affiliation for us the last couple years, we want to make Confere... ERIC HYMAN We want to find out what works best where. We want to show landowners what will work best, and we wa... BILLY HIGGINBOTHAM We want to show people that we're the team that everyone should be gunning for (in the Capital Hocke... JAY GRAHAM We don't want to exclude anyone; we want to include everyone. We want students to know that we want ... DAN WOLFE When you tell me your story or about yourself I understand who you are and are able to share who I a... BRENT M. JONES I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES We want to be balanced and we want to try and control the ball with our offensive line. We want to p... DAN GRASSER Somehow, we'll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be. But for now, ... BRANDON SANDERSON I want to make sure we will have decent amount so that we can function as a team. We want big compan... AGURI SUZUKI We believe this will be a community facility for many decades to come. We want to make sure we repre... KATHLEEN MURPHY When we are kind and forgiving, we will be forgiven. DEBASISH MRIDHA Basically, it will be 100% Honda from 2006. We want to race as Honda and we want to challenge for th... HIROSHI OSHIMA In life we say what we want to speak, listen to what we want to hear, look at what we want to see, a... MATTHEW WAYNE GAULIN I think any time we can recognize children for doing what we want them to do, there can be no harm i... CAROL THOMAS I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train... RED CLOUD I don't want the words to be naked the way they are in faxes or in the computer. I want them to be c... SIRI HUSTVEDT I think that's what we all want, in the end. To know that we left footprints when we passed by,... MIKE A. LANCASTER Wishing on that far away star, how far removed we truly are. MICHAEL DE CHâTILLON Air is approximately 21% oxygen, our brains feed off of oxygen. So basically we are all airheads. ANDONI GARCIA Inspired By Beauty In Creation We Are One DANIEL GILMAN We each can accomplish so much in this world. There is no room for boredom ROXE We are this fucking stick in the end... DEYTH BANGER Sisi wote ni wanafunzi. ENOCK MAREGESI Created visions of experiencing unreality. VICDO That's what we want to be, we want to be ... different. I don't know if better is the right word ...... DAN BRENNAN We want work and we want honest jobs. Our minds and our hands will be our keep! VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO The Bible consistently and directly indicates that when we give generously, we're serving, honoring,... CRAIG GROESCHEL We want him to live the rest of his life in happiness and we want to be a part of his life as we pos... MARK RICHARDSON Be who you want to be not what others think you should be. BILAL SAIF We need to let black America know, we do want you, but we want you on the terms of the United States... KATHY BATES We want to be uplifting, ... We want to be visionary and progressive. TOMMY THOMPSON
More Margaret Atwood
Heroes need monsters to establish their heroic credentials. You need something scary to overcome. MARGARET ATWOOD Optimism means better than reality; pessimism means worse than reality. I'm a realist. MARGARET ATWOOD Science and fiction both begin with similar questions: What if? Why? How does it all work? But they ... MARGARET ATWOOD A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there's less of you. MARGARET ATWOOD If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schiz... MARGARET ATWOOD The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many... MARGARET ATWOOD An eye for an eye only leads to more blindness. MARGARET ATWOOD If I waited for perfection... I would never write a word. MARGARET ATWOOD Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space be... MARGARET ATWOOD I was once a graduate student in Victorian literature, and I believe as the Victorian novelists did,... MARGARET ATWOOD When things are really dismal, you can laugh, or you can cave in completely. MARGARET ATWOOD You're never going to kill storytelling, because it's built into the human plan. We come wit... MARGARET ATWOOD Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no yo... MARGARET ATWOOD Every utopia - let's just stick with the literary ones - faces the same problem: What do you do ... MARGARET ATWOOD Don't let the bastards grind you down. MARGARET ATWOOD When you can't tell the difference between your own pleasure and your pain then you're an addict. MARGARET ATWOOD The beginning of Canadian cultural nationalism was not 'Am I really that oppressed?' but ... MARGARET ATWOOD Once upon a time you could wander around one country, then the next and then maybe you'd go to Engla... MARGARET ATWOOD They've removed anything you can tie a rope to. MARGARET ATWOOD Their mothers had finally caught up to them and been proven right. There were consequences after all... MARGARET ATWOOD No one knows what cuases an outer landscape to become an inner one. MARGARET ATWOOD The Eskimos had 52 names for snow because it was important to them; there ought to be as many for ... MARGARET ATWOOD Why is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the dawn? Yet if you look east, at sunset, you c... MARGARET ATWOOD Happiness is a garden walled with glass: there's no way in or out. In Paradise there are no stories,... MARGARET ATWOOD Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last, and it always tells ... MARGARET ATWOOD Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results. MARGARET ATWOOD Longed for him. Got him. Shit. MARGARET ATWOOD If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you ... MARGARET ATWOOD But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind eve... MARGARET ATWOOD I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed an... MARGARET ATWOOD I wonder which is preferable, to walk around all your life swollen up with your own secrets until yo... MARGARET ATWOOD If i thought this would never happen again I would die. But this is wrong, nobody dies from lac... MARGARET ATWOOD Hatred would have been easier. With hatred, I would have known what to do. Hatred is clear, metallic... MARGARET ATWOOD That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even an... MARGARET ATWOOD There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine -- "Wanting to meet a... MARGARET ATWOOD We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of pr... MARGARET ATWOOD But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it... MARGARET ATWOOD Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Wat... MARGARET ATWOOD Popular art is the dream of society; it does not examine itself. MARGARET ATWOOD The Eskimos had 52 names for snow because it was important to them; there ought to be as many for lo... MARGARET ATWOOD A word after a word after a word is power. MARGARET ATWOOD I've never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It's probably because the... MARGARET ATWOOD She even had a kind of special position among men: she was an exception, she fitted none of the cate... MARGARET ATWOOD Men are not to be told anything they might find too painful; the secret depths of human nature, the ... MARGARET ATWOOD The basic Female body comes with the following accessories: garter belt, panty-girdle, crinoline, ca... MARGARET ATWOOD Never pray for justice, because you might get some. MARGARET ATWOOD If I were going to convert to any religion I would probably choose Catholicism because it at least h... MARGARET ATWOOD I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one 'race' - the human race - and... MARGARET ATWOOD A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there's less of you MARGARET ATWOOD Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise. MARGARET ATWOOD War is what happens when language fails. MARGARET ATWOOD Miranda nods, because she knows that to be true: noble people don't do things for the money, they si... MARGARET ATWOOD Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. MARGARET ATWOOD This is how the girl who couldn't speak and the man who couldn't see fell in love. MARGARET ATWOOD I'm a strict, strict agnostic. It's very different from a casual, 'I don't know.'... MARGARET ATWOOD Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-size... MARGARET ATWOOD Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise. MARGARET ATWOOD A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. P... MARGARET ATWOOD I hate to tell you this, but you will never actually go to a galaxy far, far away and encounter Dart... MARGARET ATWOOD Religions in general have to rediscover their roots. In Hinduism and the Koran, animals are describe... MARGARET ATWOOD The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose. MARGARET ATWOOD In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. MARGARET ATWOOD I grew up with the biologists. I know how they think. MARGARET ATWOOD Before the Civil War, Canada was at the top of the underground railroad. If you made it into Canada,... MARGARET ATWOOD Sometimes there would be couples, arm in arm—laughing, happy, amorous. Victims of an enormous frau... MARGARET ATWOOD I've never bought into any sort of hard and fast, this-box/that-box characterization. People are... MARGARET ATWOOD Was this a betrayal, or was it an act of courage? Perhaps both. Neither one involves forethought: su... MARGARET ATWOOD The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is... MARGARET ATWOOD Time is compressed like the fist I close on my knee... I hold inside it the clues and solutions and ... MARGARET ATWOOD They spent the first three years of school getting you to pretend stuff and then the rest of it mark... MARGARET ATWOOD Beginnings are sudden, but also insidious. They creep up on you sideways, they keep to the shadows, ... MARGARET ATWOOD If you're put on a pedestal, you're supposed to behave yourself like a pedestal type of pers... MARGARET ATWOOD If you feel that there's the author and then the character, then the book is not working. People... MARGARET ATWOOD I don't think of poetry as a 'rational' activity but as an aural one. My poems usually b... MARGARET ATWOOD Every aspect of human technology has a dark side, including the bow and arrow. MARGARET ATWOOD Vampires get the joy of flying around and living forever, werewolves get the joy of animal spirits. ... MARGARET ATWOOD Some people mistakenly think nature is very nice and benevolent and never betrays. MARGARET ATWOOD You will always have partial points of view, and you'll always have the story behind the story t... MARGARET ATWOOD Canada was built on dead beavers. MARGARET ATWOOD How shrunk, how dwindled, in our times Creation's mighty seed - For Man has broke the Fell... MARGARET ATWOOD She imagines him imagining her. This is her salvation. In spirit she walks the city, traces its... MARGARET ATWOOD You can only be jealous of someone who has something you think you ought to have yourself. MARGARET ATWOOD Can I be blamed for wanting a real body, to put my arms around? Without it I too am disembodied. I c... MARGARET ATWOOD Gardening is not a rational act. MARGARET ATWOOD Second-hand American was spreading over him in patches, like mange or lichen. He was infested, garbl... MARGARET ATWOOD وقتی دردپایان می یابد،دیگر در یاد چه کسی می ماند؟ تنها �... MARGARET ATWOOD We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. MARGARET ATWOOD If social stability goes pear-shaped, you have a choice between anarchy and dictatorship. Most peopl... MARGARET ATWOOD When you're young, you think everything you do is disposable. You move from now to now, crumpling ti... MARGARET ATWOOD We understand more than we know. MARGARET ATWOOD Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. Don't let the bastards grind you down. MARGARET ATWOOD You can examine the whole 19th century from the point of view of who would have maxed out their cred... MARGARET ATWOOD You hear doom and gloom about the Internet ruining young people's command of English - that'... MARGARET ATWOOD If I pick up a book with spaceships on the cover, I want spaceships. If I see one with dragons, I wa... MARGARET ATWOOD Girl Without Hands Walking through the ruins on your way to work that do not lo... MARGARET ATWOOD '1984' is not a wonder tale. Not only could it happen, but it has happened, but under differ... MARGARET ATWOOD The thing about delirium is you think it's great, but it actually isn't. MARGARET ATWOOD We have to rethink our whole energy approach, which is hard to do because we're so dependent on ... MARGARET ATWOOD I was warped early by Ray Bradbury and Edgar Allan Poe. I was very fond of Franz Kafka. MARGARET ATWOOD A divorce is like an amputation; you survive, but there's less of you. MARGARET ATWOOD The truly fearless think of themselves as normal. MARGARET ATWOOD Or perhaps she's just softening me up: she's a Baptist, she'd like me to find Jesus, or vice versa, ... MARGARET ATWOOD Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise. MARGARET ATWOOD I don't want to see anyone. I lie in the bedroom with the curtains drawn and nothingness washing ove... MARGARET ATWOOD When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like ... MARGARET ATWOOD My brother and I were both good at science, and we were both good at English literature. Either one ... MARGARET ATWOOD The myth that everyone once read great literature is just a myth. MARGARET ATWOOD I was born in the Ottawa General Hospital right after the Gray Cup Football Game in 1939. Six months... MARGARET ATWOOD If you're waiting for the perfect moment, you'll never write a thing because it will never a... MARGARET ATWOOD Debt is part of the human condition. Civilization is based on exchanges - on gifts, trades, loans - ... MARGARET ATWOOD I particularly like Twitter, because it's short and can be very funny and informative. It's ... MARGARET ATWOOD I do have a life,' says Charis, blinking wet eyes. 'You have a rich inner life,' says Ton... MARGARET ATWOOD Night falls. Or has fallen. Why is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the dawn? MARGARET ATWOOD No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the... MARGARET ATWOOD We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of pr... MARGARET ATWOOD But despite everything, we didn't do badly by one another, we did as well as most. I wish she were h... MARGARET ATWOOD But people will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning. No use, that is. No ... MARGARET ATWOOD Better never means better for everyone... It always means worse, for some. MARGARET ATWOOD Our problem right now is that we're so specialized that if the lights go out, there are a huge n... MARGARET ATWOOD There's always something to occupy the inquiring mind. MARGARET ATWOOD Social media is called social media for a reason. It lends itself to sharing rather than horn-tootin... MARGARET ATWOOD Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. It's like the tide... MARGARET ATWOOD Romance takes place in the middle distance. Romance is looking in at yourself through a window cloud... MARGARET ATWOOD Modesty is invisibility...Never forget it. To be seen—to be seen —is to be...penetrated. W... MARGARET ATWOOD In theory I can do almost anything; certainly I have been told how. In practice I do as little as po... MARGARET ATWOOD Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on you... MARGARET ATWOOD Sauve qui peut. To survive we’d all turn thief and rascal, or so says the fox, MARGARET ATWOOD Science fiction is filled with Martians and space travel to other planets, and things like that. MARGARET ATWOOD But how can you have a sense of wonder if you’re prepared for everything? MARGARET ATWOOD Our generation in the west was lucky: we had readymade gateways. We had books, paper, teachers, scho... MARGARET ATWOOD A home filled with nothing but yourself. It's heavy, that lightness. It's crushing, that emptiness. MARGARET ATWOOD The problem with meditating is I generally go to sleep, and that's because I'm doing it wron... MARGARET ATWOOD She finds this objectivity of hers, this clarity, almost more depressing than she can bear, not beca... MARGARET ATWOOD Fatigue is here, in my body, in my legs and eyes. That is what gets you in the end. Faith is only a ... MARGARET ATWOOD Many believed what they were told: that the welfare of the entire kingdom depended on their selfless... MARGARET ATWOOD She did understand, or at least she understood that she was supposed to understand. She understood, ... MARGARET ATWOOD When I am writing fiction, I believe I am much better organized, more methodical - one has to be whe... MARGARET ATWOOD We do like to have such good opinions of our own motives when we're about to do something harmful, t... MARGARET ATWOOD Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. It's like the tide... MARGARET ATWOOD I guess that's how they were able to do it, in the way they did, all at once, without anyone knowing... MARGARET ATWOOD Night falls. Or has fallen. Why is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the dawn? Yet if you... MARGARET ATWOOD What fabrications they are, mothers. Scarecrows, wax dolls for us to stick pins into, crude diagrams... MARGARET ATWOOD There is something powerful in the whispering of obscenities, about those in power. There's somethin... MARGARET ATWOOD I believe that everyone else my age is an adult whereas I am merely in disguise. MARGARET ATWOOD How could I have been so ignorant? she thinks. So stupid, so unseeing, so given over to carelessness... MARGARET ATWOOD The society in 'The Handmaid's Tale' is a throwback to the early Puritans whom I studied... MARGARET ATWOOD You could tell 'The Handmaid's Tale' from a male point of view. People have mistakenly f... MARGARET ATWOOD Glenn used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you sa... MARGARET ATWOOD You want the truth, of course. You want me to put two and two together. But two and two doesn’t ne... MARGARET ATWOOD But in the end, back she comes. There's no use resisting. She goes to him for amnesia, for oblivion.... MARGARET ATWOOD When you're unhinged, things make their way out of you that should be kept inside, and other things ... MARGARET ATWOOD Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we're still alive. We wish to assert... MARGARET ATWOOD It wasn't so easy though, ending the war. A war is a huge fire; the ashes from it drift far, and set... MARGARET ATWOOD The young habitually mistake lust for love, they're infested with idealism of all kinds. MARGARET ATWOOD I'm not senile," I snapped. "If I burn the house down it will be on purpose. MARGARET ATWOOD She knows herself to be at the mercy of events, and she knows by now that events have no mercy. MARGARET ATWOOD Why does the mind do such things? Turn on us, rend us, dig the claws in. If you get hungry enough, t... MARGARET ATWOOD Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we're still alive. We wish to assert... MARGARET ATWOOD Home is where the heart is, I thought now, gathering myself together in Betty's Luncheonette. I had ... MARGARET ATWOOD Should is a futile word. It's about what didn't happen. It belongs in a parallel universe. It... MARGARET ATWOOD What is it the I'll want from you? Not love: that would be too much to ask. Not forgiveness, which i... MARGARET ATWOOD There were a lot of gods. Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything. MARGARET ATWOOD Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. They hurt themselves instead; or else they do it so... MARGARET ATWOOD Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. Solid flesh can never live up to the brig... MARGARET ATWOOD The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by ... MARGARET ATWOOD There would be no Sherlock Holmes if it were not for serial publication. MARGARET ATWOOD The best way of keeping a secret is to pretend there isn't one. MARGARET ATWOOD Anybody who writes a book is an optimist. First of all, they think they're going to finish it. Secon... MARGARET ATWOOD Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it. MARGARET ATWOOD We thought we had such problems. How were we to know we were happy? MARGARET ATWOOD The moment of betrayal is the worst, the moment when you know beyond any doubt that you've been betr... MARGARET ATWOOD Put yourself in a different room, that's what the mind is for. MARGARET ATWOOD The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose MARGARET ATWOOD I think of this as a democratizing device. MARGARET ATWOOD I'm curious. If someone says 'Don't open that door', I'm right there! MARGARET ATWOOD The main thing is to keep yourself awake [on writing] MARGARET ATWOOD For years I wanted to be older, and now I am. MARGARET ATWOOD He's very in depth, on the dark side. He's interested in structure and how things work. After readin... MARGARET ATWOOD The Orange prize has been pivotal in the careers of many women writers - it's given them that extra ... MARGARET ATWOOD Just think of it as a very, very long pen. MARGARET ATWOOD Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked; as I never was when I was not one MARGARET ATWOOD This above all, to refuse to be a victim. MARGARET ATWOOD We thought we were running away from the grownups, and now we are the grownups. MARGARET ATWOOD A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason. MARGARET ATWOOD Does feminist mean large unpleasant person who'll shout at you or someone who believes women are hum... MARGARET ATWOOD They all disowned their parents long ago, the way you are supposed to MARGARET ATWOOD You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer. MARGARET ATWOOD Foreignness is all around. Only in the heart of the heart of the country, namely the heart of the Un... MARGARET ATWOOD Any death is stupid from the viewpoint of whoever is undergoing it, Adam One used to say, because no... MARGARET ATWOOD Also I could hear Amanda’s voice: Why are you being so weak? Love’s never a fair trade. So Jimmy... MARGARET ATWOOD I lie on the floor, washed by nothing and hanging on. I cry at night. I am afraid of hearing voices,... MARGARET ATWOOD Life is warped. I'm just in sync. MARGARET ATWOOD I thought everyone would be familiar with this figure: if I'd studied a thing in school I assumed it... MARGARET ATWOOD We were revisionists; what we revised was ourselves. MARGARET ATWOOD My parents are like younger, urchinlike brothers and sisters whose faces are dirty and who blurt out... MARGARET ATWOOD Now we come to forgiveness. Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important thing... MARGARET ATWOOD Our heaven is their hell, said God. I like a balanced universe. MARGARET ATWOOD She doesn't think it's a good idea to know the future, because you can hardly ever change it, so why... MARGARET ATWOOD The possibility of injury or death was a strong attraction: as the online world became more and more... MARGARET ATWOOD My self is a thing that I must now compose...as one composes a speech. What I must present is a 'mad... MARGARET ATWOOD