Our problem right now is that we're so specialized that if the lights go out, there are a huge number of people who are not going to know what to do. But within every dystopia there's a little utopia.
Margaret Atwood
Related Pro wrestling is not fake; it's sports entertainment. We go out there and we perform, and a lot ... KURT ANGLE In every revolution, there are winners and losers. Every dystopia is a utopia for somebody else. It ... KEN LIU It's what the Iraqi people are going through right now. They have encountered a victorious, host... MICHAEL NESMITH I find it irresponsible to go, 'She's an actress, what does she know?' That means if you... EVA LONGORIA If you're going to figure something out, study ethics. You can ask What's the answer? What... DUFF GOLDMAN I believe that there is a Matrix and... to be more accurate I am in the Pornography Matrix. DEYTH BANGER This world is run by people who know how to do things. They know how things work. They are equipped.... DORIS LESSING Peter...” She let her head fall back against the seat and sighed. “Let’s not go there.” MICHEL FABER One of the things I've learned from 'Borgen' is that it's very easy to criticise peo... PILOU ASBAEK Plunging in “truths” about God is like walking on the bottom of a sea that is not there, searchi... MARIANA FULGER There's a million people who can go out and play the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto brilliantly, bu... ALEKSEY IGUDESMAN The Mormon issue is a real problem in the South; it's a real problem in other parts of the count... DAN BARTLETT Though the customer is always right, there are some customers you do not want. JEFFREY FRY People are fans of Dunkin' Donuts. They have a relationship with the company, they go there ever... EVAN WILLIAMS What you don't do, if you're an adult, is decide that you're going to budget things thro... LEWIS BLACK Scaring someone's the hardest thing to do, and that's why most of these scary movies are not... RIDLEY SCOTT Beside every great success are the seeds of enormous failure. In every failure, there's the oppo... PETER GUBER People are beginning to understand there is nothing in the world so remote that it can't impact ... WILLIAM FOEGE Now that our kids are getting older, they need their space. We dug out the basement so they will hav... CANDICE OLSON People are on to us right now. They're got our number. We have to regroup and start doing something ... JERRY RICE In the current law we're seeing Social Security dwindle. And so what we're saying is if we... KEVIN YODER I think the biggest thing that I have to do is to remind people that poetry is there for us to turn ... NATASHA TRETHEWEY I like science fiction. Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick and Vonnegut, and I really like Margaret At... CONOR OBERST There are so few roles out there. And even if it is a film that could be led by a black actress, how... OCTAVIA SPENCER A considerable percentage of the people we meet on the street are people who are empty inside, that ... GEORGE GURDJIEFF As an actor you want people to know you and there are times you want your pictures taken, but it'... ASHLEY GREENE When a big event happens, people turn on to CNN, not only because they know there will be people the... ANDERSON COOPER With a popular show, you know that there's expectations there, so that's a little nerve-wrac... AARON ASHMORE If you're going to be honest with yourself, you have to admit that you go into show business wan... ELLEN DEGENERES There's so much innovation going on, and there are lots of people funding that innovation, but t... NAVAL RAVIKANT On the football field, you're still going out to there to win. And if you're not going out t... RICHARD SHERMAN We already know that spam is a huge downside of online life. If we're going to be spammed on our... HOWARD RHEINGOLD We are taught to consume. And that's what we do. But if we realized that there really is no reas... RIVER PHOENIX What's interesting about books that take place in the future, even twenty years in the future, i... ALBERT BROOKS We go out to practice every single day and we have fun out there, but at the same time, we're ge... ROB GRONKOWSKI A lot of producers now are people who stay in their office and never go to the set. I don't know... GALE ANNE HURD Our entire brand is about transparency. We want that data out there because you know what? If you ar... SAM YAGAN We're not writing songs to solve a cultural problem. The goal for us is to express what we'r... BEN HOPKINS If you're an entrepreneur and you're starting a company, I think the first thing you do is y... DAVE GOLDBERG Humanity is a crazy contradiction. I accept us for who we are. We're not that great. Every time ... COLIN QUINN If you know people who are suicidal, or if you know people who are bipolar, depressed, have panic at... ERIC MILLEGAN There are things you do when you're writing that are so fun to do it's almost like they'... CHAD HARBACH We're all concerned about the budget. We're all concerned about what's happening financi... JAMES F. AMOS They're trying to tell us that we're not right, so we have to buy their products. The number... NAOMI JUDD We're so lucky where we live, but we're so out of touch. Everyone's mindset is made to f... SONNY BILL WILLIAMS Most people who are selling their mineral rights, this is a once-in-a-lifetime transaction. The peop... MIKE DEWINE But so far as countries are concerned, I don't go to a place to see what's there, but who is... DAVID MCCALLUM There are certain things that I know I don't want to do anymore. Playing out-and-out terrorists ... ART MALIK What I'm saying is that there are bargains right now, there are stocks right now that if you'... JIM CRAMER Every employee needs to know that there's somebody out there that they serve. And when we don... PATRICK LENCIONI What can you do? You're never going to be - I'm sure there are people out there who think Ci... KATEE SACKHOFF Some people think that there aren't many Aboriginal actors around, and if there are, they're... DEBORAH MAILMAN Every utopia - let's just stick with the literary ones - faces the same problem: What do you do ... MARGARET ATWOOD There are a lot of people out there who are just waiting that we fail. They brought up the theory th... MARK MCGRATH If you are playing repertoire material, you're stuck. There's not huge amounts you can do. ROBERT FRIPP If you're an average married couple, you're going to lie to your spouse in one out of every ... PAMELA MEYER It's a clique and I think a clique exists in every business. There's a circle of people that... ELIZABETH PENA If you're out there stressing on your pro day, then you're not going to perform well, so I p... ROBERT GRIFFIN III There's a little bit of gospel in everything I do. But I don't know if I will ever do a gosp... EL DEBARGE People don't realize that we cannot forecast the future. What we can do is have probabilities of... ALAN GREENSPAN Of course, nobody's tearing my door down. If you're successful you're going to intimidat... BETTY WHITE Psychopaths are actually, really, really, really rare in our culture, are people who don't... Or... ANNIE PARISSE Children will be children, and they're inquisitive. If teenagers want to know what's out the... KEELEY HAWES There's certain songs that you're gonna record that you hope to touch people and change live... TYLER FARR With music, there's a conversation happening. You're hearing what's going on right now, ... JIM DRAIN Every game there is something that goes a little wrong, ... Right now we are taking our bumps and br... CHANNING FRYE Our boundaries have dissolved, and we're going to still do things that are somewhat familiar tha... ZAC BROWN We know there are a lot of people in the unemployment pool that do not match up in their skill set f... AUSTAN GOOLSBEE If you're middle aged... where're you going to go to meet someone? You're not going to g... ELIZABETH PERKINS I'm not like J.K. Rowling, where I know there's going to be this number of seasons, and I kn... ALAN BALL If I go into a studio and find my truth of the moment, there are a number of people in the world who... JAY-Z There are a lot of people who think that's what's needed to be successful is always being ri... AMY TAN There's so many things that people do on a daily basis that they do as a way of defining who the... AISHA HINDS What's really cool about our family is that we don't hold grudges, and I think that is what&... SELENA We've got a huge population of people that have been evacuated with very little by way of possession... NATALIE RULE I imagine if you're one of those genius people working on AI, the desire to find out what's ... EMILY BERRINGTON Teen problem novels? I can go through them like a box of chocolates. And there are fantasy books out... TAMORA PIERCE I don't know what I want to do. There are people who want me to do things. There's a possibl... VALERIE SIMPSON To speak specifically of our problem with the Muslim world, we are meandering into a genuine clash o... SAM HARRIS Well, the album 'Intuition' is out and just went platinum officially. So I think to have the... JAMIE FOXX As human beings, we need to know that we are not alone, that we are not crazy or completely out of o... BILLY JOEL I think the problem I have with films is that, because there's so much hype around them, they be... HANS MATHESON We're professional athletes. People know who we are, and if there's some way we can help wit... BOBBY ORR I try to explain to people that you get the roles that are right when they're right. If you have... ED HELMS Sometimes it gets boring. No justice is supposed to say that. But, you know, there's drudgery in... SONIA SOTOMAYOR What is it that makes you so angry, bothers you so deeply, that you're compelled to act? CRAIG GROESCHEL There are so many people I know who could be the greatest film-maker but who will never get the chan... ALEXANDRA CASSAVETES There's something that goes on in a new-business meeting that's wonderful to watch. It's... JERRY DELLA FEMINA There is such a suspicion in today's world of people who do more than one thing, who aren't ... ESA-PEKKA SALONEN I opened myself to your silences. MARGARET ATWOOD To me there's no creativity without boundaries. If you're gonna write a sonnet, it's 14 ... LORNE MICHAELS The trick to making a story matter is that every now and then, somebody you care about has to go. If... DAVID SIMON Social media are a catalyst for the advancement of everyone's rights. It's where we're r... QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN Because each are going to blame each other. The thing that Canberra has to really get right is the s... REX HUNT Curiosity is the essence of human existence. 'Who are we? Where are we? Where do we come from? W... EUGENE CERNAN Curiosity is the essence of human existence. 'Who are we? Where are we? Where do we come from? W... GENE CERNAN There are two worlds out there - two Americas out there. If you're a white person, there's o... CLAUDIA RANKINE Plot is a framework on which to drape other things. So once that's working, I can just let it go... PATRICK NESS I'm a pretty aggressive girl in general. So if there's a boy that I like, you're going t... BETTY WHO With kiting, you have to land a trick, and in that instant you know whether you won or lost - I knew... MAIKA MONROE
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 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 Human tool-makers always make tools that will help us get what we want, and what we want hasn't chan... 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