The house, and all the objects in it, crackled with static electricity; undertows washed through it, the air was heavy with things that were known but not spoken. Like a hollow log, a drum, a church, it was amplified, so that conversations whispered in it sixty years ago can be half-heard today.
Margaret Atwood
Related It is a lie. ARTHUR MILLER - I tak nieźle sobie pożyłem. - Co to za życie? – powiedział ojciec.- Nic tylko kłamstw... CHARLES BUKOWSKI The choir always tittered and whispered all through service. There was once a church choir that was ... MARK TWAIN Drowning his misery with alcohol and junk food was like sticking plaster on an infected cut. It mask... JAY NORTHCOTE Now I only need to look out at them through my sky-blue eyes. They see their own ill will<... MARGARET ATWOOD Time is a teacher which in the end it kills all it's students. (Synchronicity 2015 Film) DEYTH BANGER I love you crookedly because my heart's been unhinged from birth. The doctors gave me strict instru... MATHIAS MALZIEU For starters, that’s a rather simple principle of Time Travel right there – and according to the... CHRISTINA ENGELA If you want one thing too much it’s likely to be a disappointment. The healthy way is to learn to ... LARRY MCMURTRY Better to feel nothing, to be numb, than to lose control. It's the only way I know to deal with it. JULIE KAGAWA Getting on with her life is important. But right now it may be more important to put the feelings ou... JENNIFER BROWN The universe is so vast, so immense, we can never expect to explore it all. It is in effect, not so ... CHRISTINA ENGELA Lambhood and tigerishness may be found in either gender, and in the same individual at different tim... MARGARET ATWOOD This world is a joke, and I'm in it OLIWAH GOUDEE It is a small world. You do not have to live in it particuarly long to learn that for yourself. Ther... NEIL GAIMAN 28. Feelings are neither right nor wrong. It's what you do with them that causes the problems. JAMES C. DOBSON If Stephen King was a killer, he will be the best killer ever existed, check out his novels, check o... DEYTH BANGER Aside from all that, she was carrying about a million tons of titanium ore to the heavy industries o... CHRISTINA ENGELA You're full of contradictions, Ms. Wallace." I looked up at him and arched a brow. "I'm a girl... TAMMARA WEBBER The only way he could have her was to shatter this stubborn faith of hers. In doing so, would he sha... FRANCINE RIVERS 6 Ways To Give Your Mind A Break: 1. Stop stressing 2. Stop worrying 3. Give re... GERMANY KENT Her hormones slipped into their sexy underwear with a grin. JENNIFER SCHMIDT By the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes--a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes. E.M. FORSTER Integrity is not everything, but it is the only thing that matters. JEFFREY FRY You silly," said Abdul, "those clouds don' mean nothing. I see'd them plenty a'ready. It was jus' co... THEO ENGELA What's the difference between people who see and seek gaps and those that see and seek bridges? The ... RICHIE NORTON If I provide for this life and turn away from the Lord, I am wise for a moment, but lost forever. FRANCINE RIVERS The only way he could have her was to shatter this stubborn faith of hers. In doing so, would he sha... FRANCINE RIVERS If you have a question, ask. How do you ask? Say it or write it SOTONYE ANGA Everyday people all over the world take advantage of life, they abuse it and dice with it.Life is so... GARY F EVANS... If the seed doesn't get planted, it can't become a toxic thornbush. We must guard our minds and our ... 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 There are so many things we do in life that define the real meaning of our lives. There are so many ... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Every wall is climbable SOTONYE ANGA They can't give you all that, Mr Jimson,' said Walter, who was upset. 'It wouldn't be right. What wo... JOYCE CARY The winds get amplified around objects and over objects. It can really get amplified going over a ro... RYAN BOYLES To find that things are never what they seem no matter what way you look at it is an eye opener inde... GARY F EVANS... Common things are common and Uncommon things are uncommon. Let it be a footprint that you are uncomm... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Life is weird and wonderful like that, is it not. SONYA.E.WILLIAMS If therefore you shall be remembered for what you did with what you had more than what you had, use ... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH You can coddle your rage, or you can fully engage. TONY CLEAVER Instinct's the iron skeleton under all our ideas of free will. STEPHEN KING I speak the truth. Not everyone who says they are ready to hear it really are. MONIKA ZANDS Reach out and help others. If you have the power to make someone happy, do it. Be a vessel, be the c... GERMANY KENT the room of the spirit is the mind and the seat of the spirit is the heart. What we give room to muc... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH If you're not really having a good time, it's not worth it. KYLE CHANDLER If you can dream it, you can do it. ENZO FERRARI Do the thing and you will have the power. RALPH WALDO EMERSON Isn't it amazing that we’ll cause ourselves more pain by thinking about, and avoiding something we... JAMES A. MURPHY Cease to think of an impossibility and you will seize an opportunity for productivity. Excellence co... ISRAELMORE AYIVOR If you catch yourself wondering why you want more of the world and you're not satisfied with God, it... CRAIG GROESCHEL I opened myself to your silences. MARGARET ATWOOD The way President Abraham Lincoln is said to have handled a person who had a know-it-all attitude. L... JOHN C. MAXWELL The man or woman that believes their success soley rests on their actions is sorely mistaken. JOHN LEACH So rich a client having suffered such a messy death was an unsettling embarrassment to Captain Haral... CHRISTINA ENGELA I was going to make him proud of the man I would become. I was finally going to chart my own course,... EMORY R. FRIE If by that you mean that I dislike celebrity magazines, prefer food to anorexia, refuse to watch TV ... JOHN GREEN It wasn't so long ago that it was not popular to speak Gaelic in Ireland because the areas that ... ENYA The value of routine; trusting your swing. LORII MYERS Six months later (after Katrina), I expected things to be pretty normal. So many still didn't have e... CHARLOTTE CIPPARONE If you can't do it today, You can not do it in your whole life! Do it NOW! KAMAL KHANZADA The king may rule the kingdom, but it's the queen who moves the board. D.M. TIMNEY A man can define many things beautifully in his life, but his character is one beautiful thing that ... ANUJ SOMANY Five years ago, there was the crossover energy where all of a sudden, 'Time Magazine' and 'Newsweek'... GABRIEL ABAROA I'm psychologically equipped for this. A. ASHLEY STRAKER Risks can lead to great victories or defeats. Even if you are defeated, the lesson will be valuable ... LAILAH GIFTYAKITA Two years ago at Michigan the crowd noise was pretty heavy there, obviously, with 110,000 that had t... BRADY QUINN If we could have the ability to change the past and right our wrongs would it make us learn from any... GARY F EVANS... To be in a time of technological change and advancement is an awesome thought indeed as long as it i... GARY F EVANS... Here is one fact 1 minute to finish the class, 1 day to die, one day behind that fact, one day in th... DEYTH BANGER Better to put your heart on the line, risk everything, and walk away with nothing than play it safe.... MANDY HALE Renew your mind by washing it with truth: God's Word. CRAIG GROESCHEL Who you know only gets you in the door; what you know gets you the keys to the house. GINA GREENLEE Dive into the river of the present, but don't thrash about, go with the flow. JIM GENOVESE Success is a Journey: so, don’t forget to pack your COURAGE: to face the obstacles heading your wa... PHILIP T. M. It almost felt like we were driving in our own world--like we were inside a snow globe--and there wa... MELISSA C. WALKER If you think like a leader, act like a leader, inspire like a leader then you are a leader. DEBASISH MRIDHA It was like they waited to tell each other things that had never been told before. What she had to s... CARSON MCCULLERS Being present is being connected to All Things. S. KELLEY HARRELL, M. DIV. Move forward doesn´t mean avoiding the pain, but look towards a new day in spite of the rain. ANA CLAUDIA ANTUNES This is a tough place. It's lost a lot of grip over the years. It rained and washed all the rubber o... REED SORENSON Be curious, ask questions SOTONYE ANGA Half the things on the original bowl were not engraved but scratched in by the players, often while ... ERNIE PHILLIPS Or maybe they just accept that it's wrong in God's eyes, although not in their own, and they'll worr... CRAIG GROESCHEL To change yourself you have to move from where you are and take a step, then you have to be willing ... BRENT M. JONES Do. Then talk. In that order. SOTERO M LOPEZ II If you want a revenge, don't hold it. It poisons you. Either you just let the grudge go, or mak... TOBA BETA You must be the person you have never had the courage to be. Gradually, you will discover that you a... PAULO COELHO It ends or it doesn't. That’s what you say. That’s how you get through it. The tu... CAITLYN SIEHL It’s a general rule – a law of space, as it was a law of the sea in the old days, that ships had... CHRISTINA ENGELA I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES I never quit. The times when I have quit in the past because I couldn't face trying harder have ... LIZZIE ARMITSTEAD The first rumor that I heard was probably a month and a half ago. I heard it more than once that som... DAVE LANE When I was forty and looking at sixty, it seemed like a thousand miles away. But sixty-two feels lik... HARRY BELAFONTE To kill yourself for earning a salary is not worth it. NARGIS FAKHRI Hitting the moored boat provided a launch ramp for it into the house. It was pretty spectacular. And... GARY MORSE We were afraid that Holocaust survivors would not like the idea of the play, but I think that the Is... DAN ALMAGOR Pain has creative power, Let the magic unfold... HENNA SOHAIL Nowadays, it's hard to find the best horror and to be interesting and to be afraid of it! DEYTH BANGER Maybe you've never fallen into a frozen stream. Here's what happens. 1. It is cold. So cold tha... MAUREEN JOHNSON
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 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