Their mothers had finally caught up to them and been proven right. There were consequences after all but they were the consequences to things you didn't even know you'd done.
Margaret Atwood
Related Right now she's on excellent behavior, because I think it's finally hit her there's consequences to ... ESTELA TORRES Life had taught her that consequences were ugly and painful, and seldom worth the pleasure they had ... AMY HARMON To hear them tell us how grateful they were after all they've been through, that something was final... CATHY COLLENTINE You want to be doing things that educate them and help them understand their actions have consequenc... SOPHIE BECKMANN We have indicated to them that should there be incidents like there were today, there will be conseq... DAVID KRAMER I knew what they were after; that I had alarmed the country all the way up, that their boats were ca... PAUL REVERE We had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth. There were so many of us who would have to live with ... JOHN GREEN Trying to build myself up with the fact that I have done things right that were even good and have h... MARILYN MONROE Scream-free parenting creates moments where they own their own lives. It also creates moments where ... HAL RUNKEL They didn't even like Margaret Thatcher but at least there was Margaret Thatcher. There have bee... KATE CLINTON You know you have reached maturity when you finally decide to stop paying for the consequences of yo... LESLIE A ARNETT We were fortunate tonight with all the walks and the hit batter. We had to scrap to get through it, ... BUCK SHOWALTER There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Th... JOHN GREEN In my day, there were things that were done, and things that were not done, and there was even a way... PETER USTINOV When kids are truant and they're brought back in, nothing is done. You say okay, fine you were truan... DOUG WILDER A spiritual partnership is between people who promise themselves to use all of their experiences to ... GARY ZUKAV If you can't understand why someone is doing something, look at the consequences of their actions, w... JORDAN B. PETERSON The team has finally just opened up their bats and started swinging them. We were playing very tense... TRACEY KEE We have been working on this trail to get this trail to behind you - to the south for three or four ... JOSEPH WEST In arriving at a decision in a question of doubt, the apostles in the Acts were guided solely by the... ROLAND ALLEN To be a utilitarian means that you judge actions as right or wrong in accordance with whether they h... PETER SINGER Always be true to yourself regardless of the consequences. I assure you not doing so has even greate... THORIN If they know there are consequences, they don't do things. If they know at the dance they will be ch... ALICE JACKSON Imagine you had a friend who was there for you all the time and you were there for them, but they st... CECELIA AHERN We wanted to teach the mothers separately, so the daughters could see them as educators. The mothers... BARBARA DANCY There were so many different versions of him. It was countless versions of a song, and they were all... MAGGIE STIEFVATER I think I've finally proven something to people who were cynical about me. Because they were cru... NANCY SINATRA The instructors were often neophytes at teaching us, but they possessed the information. We used the... DAVID BAKER All the problems that people create in their life can be summed up as them being unable or unwilling... DONALD LYNN FROST People don't like the idea of consequences. They want to be able to live their life freely and d... CHARLES STANLEY I told them, 'You know what? I'm wrong. I've thought all year we were good enough to go to state. I ... CHRIS CARLISLE Interviewees were shy - after all, no one had ever asked them about their vaginas before. But once t... DEBI MAZAR Quite often good things have hurtful consequences. There are instances of men who have been ruined b... ARISTOTLE I request that they may be considered in confidence, until the members of Congress are fully possess... JOHN ADAMS You've had to stay. You've had to stay to watch what went on because we'd seen kids coming across th... JUDY MAZULAITIS The wisest were just the poor and simple people. They knew the war to be a misfortune, whereas those... ERICH MARIA REMARQUE What's the use you learning to do right when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do... MARK TWAIN It's very safe when done properly. A lot of people don't know the right way to ride in traffic. It's... DORIE CLARK Margaret Atwood, the Canadian novelist, once asked a group of women at a university why they felt th... MOLLY IVINS I had learned very early that not getting caught was just about the solution to every problem. If yo... CHRISTOPHER S. HYATT Highland is a very good team. We didn't match their intensity at the start. After three quarters, we... JOE DELGADO Know what the old masters did. Know how they composed their pictures, but do not fall into the conve... ROBERT HENRI There are consequences to ignoring consequences that are a consequence of my blatant unwillingness t... CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH When it comes to inmates, we have boiled them down to just the few things we know about them - their... UZO ADUBA If law enforcement misuses them, there should be consequences for that officer, up to and including ... BEN STONE When we came here to build this program, there were many things that needed to get done. Now, I thin... BARONTON TERRY Great writers, I discovered, were not to be bowed down before and worshipped, but embraced and befri... STEPHEN FRY Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated. JOHN CHILCOT If your hands were not clean, your good actions had grimmer and more relentless consequences than yo... NICK JOAQUíN I was always mortified.Didn't they know they were tying thier mothers to the ground? Weren't chains ... JANET FITCH I am not mad because I'm a woman... I'm mad because you're an asshole. MARGARET ATWOOD All my concerts had no sounds in them; they were completely silent. People had to make up their own ... YOKO ONO They say death and taxes are the only things that are inevitable. The truth is, you can not pay your... STEVE EARLE Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicia... JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY I know my Easts and Tom Brown, you see, and they're never happy unless their morality is being tried... GEORGE MACDONALD FRASER Mothers were much too sharp. They were like dogs. Buster always sensed when anything was out of the ... ENID BLYTON After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as the... OSCAR WILDE Coach told us they were probably going to come out a little tentative and then get up in us, so we h... JUSTIN WILLIAMS The kids have really been resilient, especially our seniors. They played through adversity and made ... ANDY FURUTO He was thrilled to know that all of the miners had been rescued, were reunited with their families a... SCOTT STANZEL Anyone who is contemplating going to Afghanistan does need to think very carefully about the consequ... GEOFF HOON but on an even greater scale and with even more dramatic consequences. GENNADY ZYUGANOV After the attacks in London, there were a number of questions asked trying to understand who these p... JAY HOOD Stick a shovel in the ground almost anywhere and some horrible thing or other will come to light. MARGARET ATWOOD She stubs out her cigarette in the brown glass ashtray, then settles herself against him, ear to his... MARGARET ATWOOD She’s the kind of woman who wants what she doesn’t have and gets what she wants and then despise... MARGARET ATWOOD I know we're all getting these telephone calls and I understand the public would like something done... CAROLYN ALLEN After all they had been through to ... finally get clean and eating regularly, they didn't want to b... MARGARET WALKER A lot of the people that were down there had never even worked on a roof before, had never touched a... JOE GLASER ... that I forgave him, and that she forgave us, and that we have to forgive to survive in the labyr... JOHN GREEN I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justifie... F. SCOTT FITZGERALD I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified.... F. SCOTT FITZGERALD In the old days, spies had done they'd done because they loved their country, because they believed ... ANTHONY HOROWITZ There's no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and ... JACK WELCH But even though she was attractive, there was something else about her that caught his eye. She was ... NICHOLAS SPARKS The glasses were fine in the beginning, it was like you knew they were there, but they didn't bother... AARON GREEN That was the thing about best friends. Like sisters and mothers, they could piss you off and make yo... KRISTIN HANNAH I was looking in their huddle, they were laughing, joking, they knew they were going to come out wit... JOHN SALMONS Don't go into great detail describing places and things, unless you're Margaret Atwood and can pai... ELMORE LEONARD If you are inefficient, you have a right to be afraid of the consequences. MURAD S. SHAH And there were some things I didn't know I had until I lost them. VERONICA ROTH I reflected on other victims I had met and how they were raped right on the altars of their own chur... CHARLES L. BAILEY JR. Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of
them will be what they will be; why t... BISHOP JOSEPH BUTLER Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be: why th... JOSEPH BUTLER As children, we looked up to our maids and our nannies, who were playing in some ways the role of ou... KATHRYN STOCKETT Every day is an education. I'd grill the employees on a weekly or even daily basis, and after a whil... LARRY STONE They always know the consequences. It's an easy system. JUDI MERRITT Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done. LOUIS D. BRANDEIS Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become polit... JOHN F. KENNEDY We have two individuals charged with very serious crimes. And they have to understand there are some... DAVID YOUNG You know most of the food that Americans hold so dear - things like hamburgers and hot dogs - were r... ALTON BROWN Growing up, I slowly had this process of realizing that all the things around me that people had tol... AARON SWARTZ But the biggest clue seemed to be their expressions. They were hard to explain. Good-natured, friend... ROBERT M. PIRSIG All men, even those we call savages, have been so tormented by the passion for strong drinks, that l... JEAN ANTHELME BRILLAT-SAVARIN They never had a better computer. They never had better lights. They never had better communication ... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Mostly we're motivated to control ourselves in public. Mostly. At home the motivation is much le... BEN MARCUS When Europe dominated, there were no or few feedback loops. Or, to put it another way, there were fe... MARTIN JACQUES Those losses were good because we hadn't been hardened yet as a team. To lose like that, heartbreaki... ANTHONY GRANT Shall I tell you a story? A new and terrible one? A ghost story? Are you ready? Shall I begin? Once ... LIBBA BRAY Let children learn about different faiths, let them notice their incompatibility, and let them draw ... RICHARD DAWKINS
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 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 My self is a thing that I must now compose...as one composes a speech. What I must present is a 'mad... MARGARET ATWOOD