There is something powerful in the whispering of obscenities, about those in power. There's something delightful about it, something naughty, secretive, forbidden, thrilling. It's like a spell, of sorts. It deflates them, reduces them to the common denominator where they can be dealt with.
Margaret Atwood
Related Where I used to think that this life would be good. And I would do things that I thought that I shou... SOMETHING CORPORATE I think there's something really thrilling to having to get people laughing about something, and... UZO ADUBA There's something amazing about the passion of youth and its power to sustain. If there's a more pow... , ANIMAL CROSSING: WILD WORLD, 2005 Any artist, the work you do, if it's a painting or if it's a performance, you hope it transl... MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY If something is exceptionally well done it has embedded in it's very existence the aim of lifting th... EDWARD FISCHER People feel powerless and useless in the world. But they can buy something. It can give them a sense... DAPHNE ZUNIGA Books can capture injustices in a way that stays with you and makes you want to do something about t... MALALA YOUSAFZAI I try to study the background of the country I am in and what were my hits there, so I can at least ... BETTY WRIGHT We're very concerned about them on the glass. But not only that, they do a very good job of getting ... LORENZO ROMAR While not as common as they used to be, entire groups of people with what seems like an infinite amo... LINDSEY OUIMET I have a mess in my head sometimes, and there's something very satisfying about putting it into ... CARRIE FISHER Each instinct and passion of man is amoral; it is only the abuse of these passions that makes them w... FULTON J. SHEEN Nuclear, ecological, chemical, economic — our arsenal of Death by Stupidity is impressive for a sp... JEANETTE WINTERSON I opened myself to your silences. MARGARET ATWOOD Treating an age group as a demographic requires coming up with something that's common to every ... DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF I've never been specifically attached to westerns, but there are those I like - one of the best ... MADS MIKKELSEN Bach and Beethoven, all of them, they had to write something to please the upper structure, those wi... SUN RA The marketing point is that it lets kids do something that's forbidden. Kids are all about limits an... ERIK GORDON I can see where they had problems with them. Do I think it is something they needed to be fired for ... DAVE DUERR The strange power of art is sometimes it can show that what people have in common is more urgent tha... JOHN BERGER The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD There is something about someone trusting you enough with their secrets that it makes it easier to t... JESSICA SORENSEN People respond to something which intrigues them instead of something that gives them all the inform... LORDE The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When t... ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD You give them recommendations. You throw different angles at them where, hopefully, they can get som... MIKE BUTCHER Among those whom I like, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all o... W.H. AUDEN I like working on stage because there's something very immediate about it, that interaction with... SAFFRON BURROWS People who complain about something that they cannot do anything about are as irritating as those wh... MOKOKOMA MOKHONOANA You meet some delightful people. They are broad in terms of backgrounds and interests. We always hav... BOB KEEVIL There is something basic about protecting land by taking it off the market. People should be able to... TOM HANKS So few people understand about anything. MARGARET ATWOOD There has to be a balance between power and vulnerability. That's something I feel I have in my ... IDINA MENZEL Live theater is just an incredibly powerful medium, and I think anyone who goes, whether they know a... HARRY CONNICK, JR. The school bus is one of the places where unkind things can happen. If kids are upset about somethin... JOAN WINTER Disney Hall is truly astonishingly beautiful. There is something about those silver petals that just... EMANUEL AX This product is something that will have to be dealt with and livestock is one of the few things tha... MARLIN NILSSON For each of those markets, there is a segment where people are taking those products and converting ... ANTHONY PATTERSON The profoundest thoughts of the philosophers have something trickle about them. A lot disappears in ... ELIAS CANETTI The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. Wh... ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD The knowledge of death seemed present in both sisters—it was something about the way they carried ... JHUMPA LAHIRI Usability is not only about ease of use but also about bringing something meaningful, having an obje... MARCUS ÖSTERBERG It was something they could share with us about their cultures and it was easy for them to share. It... ELIZABETH FIMBRES I like all the families in the U.K. But what I like about the idea of the royal family is... they se... WILL.I.AM The trouble with deep belief is that it costs something And there is something inside me, some selfi... DONALD MILLER There is just something about starting your day with something luxurious like a bath. ERIN HEATHERTON There's something about witnessing something in the sky that makes people think they're seei... NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON When you walk down the street and see something in a crazy spot, there's something powerful abou... SHEPARD FAIREY Bigots see something they expect and then they stop thinking about what is in front of them. It's pr... JIM BUTCHER These ivy league students are in the upper echelon of the college boards and had great opportunity i... MICHAEL N. CASTLE This is something that is very difficult for the youth. On the one hand, they hear that it's totally... AVIDAN WEITZMAN Those no-sooner-have-I-touched-the-pillow people are past my comprehension. There is something bovin... J. B. PRIESTLEY Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator; but among those whom I love, I ... W. H. AUDEN Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I ... W. H. AUDEN Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I ... W.H. AUDEN Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I... WH AUDEN Individualism is rather like innocence; there must be something unconscious about it. LOUIS KRONENBERGER All that the spider needs to complete its web is step taking ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH You talk to a Windows user about the dangers of clicking on the wrong attachments, and they know you... CRAIG SCHMUGAR I'm very excited about our product. Our product is the day's news, something for your water cooler i... SHEPARD SMITH Those products could end up in something the size of a telephone or a bread box. It may take them ab... LARRY LAURICH You can have all sorts of relationships, but there's something with musicians working together w... BETH ORTON If you look across the valley, you can see exactly what I mean: about four beautiful houses, and you... JILLY COOPER Besides all those whaling details, Moby Dick is about someone who's looking for something so hug... LAURIE ANDERSON For starters, that’s a rather simple principle of Time Travel right there – and according to the... CHRISTINA ENGELA I have a bit of a lava lamp fetish. They are kind of hideous, but there is something so therapeutic ... BELLA HEATHCOTE The power of the family stories and the family history is really remarkable. There seems to be somet... ROBYN FIVUSH It's so bizarre, I'm not scared of snakes or spiders. But I'm scared of butterflies. The... NICOLE KIDMAN There's something with the physical size of America... American writers can write about America ... MARK HADDON I think that there's something really powerful about the sun and its effect on the human psyche.... DAVE SITEK To identify with others is to see something of yourself in them and to see something of them in your... MELANIE JOY Knowing that this is the last time I've coached those seniors was the hardest thing about all of thi... BRAD KROUSE There's a lot of talk these days about giving children self-esteem. It's not something you can give;... RANDY PAUSCH It was just that there was something newly powerful about this assembled family in the car. They wer... MAGGIE STIEFVATER A lot of my students are Asian-American, and it has been thrilling to watch them break through the s... ROBERT MORGAN Fiction may be about lying – on the surface, anyway – but fiction is about hiding the truth behi... STACIA KANE There's something romantic about it, of course, in the way only other people's lives can be. SCARLETT THOMAS I want them to get the basic concepts: What is soil? How is it important? How does it change? If the... AMY PRICE The level of athleticism and discipline they bring, you can't put a value on it. There's something t... CORRIE ADAMS I love really crappy carnivals, where you think the ride is going to break. There's something so... LEA THOMPSON I think the level of ambition of this piece is something that attracted all of us, ... doing somethi... CARLA GUGINO Many people live in world,but few of them knows something about the world. BENJAMIN KUSI BOATENG The show was great, 'cause it had the energy that you wanted. If Jay-Z is talking about them in his ... DAN HOOTEN I'm excited about it. The whole idea was for kids to be able to do a project that would count as the... DEBBIE WARD Everyone has something of beauty about them. ALLY CONDIE There is something about hanging around people who are in pursuit of excellence, and those who are c... SD WARD If they can come up with something that is satisfactory, we'll present it to the DOJ. If they don't,... JOE SIMS It used to be just the opposite. It used to be us watching them. We know about the established progr... JAY ARTALL What I was wrong about was not realizing that in my saying those things in the way I said them had p... GLENN LOURY They've got their work cut out for them if they're going to get under my skin. You can clearly see g... GREG BIFFLE There's just something about dance. It's like a primal thing in all of us. PATRICK SWAYZE There is something fundamentally fascinating about the mechanics, I guess, of the human body and whe... NEILL BLOMKAMP And because there is something they can’t see people think it has to be special, because people al... MARK HADDON I heard a lot of people talking about it with really good results. There must be something to it. DARLENE PURUGGANAN There’s something different about him, and I don’t have to think hard to see it. Something about... K.A. TUCKER Hopefully, we'll give them something to be excited about. DOUG JUSTICE There is something about someone making a fantastic sandwich, taking care to spread lots of mayo all... APRIL BLOOMFIELD They were always some of the most successful. You could always tell Don's students. There was someth... DAVE KLINK There is something about the sameness people like. And what I've tried to do with all the zombie... GEORGE A. ROMERO There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembod... JOSEPH CONRAD There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembod... JOSEPH CONRAD
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 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