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Margaret Atwood Quotes

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Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can

Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.

Margaret Atwood
Patience, Children, Wall

You may not be able to alter reality, but you can alter your attitude towards it, and this, paradoxically, alters reality. Try it and see.

Margaret Atwood
Attitude, Reality, Trying
"Attitude". Margaret Atwood's commencement address at the University of Toronto, Canada, www.humanity.org. June 14, 1983.

I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one 'race' - the human race - and that we are all members of it.

Margaret Atwood
Equality, Race, People

Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.

Margaret Atwood
Relationship, Women, Laughing

In the end, we'll all become stories.

Margaret Atwood
Stories, Ends
"Moral Disorder". Book by Margaret Atwood, September 4, 2006.

A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.

Margaret Atwood
Bad Ass, Voice, Silence
"Margaret Atwood on a voyage to the world's end" by Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. August 29, 2009.

There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too.

Margaret Atwood
Real, Stories, Real Story
Alastair Reynolds, Margaret Atwood, Stephen Baxter, Hannu Rajaniemi, Paul Graham Raven (2012). “Arc 1.1: The Future Always Wins”, p.39, Arc

The fabric of democracy is always fragile everywhere because it depends on the will of citizens to protect it, and when they become scared, when it becomes dangerous for them to defend it, it can go very quickly.

Margaret Atwood
Democracy, Fabric, Citizens
"Margaret Atwood Interview". Interview with Matthew Rothschild, progressive.org. December 2, 2010.

Love is giving, marriage is buying and selling. You can't put love into a contract.

Margaret Atwood
Love, Giving, Age
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.424, Anchor

Oppression involves a failure of the imagination: the failure to imagine the full humanity of other human beings.

Margaret Atwood
Diversity, Imagination, Humanity
Margaret Atwood (1984). “Second words: selected critical prose”, Beacon Press, 1984

Lose your temper and you lose the fight.

Margaret Atwood
Fighting, Temper, Loses
Margaret Atwood (2009). “The Blind Assassin”, p.265, Hachette UK

If your not annoying somebody, you're not alive.

Margaret Atwood
Alive, Annoying, Ifs

We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.

Margaret Atwood
Inspirational, Life, Powerful

The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you will be free.

Margaret Atwood
Philosophical, Giving, Desire
Margaret Atwood (2012). “Selected Poems II: 1976 - 1986”, p.115, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

And yet it disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional.

Margaret Atwood
Hurt, Want, Hurts Someone
Margaret Atwood (1988). “Cat's eye”, Doubleday, 1989

The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.

Margaret Atwood
Truth, Writing, Hands
FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Apr 02, 2013

I exist in two places, here and where you are.

Margaret Atwood
Two, Where You Are
Margaret Atwood (1987). “Selected Poems, 1965-1975”, p.200, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.

Margaret Atwood
Stupid, Evil, Judging
Margaret Atwood (2012). “Surfacing”, p.46, Simon and Schuster

Where do the words go when we have said them?

Margaret Atwood
Said
Margaret Atwood (1987). “Selected Poems: 1965-1975”, p.120, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance.

Margaret Atwood
Dark, Light, Chance
Margaret Atwood (2009). “The Year of the Flood”, p.279, Anchor

The world is being run by people my age, men my age, with falling-out hair and health worries, and it frightens me. When the leaders were older than me I could believe in their wisdom, I could believe they had transcended rage and malice and the need to be loved. Now I know better. I look at the faces in newspapers, in magazines, and wonder: what greeds, what furies drive them on?

Margaret Atwood
Running, Believe, Fall
Margaret Atwood (1989). “Cat's Eye”, Bantam

There is no fool like an educated fool.

Margaret Atwood
Fool, Educated, Educated Fools
Margaret Atwood (2011). “Alias Grace: A Novel”, p.73, Anchor

Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth.

Margaret Atwood
Philosophy, Sight, Medicine
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.256, Anchor

Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space.

Margaret Atwood
Hate, Space, Here And There
"Margaret Atwood: 'I have a big following among the biogeeks. "Finally! Someone understands us!"'". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. August 24, 2013.

This above all, to refuse to be a victim.

Margaret Atwood
Victim, Refuse
Surfacing ch. 27 (1972)

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