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Margaret Atwood Quotes - Page 12

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But thoughtless ingratitude is the armour of the young; without it, how would they ever get through life? The old wish the young well, but they wish them ill also: they would like to eat them up, and absorb their

But thoughtless ingratitude is the armour of the young; without it, how would they ever get through life? The old wish the young well, but they wish them ill also: they would like to eat them up, and absorb their vitality, and remain immortal themselves. Without the protection of surliness and levity, all children would be crushed by the past - the past of others, loaded on their shoulders. Selfishness is their saving grace.

Margaret Atwood
Children, Past, Grace
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.419, Anchor

Why does the mind do such things? Turn on us, rend us, dig the claws in. If you get hungry enough, they say, you start eating your own heart. Maybe it's much the same.

Margaret Atwood
Life, Heart, Mind
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.329, Anchor

I see that there will be no end to imperfection, or to doing things the wrong way. Even if you grow up, no matter how hard you scrub, whatever you do, there will always be some other stain or spot on your face or stupid act, somebody frowning.

Margaret Atwood
Growing Up, Stupid, Imperfection
FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Sep 01, 2014

Romance takes place in the middle distance. Romance is looking in at yourself through a window clouded with dew. Romance means leaving things out: where life grunts and shuffles, romance only sighs.

Margaret Atwood
Love, Distance, Mean

I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.

Margaret Atwood
Love, Sleep, Air
"Variation on theWord Sleep" l. 27 (1981)

What you get is no longer what you see.

Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood (2015). “Morning in the Burned House”, p.34, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

a handful of crumpled stars

Margaret Atwood
Stars, Handful
Margaret Atwood (2016). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.447, Random House

But people will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning. No use, that is. No plot.

Margaret Atwood
People, Use, Plot
Margaret Atwood (2016). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.332, Random House

He needed to exist only in the present, without guilt, without expectation.

Margaret Atwood
Expectations, Guilt, Needed
Margaret Atwood (2004). “Oryx and Crake”, p.348, Anchor

You can forget who you are if you're alone too much.

Margaret Atwood
Too Much, Forget, Ifs
Margaret Atwood (2009). “The Year of the Flood”, p.14, Anchor

If you disagree with your government, that's political. If you disagree with your government that is approaching theocracy, then you're evil.

Margaret Atwood
Government, Evil, Political

One and one and one and one doesn't equal four. Each one remains unique, there is no way of joining them together. They cannot be exchanged, one for the other. They cannot replace each other.

Margaret Atwood
Unique, Together, Four
Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.192, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Paper isn’t important. It’s the words on them that are important.

Margaret Atwood
Important, Paper
Margaret Atwood (2009). “The Blind Assassin”, p.382, Hachette UK

Well. Then we had the irises, rising beautiful and cool on their tall stalks, like blown glass, like pastel water momentarily frozen in a splash, light blue, light mauve, and the darker ones, velvet and purple, black cat's ears in the sun, indigo shadow, and the bleeding hearts, so female in shape it was a surprise they'd not long since been rooted out. There is something subversive about this garden of Serena's, a sense of buried things bursting upwards, wordlessly, into the light, as if to point, to say: Whatever is silenced will clamor to be heard, though silently.

Margaret Atwood
Beautiful, Cat, Heart
Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.153, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn't do too badly by one another, we did as well as most.

Margaret Atwood
Mother, Children, Ideas
FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Sep 25, 2014

Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. It's like the tide going out, revealing whatever's been thrown away and sunk: broken bottles, old gloves, rusting pop cans, nibbled fishbodies, bones. This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes, not knowing the future.

Margaret Atwood
Eye, Knowing, Broken
FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Dec 23, 2013

If all fossil fuel were to go POOF! tomorrow, the result would be a cataclysmic social upheaval, with food riots, warlords, shutdowns, breakdown of social order, water shortages, and outbreaks of bloodshed and disease.

Margaret Atwood
Water, Tomorrow, Breakdown
Source: www.marandapleasantmedia.com

All I can hope for is a reconstruction: the way love feels is always only approximate.

Margaret Atwood
Way, Reconstruction, Feels
Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.263, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The truly fearless think of themselves as normal.

Margaret Atwood
Courage, Thinking, Bravery
Margaret Atwood (2012). “Bluebeard's Egg”, p.113, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I hate to break this to you: One of these days I'm going to die. I expect that when I croak I'll no longer be using Twitter, unless I can do it from the grave.

Margaret Atwood
Hate, Break, Graves
"Margaret Atwood Remixes Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” as a Prison Drama". Interview with Maddie Oatman, www.motherjones.com. September, 2016.

If I waited for perfection... I would never write a word.

Margaret Atwood
Writing, Perfect, Writers Block
FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from May 05, 2014

Never pray for justice, because you might get some.

Margaret Atwood
Prayer, Umpires, Justice

Our heaven is their hell, said God. I like a balanced universe.

Margaret Atwood
Heaven, Balance, Hell
FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Nov 21, 2016

Social media is called social media for a reason. It lends itself to sharing rather than horn-tooting.

Margaret Atwood
Media, Reason, Social

Every habit he's ever had is still there in his body, lying dormant like flowers in the desert. Given the right conditions, all his old addictions would burst into full and luxuriant bloom.

Margaret Atwood
Lying, Flower, Recovery
Margaret Atwood (2004). “Oryx and Crake”, p.276, Anchor

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