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Margaret Atwood Quotes - Page 13

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People talking about politics usually start from the ass end backwards in that they think you have a political agenda, and then you make your work fit that cookie cutter. It's the other way around. One works by simple

People talking about politics usually start from the ass end backwards in that they think you have a political agenda, and then you make your work fit that cookie cutter. It's the other way around. One works by simple observation, looking into things. It's usually called insight and out of that comes your view - not that you have the view first and then squash everything to make it fit. I'm not interested in cutting the feet off my characters or stretching them to make them fit my certain political view.

Margaret Atwood
Character, Cutting, Simple
Interview With Marilyn Berlin Snell, www.motherjones.com. July/August 1997.

I used to act in college, but always comedy. Didn't do [William] Shakespeare - did Ben Jonson.

Margaret Atwood
College, Comedy, Used

The future of narrative? Built in, part of the human template. Not going away. The future of the codex book, with pages and so forth? A platform for transmitting narratives.

Margaret Atwood
Book, Going Away, Narrative
Interview with Paul D. Miller, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

The animals have no need for speech, why talk when you are a word.

Margaret Atwood
Animal, Needs, Speech
Margaret Atwood (2012). “Surfacing”, p.281, Simon and Schuster

Life's not fair; why should I be?

Margaret Atwood
Fairness, Should, Fairs

We have begun to slam doors, and to throw things. I throw my purse, an ashtray, a package of chocolate chips, which breaks on impact. We are picking up chocolate chips for days. Jon throws a glass of milk, the milk, not the glass: he knows his own strength, as I do not. He throws a box of Cheerios, unopened. The things I throw miss, although they are worse things. The things he throws hit, but are harmless. I begin to see how the line is crossed, between histrionics and murder.

Margaret Atwood
Impact, Glasses, Doors
Margaret Atwood (1989). “Cat's Eye”, Bantam

Write down the thoughts and even more, write down a specific line. If you don't, it'll fly away forever.

Margaret Atwood
Writing, Forever, Lines

More powerful than God, more evil than the Devil; the poor have it, the rich lack it, and if you eat it you die?

Margaret Atwood
Powerful, Evil, Rich
Margaret Atwood (2000). “The Blind Assassin”, Random House Large Print Publishing

Perhaps its not the world that is soundless but we who are deaf.

Margaret Atwood
World, Deaf

Immortality,' said Crake, ' is a concept. If you take 'mortality' as being, not death, but the foreknowledge of it and the fear of it, then 'immortality' is the absence of such fear. Babies are immortal. Edit out the fear, and you'll be.

Margaret Atwood
Baby, Absence, Immortality

While in a vintage restaurant..."the past isn't quaint while you're in it. Only at a safe distance, later, when you see it as decor, not as the shape your life's been squeezed into.

Margaret Atwood
Distance, Past, Vintage

She imagines him imagining her. This is her salvation. In spirit she walks the city, traces its labyrinths, its dingy mazes: each assignation, each rendezvous, each door and stair and bed. What he said, what she said, what they did, what they did then. Even the times they argued, fought, parted, agonized, rejoined. How they’d loved to cut themselves on each other, taste their own blood. We were ruinous together, she thinks. But how else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin?

Margaret Atwood
Cutting, Thinking, Doors
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.408, Anchor

I wait. I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born.

Margaret Atwood
Self, Waiting, Speech
Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.66, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

So that’s what art is, for the artist,” said Crake. “An empty drainpipe. An amplifier. A stab at getting laid.

Margaret Atwood
Art, Empty, Said
Margaret Atwood (2004). “Oryx and Crake”, p.168, Anchor

A home filled with nothing but yourself. It's heavy, that lightness. It's crushing, that emptiness.

Margaret Atwood
Crush, Home, Emptiness
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Tent”, p.25, Anchor

We all know that a book is not really a person. It isn’t a human being. But if you are a lover of books as books – as objects, that is – and ignore the human element in them – that is, their voices – you will be committing an error of the soul, because you will be an idolator, or else a fetishist.

Margaret Atwood
Book, Errors, Voice

I didn't want him to become gray and multi-dimensional and complicated like everyone else. Was every Heathcliff a Linton in disguise?

Margaret Atwood
Want, Complicated, Heathcliff
Margaret Atwood (2012). “Lady Oracle”, p.288, Simon and Schuster

It made him feel invisible—not that he wanted to feel anything else.

Margaret Atwood
Invisible, Made, Feels
Margaret Atwood (2014). “The MaddAddam Trilogy Bundle: The Year of the Flood; Oryx & Crake; MaddAddam”, p.72, Anchor

Why can't I believe? she asked the darkness. Behind her eyelids she saw an animal. It was golden colour, with gentle green eyes and canine teeth, and curly wool instead of fur. It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. Instead, it yawned.It gazed at her. She gazed at it. "You are the effect of a carefully calibrated blend of plant toxins," she told it.Then she fell asleep.

Margaret Atwood
Believe, Eye, Animal

She had no images of this love. She could offer no anecdotes. It was a belief rather than a memory.

Margaret Atwood
Memories, Anecdotes, Belief
Margaret Atwood (2004). “Oryx and Crake”, p.121, Anchor

All you have to do, I tell myself, is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard.

Margaret Atwood
Stupid, Looks, Mouths
Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.236, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

But maybe boredom is erotic, when women do it, for men.

Margaret Atwood
Men, Boredom, Erotic
Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.69, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Thy only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die, John and Mary die, John and Mary die.

Margaret Atwood
Mary, Dies

There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine -- "Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pâté.

Margaret Atwood
Disappointment, Ducks, Office
Margaret Atwood (2002). “Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing”, p.35, Cambridge University Press

Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress.

Margaret Atwood
Patience, Hands, Water
Margaret Atwood (2003). “The Penelopiad”, p.43, Canongate Books

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