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Margaret Atwood Quotes - Page 15

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The fact is that blank pages inspire me with terror. What will I put on them? Will it be good enough? Will I have to throw it out?

The fact is that blank pages inspire me with terror. What will I put on them? Will it be good enough? Will I have to throw it out?

Margaret Atwood
Fear, Inspire, Pages
Margaret Atwood (1990). “Margaret Atwood: Conversations”, Princeton, N.J. : Ontario Review Press

Gardening is not a rational act.

Margaret Atwood
Garden, Gardening, Rational
Margaret Atwood (2012). “Bluebeard's Egg”, p.277, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The beginning of Canadian cultural nationalism was not 'Am I really that oppressed?' but 'Am I really that boring?'

Margaret Atwood
Boring, Oppressed, Nationalism
Margaret Atwood (1990). “Margaret Atwood: Conversations”, Princeton, N.J. : Ontario Review Press

Anaesthesia, that's one technique: if it hurts, invent a different pain.

Margaret Atwood
Hurt, Pain, Numbness
Margaret Atwood (1987). “The edible woman ; Surfacing ; Lady oracle”, Treasure Press

Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. Solid flesh can never live up to the bright shadow cast by its absence.

Margaret Atwood
Farewell, Shadow, Flesh
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.76, Anchor

I knew what love was supposed to be: obsession with undertones of nausea.

Margaret Atwood
Nausea, Obsession, Supposed To Be
Margaret Atwood (1989). “Cat's Eye”, Bantam

Repeat reading for me shares a few things with hot-water bottles and thumbsucking: comfort, familiarity, the recurrence of the expected.

Margaret Atwood
Reading, Water Bottles, Comfort

A hot wind was blowing around my head, the strands of my hair lifting and swirling in it, like ink spilled in water.

Margaret Atwood
Hair, Wind, Water
Margaret Atwood (2000). “The Blind Assassin”, Random House Large Print Publishing

You can't keep a cool head when you're drowning in love. You just trash around a lot and scream, and wear yourself out.

Margaret Atwood
Heartbreak, Love You, Scream

Though as he'd say, what is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives?

Margaret Atwood
Belief, Willingness
Margaret Atwood (2013). “MaddAddam: Book 3 of The MaddAddam Trilogy”, p.228, Anchor

It had helped to keep her sane, that writing. Then, when time had begun again and real people had entered it, she'd abandoned it here. Now it's a whisper from the past. Is that what writing amounts to? The voice your ghost would have, if it had a voice?

Margaret Atwood
Real, Writing, Past
Margaret Atwood (2013). “MaddAddam: Book 3 of The MaddAddam Trilogy”, p.282, Anchor

God gave unto the Animals A wisdom past our power to see: Each knows innately how to live, Which we must learn laboriously.

Margaret Atwood
Animal, Past, Knows
Margaret Atwood (2014). “The MaddAddam Trilogy Bundle: The Year of the Flood; Oryx & Crake; MaddAddam”, p.614, Anchor

You shouldn't do that," said Laura. "You could set yourself on fire.

Margaret Atwood
Ambition, Fire, Laura
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.177, Anchor

A language is everything you do.

Margaret Atwood
Language
Margaret Atwood (1987). “The edible woman ; Surfacing ; Lady oracle”, Treasure Press

At moments like this I envy those who have found a safe haven in which to bestow their hearts; or perhaps I envy them for having a heart to bestow. I often feel that I myself am without one, and possess in its stead merely a heart shaped stone.

Margaret Atwood
Heart, Safe Haven, Envy
Margaret Atwood (2011). “Alias Grace: A Novel”, p.131, Anchor

You can’t buy it, but it has a price,” said Oryx. “Everything has a price.

Margaret Atwood
Said
Margaret Atwood (2004). “Oryx and Crake”, p.139, Anchor

It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you're telling it, to yourself or to someone else.

Margaret Atwood
Stories, Shattered Glass
"Alias Grace". Book by Margaret Atwood, sensesofcinema.com. September, 1996.

You always think, 'Oh, if only I had a little chalet in the mountains! How great that would be and I'd do all this writing' Except, no, I wouldn't. I'd do the same amount of writing I do now and the rest of the time I'd go stir crazy. If you're waiting for the perfect moment you'll never write a thing because it will never arrive. I have no routine. I have no foolproof anything. There's nothing foolproof.

Margaret Atwood
Crazy, Writing, Thinking

I don't know why they are all so eager to be remembered. What good will it do them? There are some things that should be forgotten by everyone, and never spoken of again.

Margaret Atwood
Forgotten, Should, Remembered
Margaret Atwood (2011). “Alias Grace: A Novel”, p.26, Anchor

A man is just a woman's strategy for making other women.

Margaret Atwood
Men, Strategy, Handmaids Tale
Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.121, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I began to forget myself in the middle of sentences.

Margaret Atwood
Forget, Middle, Sentences
Margaret Atwood (1987). “Selected Poems: 1965-1975”, p.111, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

As Charles Darwin said,'The economy shown by Nature in her resources is striking,'' says the Spirit. 'All wealth comes from Nature. Without it, there wouldn't be any economics. The primary wealth is food, not money. Therefore anything that concerns the handling of the land also concerns me.

Margaret Atwood
Land, Spirit, Wealth
Margaret Atwood (2012). “Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth”, p.182, Bloomsbury Publishing

We battled in secret, undeclared, and after a while I no longer fought back because I never won. The only defense was flight, invisibility.

Margaret Atwood
Secret, Defense, Invisibility
Margaret Atwood (1987). “The edible woman ; Surfacing ; Lady oracle”, Treasure Press

They will not let you have peace, they don't want you to have anything they don't have themselves.

Margaret Atwood
Peace, Want
Margaret Atwood (2012). “Surfacing”, p.288, Simon and Schuster

How furious she must be, now that she's been taken at her word.

Margaret Atwood
Taken, Handmaids Tale, Handmaids
Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.46, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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