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Margaret Atwood Quotes - Page 16

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But maybe, underneath, she loves him too much. Maybe it's her excessive love that pushes him away.

But maybe, underneath, she loves him too much. Maybe it's her excessive love that pushes him away.

Margaret Atwood
Too Much, Excessive Love

Where to start is the problem, because nothing begins when it begins and nothing's over when it's over, and everything needs a preface: a preface, a postscript, a chart of simultaneous events.

Margaret Atwood
Events, Needs, Problem
Margaret Atwood (2009). “The Robber Bride: Includes the short story 'I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth'”, p.14, Hachette UK

She wasn't ready to settle down, she told her friends. That was one way of putting it. Another was would have been that she had not found anyone to settle down with. There had been several men in her life, but they hadn't been convincing. They'd been somewhat like her table - quickly acquired, brightened up a little, but temporary. The time for that kind of thing was running out, however. She was tired of renting.

Margaret Atwood
Love, Running, Tired

and each of his voices left his body in a different colored soul and floated up towards the sun still singing.

Margaret Atwood
Voice, Soul, Singing
Margaret Atwood (2012). “Lady Oracle”, p.13, Simon and Schuster

Don't misunderstand me. I am not scoffing at goodness, which is far more difficult to explain than evil, and far more complicated. But sometimes it's hard to put up with.

Margaret Atwood
Evil, Sometimes, Complicated
FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Jul 06, 2011

They are hypocrites, they think the Church is a cage to keep God in, so he will stay locked up there and not go wandering about the earth during the week, poking his nose into their business, and looking in the depths and darkness and doubleness of their hearts, and their lack of true charity; and they believed they need only be bothered about him on Sundays when they have their best clothes on and their faces straight, and their hands washed and their gloves on, and their stories all prepared.

Margaret Atwood
Love, Hypocrite, Heart
Margaret Atwood (2011). “Alias Grace: A Novel”, p.254, Anchor

Walter turned on the radio: electric violins wailing, twisted romance, the four-square beat of heartbreak. Trite suffering, but suffering nonetheless. The entertainment business. What voyeurs we have all become.

Margaret Atwood
Music, Squares, Romance
Margaret Atwood (2000). “The Blind Assassin”, Random House Large Print Publishing

Why are you so interested in amoebas?" "Oh, they're immortal," he said, "and sort of shapeless and flexible. Being a person is getting too complicated.

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

At the very least we want a witness. We can't stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.

Margaret Atwood
Running, Fall, Ideas
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.95, Anchor

I am not a saint or a cripple, I am not a wound; now I will see whether I am a coward.

Margaret Atwood
Coward, Saint, Cripples
Margaret Atwood (1987). “Selected Poems: 1965-1975”, p.226, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

About no subject are poets tempted to lie so much as about their own lives.

Margaret Atwood
Lying, Writing, Poet
Waterstone's Poetry Lecture, Delivered At Hay On Wye, canpoetry.library.utoronto.ca. June, 1995.

I grew up in the north woods of Canada. You had to know certain things about survival. Wilderness survival courses weren't very formalized when I was growing up, but I was taught certain things about what to do if I got lost in the woods.

Margaret Atwood
Growing Up, Survival, Woods
Margaret Atwood (2006). “Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood”

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.

Margaret Atwood
Gymnasiums
Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.13, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Writers are much better behaved nowadays, for a couple of reasons. Once upon a time nobody was thinking of a career, unless you lived in New York, so there wasn't as much pressure to present a respectable exterior. And secondly, there was no social media. So if you were found face down on the floor - people did do that quite a bit; usually men, but not always - or fell through plate glass windows or got into scrapes, it became a rumor, and rumors are hard to pin down.

Margaret Atwood
New York, Couple, Writing

Never mind. Point being that you don't have to get too worked up about us, dear educated minds. You don't have to think of us aas real girls, real flesh and blood, real pain, real injustice. That might be too upsetting. Just discard the sordid part. Consider us pure symbol. We're no more real than money.

Margaret Atwood
Girl, Pain, Real

The heart of Jesus glowed, because it was holy. Holy things glowed in general.

Margaret Atwood
Jesus, Heart, Holy
Margaret Atwood (2011). “The Robber Bride”, p.447, Anchor

For if the world treats you well, Sir, you come to believe you are deserving of it.

Margaret Atwood
Believe, World, Treats
Margaret Atwood (2011). “Alias Grace: A Novel”, p.171, Anchor

I know that some books and some writers, you can pretty much draw a square around it and say, 'Nobody under 40,' or 'Nobody under 25.' With my books, it always has been, and continues to be, spread right across the board, and I think the operative term is 'reader.'

Margaret Atwood
Book, Thinking, Squares
"Margaret Atwood on green rabbits, writing sex and Twitter". Interview with Carolyn Kellogg, latimesblogs.latimes.com. October 9, 2009.

You might 'write from the heart,' but you'd better polish with your brain.

Margaret Atwood
Writing, Heart, Brain

Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we're still alive. We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants. We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas, our silver-plated cups; we monogram our linen, we carve our names on trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls. It's all the same impulse. What do we hope from it? Applause, envy, respect? Or simply attention, of any kind we can get? At the very least we want a witness. We can't stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.

Margaret Atwood
Running, Dog, Wall
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.95, Anchor

Make the verses flow together. If a following verse has nothing to do with the previous, you may lose our listener/reader. You want a smooth flow to hear or read, and it's easier to memorize.

Margaret Atwood
Writing, Together, May

Writing is very improvisational. It's like trying to fix a broken sewing machine with safety pins and rubber bands. A lot of tinkering.

Margaret Atwood
Writing, Safety Pins, Broken
Margaret Atwood (2006). “Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood”

Fiction is not necessarily about what you know, it's about how you feel. That is the truth about fiction, and the other truth is that all science is a tool, and we use our tools not to actualise what we know, but to implement how we feel.

Margaret Atwood
Tools, Fiction, Use
"Do keep up" by Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. April 12, 2004.

Cleverness is a quality a man likes to have in his wife as long as she is some distance away from him. Up close, he'll take kindness any day of the week, if there's nothing more alluring to be had.

Margaret Atwood
Kindness, Distance, Men
Margaret Atwood (2003). “The Penelopiad”, p.29, Canongate Books

I hate to tell you this, but you will never actually go to a galaxy far, far away and encounter Darth Vader. That's science fiction; it isn't going to happen.

Margaret Atwood
Hate, Encounters, Fiction

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