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Margaret Atwood Quotes - Page 27

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All Creatures know that some must die That all the rest may take and eat; Sooner or later, all transform Their blood to wine, their flesh to meat. But Man alone seeks Vengefulness, And writes his abstract Laws on stone;

All Creatures know that some must die That all the rest may take and eat; Sooner or later, all transform Their blood to wine, their flesh to meat. But Man alone seeks Vengefulness, And writes his abstract Laws on stone; For this false Justice he has made, He tortures limb and crushes bone. Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? Oh, if Revenge did move the stars Instead of Love, they would not shine.

Margaret Atwood
Crush, Stars, Revenge
Margaret Atwood (2009). “The Year of the Flood”, p.423, Anchor

The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read.

Margaret Atwood
Writing, Way, Assuming
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.283, Anchor

I feel despised there, for having so little money; also for once having had so much. I never actually had it, of course. Father had it, and then Richard. But money was imputed to me, the same way crimes are imputed to those who've simply been present at them.

Margaret Atwood
Father, Littles, Way
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.144, Anchor

Walking along past the store windows, into which she peers with her usual eagerness, her usual sense that maybe, today, she will discover behind them something that will truly be worth seeing, she feels as if her feet are not on cement at all but on ice. The blade of the skate floats, she knows, on a thin film of water, which it melts by pressure and which freezes behind it. This is the freedom of the present tense, this sliding edge.

Margaret Atwood
Past, Feet, Ice
Margaret Atwood (2012). “Bluebeard's Egg”, p.257, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I was unfair to him, of course, but where would I have been without unfairness? In thrall, in harness. Young women need unfairness, it's one of their few defenses. They need their callousness, they need their ignorance. They walk in the dark, along the edges of high cliffs, humming to themselves, thinking themselves invulnerable.

Margaret Atwood
Ignorance, Dark, Thinking
Margaret Atwood (1989). “Cat's Eye”, Bantam

When faced with the inevitable, you always have a choice... As I learned during my liberal arts education, any symbol can have, in the imaginative context, two versions, a positive and a negative... If you spill your milk you're left with a glass which is either half empty or half full... 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
Inspirational, Graduation, Art
"Attitude". Margaret Atwood's commencement address at the University of Toronto, Canada, www.humanity.org. June 14, 1983.

Either I'm alive or I'm dying, she said to Daniel. Please don't feel you can't tell me. Which is it? Which does it feel like? said Daniel. He patted her hand. You're not dead yet. You're a lot more alive than many people. This isn't good enough for Rennie. She wants something definite, the real truth, one way or the other. Then she will know what she should do next. It's this suspension, hanging in a void, this half-life she can't bear. She can't bear not knowing. She doesn't want to know.

Margaret Atwood
Life, Truth, Real
Margaret Atwood (2012). “Bodily Harm”, p.56, Simon and Schuster

Because you are never here but always there, I forget not you but what you look like You drift down the street in the rain, your face dissolving, changing shape, the colours running together My walls absorb you, breathe you forth again, you resume yourself, I do not recognize you You rest on the bed watching me watching you, we will never know each other any better than we do now

Margaret Atwood
Running, Wall, Rain
Margaret Atwood (1973). “Power politics”, Harper & Row, 1973

What we share may be a lot like a traffic accident but we get one another. We are survivors of each other. We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something.

Margaret Atwood
Sharks, Survivor, May

The way love feels is always only approximate. I would like to be without shame. I would like to be shameless. I would like to be ignorant. Then I would not know how ignorant I was.

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

Where do you draw the line, between love and greed? We never did know, we always wanted more. We want to take it all in, for one last time, we want to eat the world with our eyes.

Margaret Atwood
Eye, Greed, World

In my dreams of this city I am always lost.

Margaret Atwood
Dream, Cities, Lost
Margaret Atwood (2011). “Cat's Eye”, p.27, Anchor

In theory I can do almost anything; certainly I have been told how. In practice I do as little as possible. I pretend to myself that I would be quite happy in a hermit's cave, living on gruel, if someone else would make the gruel. Gruel, like so many other things, is beyond me.

Margaret Atwood
Practice, Littles, Would Be
Margaret Atwood (1984). “Bluebeard's egg”

Creating some god for one's inspirations was always a good way to avoid accusations of pride should the scheme succeed, as well as the blame if did not.

Margaret Atwood
Inspiration, Pride, Creating

My good intentions are completely lethal.

Margaret Atwood
Funny, Humor, Good Intentions
Margaret Atwood (1987). “Selected Poems: 1965-1975”, p.59, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Toast was a pointless invention from the Dark Ages. Toast was an implement of torture that caused all those subjected to it to regurgitate in verbal form the sins and crimes of their past lives. Toast was a ritual item devoured by fetishists in the belief that it would enhance their kinetic and sexual powers. Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast.

Margaret Atwood
Mean, Dark, Past
"Oryx and Crake". Book by Margaret Atwood, 2003.

By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you, I believe you're there, I believe you into being.

Margaret Atwood
Believe, I Believe, Handmaids Tale
Margaret Atwood (2016). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.410, Random House

I want everything back, the way it was. But there is no point to it, this wanting.

Margaret Atwood
Want, Way, No Point
Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.122, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I always thought eating was a ridiculous activity anyway. I'd get out of it myself if I could, though you've got to do it to stay alive, they tell me.

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

What a lost person needs is a map of the territory, with his own position marked on it so he can see where he is in relation to everything else. Literature is not only a mirror; it is also a map, a geography of the mind. Our literature is one such map, if we can learn to read it as our literature, as the product of who and where we have been. We need such a map desperately, we need to know about here, because here is where we live. For the members of a country or a culture, shared knowledge of their place, their here, is not a luxury but a necessity. Without that knowledge we will not survive.

Margaret Atwood
Country, Mirrors, Luxury

Starlet sex scandal. Giant squid involved.

Margaret Atwood
Sex, Squids, Giants

Your friend is intellectually honourable," Jimmy's mother would say. "He doesn't lie to himself.

Margaret Atwood
Mother, Lying, Jimmy
Margaret Atwood (2004). “Oryx and Crake”, p.69, Anchor

That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before.

Margaret Atwood
Handmaids Tale
"The Handmaid's Tale". Book by Margaret Atwood, 1985.

As we know from the study of history, no new system can impose itself upon a previous one without incorporating many of the elements to be found in the latter.

Margaret Atwood
Elements, Study, Found

For the children with their greedy little mouths represent the future, which like time itself will devour all now alive.

Margaret Atwood
Children, Alive, Mouths
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.129, Anchor

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