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Margaret Atwood Quotes - Page 30

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Knowledge is power only as long as you keep your mouth shut.

Knowledge is power only as long as you keep your mouth shut.

Margaret Atwood
Knowledge, Long, Mouths
Margaret Atwood (2011). “Wilderness Tips”, p.187, Anchor

I think of bad news as a huge bird, with the wings of a crow and the face of my Grade Four school teacher, sparse bun, rancid teeth, wrinkly frown, pursed mouth and all, sailing around the world under cover of darkness pleased to be the bearer of ill tidings, carrying a basket of rotten eggs, and knowing- as the sun comes up- exactly where to drop them. On me, for one.

Margaret Atwood
Teacher, School, Thinking
Margaret Atwood (2008). “Moral Disorder and Other Stories”, p.5, Anchor

I feel like cotton candy: sugar and air. Squeeze me and I’d turn into a small sickly damp wad of weeping pinky-red.

Margaret Atwood
Air, Cotton Candy, Sugar
Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.138, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don't think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.

Margaret Atwood
Thinking, Crystals, Problem
Margaret Atwood (2006). “Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood”

Marshall McLuhan is absolutely right, we are always looking in the rear view mirror.

Margaret Atwood
Mirrors, Views, Perspective

When demons are required someone will always be found to supply the part, and whether you step forward or are pushed is all the same in the end.

Margaret Atwood
Steps, Demon, Ends
Margaret Atwood (2014). “Stone Mattress: Nine Tales”, p.103, Anchor

Does feminist mean large unpleasant person who'll shout at you or someone who believes women are human beings. To me it's the latter, so I sign up

Margaret Atwood
Inspirational, Women, Believe
FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Mar 09, 2015

Some cleric putting a match to her. /Neither of them looks happy about it. /Once lit, she'll burn like a book, /like a book that was ever finished, /like a locked-up library.

Margaret Atwood
Book, Library, Looks
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Door”, p.69, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Something is unfolding, being revealed to me. I see that there's a whole world of of girls and their doings that has been unknown to me, and that I can be part of without making any effort at all. I don't have to keep up with anyone, run as fast, aim as well, make loud explosive noises, decode messages, die on cue. I don't have to think about whether I do these things well, as well as a boy. All I have to do is sit on the floor and cut frying pans our of the Eaton's Catalogue with embroidery scissors, and say I've done it badly.

Margaret Atwood
Girl, Running, Cutting

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, Views
Interview with Marilyn Berlin Snell, www.motherjones.com. July/August 1997.

When things are really dismal, you can laugh, or you can cave in completely.

Margaret Atwood
Laughing, Caves
"Author Q&A". Penguin Random House Interview, www.penguinrandomhouse.com.

Every utopia - let's just stick with the literary ones - faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don't fit in?

Margaret Atwood
People, Faces, Sticks

An eye for an eye only leads to more blindness.

Margaret Atwood
Inspirational, Life, Eye

Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked: as I never was when I was not one.

Margaret Atwood
Mother, Shocked, Capable
Margaret Atwood (1989). “Cat's Eye”, Bantam

When I was 16, I started publishing all kinds of things in school magazines.

Margaret Atwood
School, Magazines, Kind

People use technology only to mean digital technology. Technology is actually everything we make.

Margaret Atwood
Mean, Technology, People
"Margaret Atwood On Progress, Fear And Social Media". Interview with Claire Sibonney, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 14, 2013.

I'm a person of whim, and easily distracted. I don't like multitasking. When I'm doing one thing, I like to do just that thing.

Margaret Atwood
Multitasking, Whim, Distracted
"Margaret Atwood On Progress, Fear And Social Media". Interview with Claire Sibonney, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 14, 2013.

I'm bad at picking heroes.

Margaret Atwood
Hero

Once upon a time, novelists of the 19th century, such as Charles Dickens, published in serial form.

Margaret Atwood
Once Upon A Time, Novelists, Century

How shrunk, how dwindled, in our times Creation's mighty seed - For Man has broke the Fellowship With murder, lust, and greed.

Margaret Atwood
Men, Greed, Lust
Margaret Atwood (2009). “The Year of the Flood”, p.21, Anchor

I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.

Margaret Atwood
Draws
"Margaret Atwood interview: 'Go three days without water and you don't have any human rights. Why? Because you're dead'". Interview with Robert McCrum, www.theguardian.com. November 27, 2010.

Science fiction is filled with Martians and space travel to other planets, and things like that.

Margaret Atwood
Space, Fiction, Planets

If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, she'd be thinking, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time.

Margaret Atwood
Thinking, Fire, Jumping
FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Aug 03, 2016

I grew up in the golden age of Flash Gordon and sci-fi.

Margaret Atwood
Age, Golden, Flash Gordon

Jimmy had been full of himself back then, thinks Snowman with indulgence and a little envy. He’d been unhappy too, of course. It went without saying, his unhappiness. He’d put a lot of energy into it.

Margaret Atwood
Thinking, Envy, Unhappy

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