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Margaret Atwood Quotes - Page 33

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My favorite author's question of all time - because it's so simple to answer ... 'Is your hair really like that, or do you get it done?

My favorite author's question of all time - because it's so simple to answer ... 'Is your hair really like that, or do you get it done?

Margaret Atwood
Simple, Hair, Done

Our problem right now is that we're so specialized that if the lights go out, there are a huge number of people who are not going to know what to do. But within every dystopia there's a little utopia.

Margaret Atwood
Light, Numbers, People

You could tell 'The Handmaid's Tale' from a male point of view. People have mistakenly felt that the women are oppressed, but power tends to organise itself in a pyramid. I could pick a male narrator from somewhere in that pyramid. It would interesting.

Margaret Atwood
Views, Pyramids, People

Victorian literature was my subject at Harvard.

Margaret Atwood
Literature, Harvard, Subjects
"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.

You will always have partial points of view, and you'll always have the story behind the story that hasn't come out yet. And any form of journalism you're involved with is going to be up against a biased viewpoint and partial knowledge.

Margaret Atwood
Views, Stories, Viewpoints

Old lovers go the way of old photographs, bleaching out gradually as in a slow bath of acid: first the moles and pimples, then the shadings. Then the faces themselves, until nothing remains but the general outlines.

Margaret Atwood
Moles, Way, Faces
Margaret Atwood (1988). “Cat's eye”, Doubleday, 1989

I'm the only person you've ever met who has read Longfellow.

Margaret Atwood
Mets, Persons
"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.

He considers me also a little fragile because artistic. I need to be cared for, like a potted plant.

Margaret Atwood
Needs, Littles, Artistic
Margaret Atwood (1989). “Cat's Eye”, Bantam

My brother and I were both good at science, and we were both good at English literature. Either one of us could have gone either way.

Margaret Atwood
Brother, Gone, Literature
"Oryx and Crake". Book by Margaret Atwood, May, 2003.

But I began then to think of time as having a shape, something you could see, like a series of liquid transparencies, one laid on top of another.

Margaret Atwood
Thinking, Liquid, Shapes
Margaret Atwood (1989). “Cat's Eye”, Bantam

Hunger is a powerful reorganizer of the conscience.

Margaret Atwood
Powerful, Hunger, Conscience
Margaret Atwood (2014). “The MaddAddam Trilogy Bundle: The Year of the Flood; Oryx & Crake; MaddAddam”, p.409, Anchor

For drinking Life there are two cups: The No Cup is bitter, the Yes Cup is yummy -- Now, which one would you rather have in your tummy?

Margaret Atwood
Life, Drinking, Yummy
Margaret Atwood (2010). “The Year Of The Flood”, p.97, Hachette UK

Some of our earliest writing, in cuneiform, was about who owes what.

Margaret Atwood
Writing, Cuneiform

Her glass wings are gone.

Margaret Atwood
Glasses, Wings, Gone
Margaret Atwood (2012). “Lady Oracle”, p.241, Simon and Schuster

Some bioengineering is good, especially if it results in plants that are more drought-resistant or perennial food crops.

Margaret Atwood
Plant, Crops, Results
"Margaret Atwood, Speculative Fiction's Apocalyptic Optimist". Interview with Scott Thill, www.wired.com. October 20, 2009.

I grew up with the biologists. I know how they think.

Margaret Atwood
Thinking, Grew Up, Biologist
"Margaret Atwood: 'I have a big following among the biogeeks. "Finally! Someone understands us!"'". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. August 24, 2013.

Science never makes things that do not have to do with what we feel, by which I mean what we want and what we fear.

Margaret Atwood
Mean, Want, Feels
"Do keep up". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. April 12, 2004.

It wasn't so easy though, ending the war. A war is a huge fire; the ashes from it drift far, and settle slowly.

Margaret Atwood
War, Fire, Ashes
Margaret Atwood (2000). “The Blind Assassin”, Random House Large Print Publishing

Their mothers had finally caught up to them and been proven right. There were consequences after all but they were the consequences to things you didn't even know you'd done.

Margaret Atwood
Inspiring, Mothers Day, Done
Margaret Atwood (2011). “Wilderness Tips”, p.178, Anchor

Canada, at the moment, is going through a Lord of the Rings moment. Having been a lowly Hobbit with furry feet and fun parties, with fireworks and beer, it has now been handed the Ring of Power: a large supply of fossil fuel, in the form of oil/tar sand and coal. Will it shrivel into an evil RingWraith? Will it become an addicted Golum? Will it refuse the Ring, like Galadriel, fearful of what So Much Power (in both senses of the word) will do to its inner being? Will it try to deal with the Ring responsibly, like Gandalf? Will it side with the Ents?

Margaret Atwood
Fun, Party, Beer
Source: www.marandapleasantmedia.com

Everybody was going along thinking that it was a day like any other day, and bang, down went the Twin Towers. Changed everything. So you can't really predict the future, but you can say, "Boy, are those glaciers ever melting." You can measure that, and you can say, "When they're all melted there won't be any Athabasca River," and you can say, "What will happen to the oil sands then?" because you need a lot of water to make that oil. "Where's that going to come from?" You can say things like that.

Margaret Atwood
Boys, Thinking, Oil
Source: www.macleans.ca

When people in my generation started to write, we did not actually have much of a movie industry, much of a theater scene, much of a television industry or other creative outlets. But we had a lot of aspiring writers. All that has changed. We now have a movie industry, television industry and lots of theater. But we have retained a large contingent of writers and a dedicated readership. The larger number of people in society who value writing, the larger number of good writers will be produced. That's my belief. It raises the bar.

Margaret Atwood
Writing, People, Creative
Source: www.washingtonpost.com

I enjoyed teaching. I liked the students. Having to formulate my ideas about literature made them clearer. I did not particularly enjoy the more bureaucratic aspects of the job. However, if you are teaching fervently, your energy and time are used up at a great rate.

Margaret Atwood
Teaching, Energy, Literature
Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Women are human beings, and human beings are a very mixed lot. I've always been against the idea that women were Victorian angels, that they could do no wrong. I've always thought it was horseshit and does nobody any good. Remember, Lizzie Borden got off largely because the cultural agenda had convinced people that women were morally superior to men, so Lizzie Borden was "incapable" of taking the ax and giving her mother 40 whacks.

Margaret Atwood
Mother, Angel, Men
Source: www.motherjones.com

I read a piece by a guy out in Alberta that said Canadians are lazy because they're not patenting enough new inventions. I disagree. Canadians invent a lot of stuff. Actually patenting them is expensive.

Margaret Atwood
Guy, Lazy, Pieces
Source: www.macleans.ca

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