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Margaret Atwood Quotes - Page 5

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It's a feature of our age that if you write a work of fiction, everyone assumes that the people and events in it are disguised biography — but if you write your biography, it's equally assumed you're lying your head off.

It's a feature of our age that if you write a work of fiction, everyone assumes that the people and events in it are disguised biography — but if you write your biography, it's equally assumed you're lying your head off.

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

All fiction is about people, unless it's about rabbits pretending to be people. It's all essentially characters in action, which means characters moving through time and changes taking place, and that's what we call 'the plot'.

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

There's something final about saying you were married once. It's like saying you were dead once. It shuts them up.

Margaret Atwood
Finals, Married
Margaret Atwood (1998). “Wilderness Tips”, Anchor

Like the trains, she's never on time and always departing.

Margaret Atwood
Train, Departing
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.274, Anchor

I did not know how to paint or even what to paint, but I knew I had to begin.

Margaret Atwood
Paint, Know How, Knows

But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.

Margaret Atwood
Pain, Sight, Mind
FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from May 29, 2011

Time has not stood still. It has washed over me, washed me away, as if I'm nothing more than a woman of sand, left by a careless child too near the water.

Margaret Atwood
Time, Children, Water
Margaret Atwood (2016). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.352, Random House

All it takes,” said Crake, “is the elimination of one generation. One generation of anything. Beetles, trees, microbes, scientists, speakers of French, whatever. Break the link in time between one generation and the next, and it’s game over forever.

Margaret Atwood
Games, Tree, Forever
Margaret Atwood (2004). “Oryx and Crake”, p.223, Anchor

Don’t sit down in the middle of the woods. If you’re lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.

Margaret Atwood
Plot, Pages, Woods
"Ten rules for writing fiction". www.theguardian.com. February 20, 2010.

This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year's threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath.

Margaret Atwood
Letting Go, Past, Years
Margaret Atwood (2015). “Morning in the Burned House”, p.135, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.

Margaret Atwood
Reading, Book, Writing
"Ten rules for writing fiction". www.theguardian.com. February 20, 2010.

Things musicals taught me: All your problems will go away if you sing about it.

Margaret Atwood
Writing, Going Away, Taught

Inside the peach, there is a stone.

Margaret Atwood
Peaches, Stones
Margaret Atwood (2011). “Alias Grace: A Novel”, p.69, Anchor

Ah men, why do you want all this attention? I can write poems for myself, make love to a doorknob if absolutely necessary. What do you have to offer me I can't find otherwise except humiliation? Which I no longer need.

Margaret Atwood
Writing, Men, Making Love
FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Nov 13, 2015

I want, I don’t want. How can one live with such a heart?

Margaret Atwood
Heart, Want
Margaret Atwood (2012). “Selected Poems II: 1976 - 1986”, p.16, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

There are some women who seem to be born without fear, just as there are people who are born without the ability to feel pain ... Providence appears to protect such women, maybe out of astonishment.

Margaret Atwood
Pain, Fear, People
Margaret Atwood (2012). “Bluebeard's Egg”, p.112, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I never have [suffered writer’s block], although I’ve had books that didn’t work out. I had to stop writing them. I just abandoned them. It was depressing, but it wasn’t the end of the world. When it really isn’t working, and you’ve been bashing yourself against the wall, it’s kind of a relief. I mean, sometimes you bash yourself against the wall and you get through it. But sometimes the wall is just a wall. There’s nothing to be done but go somewhere else.

Margaret Atwood
Depressing, Wall, Block

The problem is huge. We've just added seventy-five million people to the already large proportion of people in the world who are malnourished all the time, whose bodies are being starved.

Margaret Atwood
People, World, Body
Source: progressive.org

How old do you have to get before wisdom descends like a plastic bag over your head and you learn to keep your big mouth shut? Maybe never. Maybe you get more frivolous with age.

Margaret Atwood
Age, Bags, Mouths

Disease has always been a much bigger killer of human beings than wars.

Margaret Atwood
War, Disease, Killers
Source: www.macleans.ca

Maybe I don't really want to know what's going on. Maybe I'd rather not know. Maybe I couldn't bear to know. The Fall was a fall from innocence to knowledge.

Margaret Atwood
Fall, Want, Bears
Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.195, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys.

Margaret Atwood
Journey, Stories, Paradise
Margaret Atwood (2000). “The Blind Assassin”, Random House Large Print Publishing

Time rises and rises, and when it reaches the level of your eyes you drown.

Margaret Atwood
Eye, Levels
Margaret Atwood (2000). “The Blind Assassin”, Random House Large Print Publishing

I never say I'm an "ist" of any kind unless I know how the other person is defining it.

Margaret Atwood
Defining, Kind, Persons
"Ask the Author". www.goodreads.com.

poetry is where the language is renewed.

Margaret Atwood
Poetry, Language, Poetry Is

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