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Margaret Atwood Quotes - Page 8

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Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it.

Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it.

Margaret Atwood
Heating, Bathtubs
Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.56, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

To take that risk, to offer life and remain alive, open yourself like this and become whole.

Margaret Atwood
Risk, Alive, Offers
Margaret Atwood (1974). “You are happy”

Modesty is invisibility... Never forget it. To be seen - to be seen - is to be... penetrated. What you must be girls, is impenetrable.

Margaret Atwood
Girl, Fear, Invisibility

We are a society dying, said Aunt Lydia, of too much choice.

Margaret Atwood
Aunt, Choices, Dying
Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.25, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

For an instant she felt them, their identities, almost their substance, pass over her head like a wave. At some time she would be — or no, already she was like that too; she was one of them, her body the same, identical, merged with that other flesh that choked the air in the flowered room with its sweet organic scent; she felt suffocated by this thick sargasso-sea of femininity.

Margaret Atwood
Sweet, Air, Sea
Margaret Atwood (1987). “The edible woman ; Surfacing ; Lady oracle”, Treasure Press

Sons branch out, but one woman leads to another.

Margaret Atwood
Witty, Son, Branches
Margaret Atwood (2012). “Selected Poems II: 1976 - 1986”, p.24, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer, an almost physical nerve, the kind you need to walk a log across a river.

Margaret Atwood
Rivers, Needs, Nerves
Margaret Atwood (2006). “Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose: 1983-2005”, p.106, Basic Books

The object is very clear in the fight against racism; you have reasons why you're opposed to it. But when you're writing a novel, you don't want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that.

Margaret Atwood
Writing, Fighting, Racism
Interview with Marilyn Berlin Snell, www.motherjones.com. July/August 1997.

We yearned for the future. How did we learn it, that talent for insatiability?

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

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.

Margaret Atwood
Needs, Nerves, Certain
Margaret Atwood (2006). “Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose: 1983-2005”, p.106, Basic Books

A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason.

Margaret Atwood
Writing, Ratios, Reason
Margaret Atwood (2006). “Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose: 1983-2005”, p.107, Basic Books

While he writes, I feel as if he is drawing me; or not drawing me, drawing on me - drawing on my skin - not with the pencil he is using, but with an old-fashioned goose pen, and not with the quill end but with the feather end. As if hundreds of butterflies have settled all over my face, and are softly opening and closing their wings.

Margaret Atwood
Writing, Butterfly, Wings
Margaret Atwood (2011). “Alias Grace: A Novel”, p.69, Anchor

Today on the way home, it snows. Big, soft caressing flakes fall onto our skin like cold moths; the air fills with feathers.

Margaret Atwood
Fall, Home, Air
Margaret Atwood (1988). “Cat's eye”, Doubleday, 1989

Richard liked to say he picked things up for a song, which was odd, because he never sang. He never even whistled. He was not a musical person.

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

But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling.

Margaret Atwood
Hurt, People, Calm
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.2, Anchor

I am certain that a Sewing Machine would relieve as much human suffering as a hundred Lunatic Asylums, and possibly a good deal more.

Margaret Atwood
Suffering, Machines, Lunatic Asylums
Margaret Atwood (2011). “Alias Grace: A Novel”, p.51, Anchor

he might die for her, but living for her would be quite different.

Margaret Atwood
Different, Would Be, Might
Margaret Atwood (2009). “The Blind Assassin”, p.343, Hachette UK

Beginnings are sudden, but also insidious. They creep up on you sideways, they keep to the shadows, they lurk unrecognized. Then, later, they spring.

Margaret Atwood
Spring, Shadow, Sideways
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.190, Anchor

Vanity is becoming a nuisance, I can see why women give it up, eventually. But I'm not ready for that yet.

Margaret Atwood
Women, Vanity, Giving
Margaret Atwood (2011). “Cat's Eye”, p.19, Anchor

There is something reassuring about the toilets. Bodily functions at least remain democratic. Everybody shits.

Margaret Atwood
Toilets, Reassuring, Bodily Functions
"The Handmaid's Tale". Book by Margaret Atwood, 1985.

All fathers are invisible in daytime; daytime is ruled by mothers and fathers come out at night. Darkness brings home fathers, with their real, unspeakable power. There is more to fathers than meets the eye.

Margaret Atwood
Daughter, Mother, Father

She who pays the undertaker calls the tune.

Margaret Atwood
Tunes, Pay, Undertaker
Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.46, Anchor

I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow; or rather, no shadow unless there is also light.

Margaret Atwood
Believe, Light, Shadow
Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.105, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Religions in general have to rediscover their roots. In Hinduism and the Koran, animals are described as equals. If you walk into a cathedral and look at the decorations of early Christianity, there are vines, animals, creatures and birds thriving all over the stonework.

Margaret Atwood
Animal, Roots, Bird

The moment of betrayal is the worst, the moment when you know beyond any doubt that you've been betrayed: that some other human being has wished you that much evil

Margaret Atwood
Betrayal, Evil, Doubt
Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.193, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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