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Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood Quotes

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Famous Margaret Atwood Quotes

“After a year or two of keeping my head down and trying to pass myself off as a normal person, I made contact with the five other people at my university who were interested in writing; and through them, and some of my teachers, I discovered that there was a whole subterranean Wonderland of Canadian writing that was going on just out of general earshot and sight.”

PeopleWritingTryingYearsPersonsMadeTwoWholeFiveTeacherNormalSightDown AndUniversityContactWonderland
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“Like all twenty-one-year-old poets, I thought I would be dead by thirty, and Sylvia Plath had not set a helpful example. For a while there, you were made to feel that, if a poet and female, you could not really be serious about it unless you'd made at least one suicide attempt. So I felt I was running out of time.”

IfsFeelsYearsMadeWould BeRunningFeltExampleSeriousPoetFemaleTwentiesSuicideThirtyHelpfulTwenty OneRunning Out Of TimePlath
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason. Think of it as the altar of the Muse Oblivion, to whom you sacrifice your botched first drafts, the tokens of your human imperfection.”

ThinkingWritingFirstsHumansReasonProcessSacrificeBuiltImperfectionMuseOblivionAltarsRatiosTokensHuman Imperfection
Book:Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose: 1983-2005
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“I think the main thing is: Just do it. Plunge in! Being Canadian, I go swimming in icy cold lakes, and there is always that dithering moment. "Am I really going to do this? Won't it hurt?" And at some point you just have to flop in there and scream. Once you're in, keep going. You may have to crumple and toss, but we all do that. Courage! I think that is what's most required.”

ThinkingMayMomentsHurtColdLakesKeep GoingSwimmingScreamIt HurtsJust Do ItPlungeTossIcy
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“As I was whizzing around the United States on yet another demented book tour, getting up at four in the morning to catch planes, doing two cities a day, eating the Pringle food object out of the mini-bar at night as I crawled around on the hotel room floor, too tired even to phone room service, I thought, 'There must be a better way of doing this'.”

WayTwoBookStatesNightUnitedRoomsCitiesMorningUnited StatesFourObjectsEatingTiredPhonesBarsPlanesHotelBetter WaysHotel RoomsDementedRoom ServicePringles
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“In Heaven, there are no debts - all have been paid, one way or another - but in Hell there's nothing but debts, and a great deal of payment is exacted, though you can't ever get all paid up. You have to pay, and pay, and keep on paying. So Hell is like an infernal maxed-out credit card that multiplies the charges endlessly.”

WayHas BeensHeavenDealsPayHellPaidCreditDebtCardsOne WayPaymentCredit Card
Book:Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth
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“Plato said that poets should be excluded from the ideal republic because they are such liars. I am a poet, and I affirm that this is true. About no subject are poets tempted to lie so much as about their own lives; I know one of them who has floated at least five versions of his autobiography, none of them true. I of course - being also a novelist - am a much more truthful person than that. But since poets lie, how can you believe me?”

KnowsShouldBelievePersonsSaidLyingCoursesFiveSubjectsPoetIdealsVersionsNovelistsLiarsRepublicTruthfulBelieve In MeAutobiographyPlatoTemptedExcluded
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“I define science fiction as fiction in which things happen that are not possible today - that depend, for instance, on advanced space travel, time travel, the discovery of green monsters on other planets or galaxies, or that contain various technologies we have not yet developed.”

HappensTodaySpaceFictionTechnologyPlanetsDependsDiscoveryGreenScience FictionVariousMonstersThings HappenInstanceTime TravelGalaxySpace Travel
Book:Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose: 1983-2005
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“Money as such is, as Oscar Wilde said, perfectly useless. You can't eat it, drink it, shelter yourself from the cold with it, wear it, or make love with it unless deeply disturbed. In and of itself, it has no emotions, no mind, and no conscience. It doesn't put out flowers or have children, and it makes a lousy pet. It has meaning only when it circulates, and is exchanged for other things; and money doesn't do that for itself. People do that, using money as a symbolic token.”

PeopleMindChildrenSaidEmotionFlowerColdDrinkConscienceUselessPetShelterOscarsMaking LoveSymbolicDisturbedTokensWilde
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“In high school, in 1956, at the age of sixteen, we were not taught "creative writing." We were taught literature and grammar. So no one ever told me I couldn't write both prose and poetry, and I started out writing all the things I still write: poetry, prose fiction - which took me longer to get published - and non-fiction prose.”

WritingStillsAgeSchoolLiteratureFictionCreativeTaughtHigh SchoolProseGrammarCreative WritingNon FictionSixteenProse And Poetry
Author:Margaret Atwood
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