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Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood Quotes

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Famous Margaret Atwood Quotes

“He's lost something, some illusion I used to think was necessary to him. He's come to realize he too is human. Or is this a performance, for my benefit, to show me he's up-to-date? Maybe men shouldn't have been told about their own humanity. It's only made them uncomfortable. It's only made them trickier, slier, more evasive, harder to read.”

ThinkingMenHumansHas BeensMadeShowsUsedHumanityLostRealizingBenefitsIllusionPerformancesHarderUncomfortableShow MeUp To Date
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“There were no men in this painting, but it was about men, the kind who caused women to fall. I did not ascribe any intentions to these men. They were like the weather, they didn't have a mind. They merely drenched you or struck you like lightning and moved on, mindless as blizzards. Or they were like rocks, a line of sharp slippery rocks with jagged edges. You could walk with care along between the rocks, picking your steps, and if you slipped you'd fall and cut yourself, but it was no use blaming the rocks.”

IfsMenMindKindUseCareFallLinesWalksStepsCuttingRocksPaintingBlameMovedIntentionEdgesWeatherLightningMindlessSlipperyMoved OnBlizzardJagged Edge
Book:Two Solicitudes: Conversations
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“What is it the I'll want from you? Not love: that would be too much to ask. Not forgiveness, which isn't yours to bestow. Only a listener, perhaps; only someone who will see me. Don't prettify me though, whatever else you do: I have no wish to be a decorated skull. But I leave myself in your hands. What choice do I have? By the time you read this last page, that- if anywhere- is the only place I will be.”

IfsWantHandsWould BeLastsChoicesAsksWishToo MuchPagesListenersSkulls
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“When you're young, you think everything you do is disposable. You move from now to now, crumpling time up in your hands, tossing it away. You're your own speeding car. You think you can get rid of things, and people too—leave them behind. You don't yet know about the habit they have, of coming back. Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsDreamHandsMovingYoungBehindsCarYouthHabitGet AwayFrozenComing BackBehind YouDisposableSpeedingSpeeding Cars
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“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.”

ThinkingWorldWellsHas BeensI CanDoneWholeRunningDiesGirlEffortBoysCuttingMessagesAimWhole WorldNoiseLoudUnfoldingExplosivesDoingsCataloguesScissorsFryingEmbroideryFrying Pans
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“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.”

IfsFeelsWritingEndsFacesSkinsWingsDrawingOpeningPensButterflyOld FashionedPencilsFeathersClosingGeeseQuills
Book:Alias Grace: A Novel
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“What I need is perspective. The illusion of depth, created by a frame, the arrangement of shapes on a flat surface. Perspective is necessary. Otherwise there are only two dimensions. Otherwise you live with your face squashed up against a wall, everything a huge foreground, of details, close-ups, hairs, the weave of the bedsheet, the molecules of the face. Your own skin like a map, a diagram of futility, criscrossed with tiny roads that lead nowhere. Otherwise you live in the moment. Which is not where I want to be.”

WantNeedsTwoMomentsFacesHugeHairPerspectiveWallShapesPerceptionIllusionSkinsDepthDetailsSurfaceTinyDimensionsMapsFlatsYour FaceArrangementsLive In The MomentMoleculesFutilityDiagramsForeground
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“at last you, will say (maybe without speaking) (there are mountains inside your skull garden and chaos, ocean and hurricane; certain corners of rooms, portraits of great-grandmothers, curtains of a particular shade; your deserts; your private dinosaurs; the first woman) all i need to know: tell me everything just as it was from the beginning.”

KnowsNeedsFirstsLastsCertainRoomsParticularMountainOceanGardenChaosCornersDesertGrandmotherShadePortraitsCurtainsHurricanesSkullsDinosaursGreat Grandmother
Book:Selected Poems: 1965-1975
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“The trickle-down theory of economics has it that it's good for rich people to get even richer because some of their wealth will trickle own, through their no doubt lavish spending, upon those who stand below them on the economic ladder. Notice that the metaphor is not that of a gushing waterfall but of a leaking tap: even the most optimistic endorsers of this concept do not picture very much real flow, as their language reveals" pg. 102.”

PeopleRealLanguageWealthRichDoubtEconomicTheoryConceptsEconomicsFlowMetaphorSpendingOptimisticNo DoubtLaddersRich PeopleWaterfallsTrickle Down
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“The male frog in mating season," said Crake, "makes as much noise as it can. The females are attracted to the male frog with the biggest, deepest voice because it suggests a more powerful frog, one with superior genes. Small male frogs—it's been documented—discover if they position themselves in empty drainpipes, the pipe acts as a voice amplifier and the small frog appears much larger than it really is." So?" So that's what art is for the artist, an empty drainpipe. An amplifier. A stab at getting laid.”

IfsArtSaidArtistVoicePowerfulPositionArt IsFemaleEmptySeasonsMalesNoiseSuperiorsGenesPipeFrogsGetting LaidMatingAmplifiers
Book:Oryx And Crake
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“A wave of blood goes up to my head, my stomach shrinks together, as if something dangerous has just missed hitting me. It's as if I've been caught stealing, or telling a lie; or as if I've heard other people talking about me, saying bad things about me, behind my back. There's the same flush of shame, of guilt and terror, and of cold disgust with myself. But I don't know where these feelings have come from, what I've done.”

PeopleIfsKnowsDoneFeelingsTogetherLyingBehindsTalkingHeardBloodDangerousColdShameGuiltWaveCaughtTerrorStealingBad ThingsStomachDisgustingHittingShrinksPeople TalkingBehind My BackTalking About MeSaying Bad Things
Book:Cat's Eye
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“What a lost person needs is a map of the territory, with his own position marked on it so he can see where he is in relation to everything else. Literature is not only a mirror; it is also a map, a geography of the mind. Our literature is one such map, if we can learn to read it as our literature, as the product of who and where we have been. We need such a map desperately, we need to know about here, because here is where we live. For the members of a country or a culture, shared knowledge of their place, their here, is not a luxury but a necessity. Without that knowledge we will not survive.”

IfsKnowsNeedsMindPersonsHas BeensCountryCultureLiteratureLostPositionProductsMembersRelationMirrorsLuxuryMapsTerritoryGeographyLost Person
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“But thoughtless ingratitude is the armour of the young; without it, how would they ever get through life? The old wish the young well, but they wish them ill also: they would like to eat them up, and absorb their vitality, and remain immortal themselves. Without the protection of surliness and levity, all children would be crushed by the past - the past of others, loaded on their shoulders. Selfishness is their saving grace.”

WellsChildrenWould BePastYoungWishGraceIllProtectionShouldersSavingSelfishnessImmortalVitalityCrushedLoadedIngratitudeArmourLevitySaving Grace
Book:The Blind Assassin: A Novel
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“Home is where the heart is, I thought now, gathering myself together in Betty's Luncheonette. I had no heart any more, it had been broken; or not broken, it simply wasn't there any more. It had been scooped neatly out of me like the yolk from a hard-boiled egg, leaving the rest of me bloodless and congealed and hollow. I'm heartless, I thought. Therefore I'm homeless.”

HeartHardHomeTogetherBrokenLeavingEggsHomelessGatheringHollowHeartlessHome Is Where The Heart IsBoiled Eggs
Book:The Blind Assassin: A Novel
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“Walking along past the store windows, into which she peers with her usual eagerness, her usual sense that maybe, today, she will discover behind them something that will truly be worth seeing, she feels as if her feet are not on cement at all but on ice. The blade of the skate floats, she knows, on a thin film of water, which it melts by pressure and which freezes behind it. This is the freedom of the present tense, this sliding edge.”

IfsKnowsFeelsTodayPastFilmWaterBehindsSeeingFeetWalkingWindowPressureEdgesStoresIceUsualPeersFloatsBladesTenseFreezeSkatesCementEagernessPresent Tense
Book:Bluebeard's Egg
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“Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. Solid flesh can never live up to the bright shadow cast by its absence. Time and distance blur the edges; then suddenly the beloved has arrived, and it's noon with its merciless light, and every spot and pore and wrinkle and bristle stands clear.”

LifeLightClearReturnShadowDistanceCastsEdgesAbsenceFleshSpotsBelovedFarewellWrinklesNoonBlurShatteringTime And Distance
Book:The Blind Assassin: A Novel
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