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Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood Quotes

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Famous Margaret Atwood Quotes

“In view of the fading animals the proliferation of sewers and fears the sea clogging, the air nearing extinction we should be kind, we should take warning, we should forgive each other Instead we are opposite, we touch as though attacking, the gifts we bring even in good faith maybe warp in our hands to implements, to manoeuvres”

ShouldKindHandsAnimalViewsAirSeaOppositesForgivingBe KindWarningExtinctionAttackingFadingProliferationGood FaithWarpSewersClogging
Book:Selected Poems: 1965-1975
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“It's true that there is a rescue thing in people, and not just rescuing the family, which is kind of obvious from a biological point of view. But why is it that some people will jump into a freezing river and swim out to a downed plane for total strangers? What is that about? And it seems to be that it's part of your concept of who you are. That's why some people run into the burning buildings, because if they don't, their concept of who they are will be violated. They wouldn't be who they thought they were.”

PeopleIfsKindSeemsRunningViewsBuildingConceptsRiversWho You AreObviousStrangerPoint Of ViewBurningPlanesSwimRescueFreezingBurning Buildings
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“It was exciting to work with director Jennifer Baichwal, who made Manufactured Landscapes and others, on the film of Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth. It's called, simply, PAYBACK. Jennifer didn't want to do a transliteration of the book, a kind of illustrated version, but to go into the core of the book: owing and being owed, paying and paying back, on all sorts of levels. So she found real-life, visceral stories that embodied the themes of the book.”

WantKindMadeBookRealStoriesFilmFoundSidesWealthLevelsDirectorsShadowExcitingDebtCoreReal LifeVersionsLandscapeThemeOwingJenniferVisceralPaybackShadow Side
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“The film [Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth] opens with an Albanian blood feud and goes on to delve into, for instance, prison systems, underpaid tomato pickers, the gulf oil spill. It's all woven together in a sensuous, oblique way that's not the same as the single-message kind of documentary we're used to, with an "answer" at the end. It's more like an exploration. Sort of like what you do with Birth of a Nation.”

WayKindEndsTogetherFilmUsedNationsSidesWealthAnswersBloodGoes OnBirthMessagesShadowPrisonDebtOilInstanceExplorationDocumentariesWovenSpillsTomatoesSensuousPaybackFeudsOil SpillUnderpaidAlbanianPrison SystemShadow Side
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“Within one's own family money is not the measure of things, unless the person is an absolute Scrooge. Only the most extreme kind of monster would put a price on everything. There are all kinds of other things that we are not supposed to sell - political influence being one of them. We too rarely have public conversations about the common sense of money. We too rarely talk about the human cost of putting some of these economic measures into effect.”

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Author:Margaret Atwood
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“She wasn't ready to settle down, she told her friends. That was one way of putting it. Another was would have been that she had not found anyone to settle down with. There had been several men in her life, but they hadn't been convincing. They'd been somewhat like her table - quickly acquired, brightened up a little, but temporary. The time for that kind of thing was running out, however. She was tired of renting.”

MenWayLoveKindLittlesHas BeensRunningFoundReadyTablesTiredOne WaySettlingTemporaryConvincingLike HerSettling DownReady To Settle Down
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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“The temptation is to stay inside; to subside into the kind of recluse whom neighborhood children regard with derision and little awe; to let the hedges and weeds grow up, to allow the doors to rust shut, to lie on my bed in some gown-shaped garment and let my hair lengthens and spread out over the pillow and my fingernails to sprout into claws, while candle wax drips onto the carpet. But long ago I made a choice between classicism and romanticism. I prefer to be upright and contained—an urn in daylight.”

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Author:Margaret Atwood
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“Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we're still alive. We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants. We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas, our silver-plated cups; we monogram our linen, we carve our names on trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls. It's all the same impulse. What do we hope from it? Applause, envy, respect? Or simply attention, of any kind we can get? At the very least we want a witness. We can't stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.”

WantKindStillsIdeasRunningFallNamesWishVoiceExistenceAttentionFireAliveTreeDogWallSilentPhotographRadioEnvyCupsWitnessImpulseSilverDisplayApplauseFramedDiplomaLinenMonograms
Book:The Blind Assassin: A Novel
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“Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. It's like the tide going out, revealing whatever's been thrown away and sunk: broken bottles, old gloves, rusting pop cans, nibbled fishbodies, bones. This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes, not knowing the future.”

IfsKindEyeVisionDarknessKnowingBrokenPopsBonesThrownBottlesTidesNot KnowingGoing OutRevealingGlovesBlurOpen EyesKnowing The Future
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“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.”

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Author:Margaret Atwood
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“And sometimes it happened, for a time. That kind of love comes and goes and is hard to remember afterwards, like pain. You would look at the man one day and you would think, I loved you, and the tense would be past, and you would be filled with a sense of wonder, because it was such an amazing and precarious and dumb thing to have done; and you would know too why your friends have been evasive about it, at the time.”

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Book:The Handmaid's Tale
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