Canadian novelist, poet, and literary critic (1939- )
Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. Solid flesh can never live up to the bright shadow cast by its absence.
MARGARET ATWOOD
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The Blind Assassin
I am the horizon
you ride towards, the thing you can never lasso
MARGARET ATWOOD
"Backdrop addresses cowboy"
The Eskimo has fifty-two names for snow because it is important to them; there ought to be as many for love.
MARGARET ATWOOD
Surfacing
Hatred would have been easier. With hatred, I would have known what to do. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love.
MARGARET ATWOOD
Cat's Eye
Change, we were sure, was for the better always. We were revisionists; what we revised was ourselves.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Handmaid's Tale
I knew what love was supposed to be: obsession with undertones of nausea.
MARGARET ATWOOD
Cat's Eye
All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Blind Assassin
You can think clearly only with your clothes on.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Handmaid's Tale
What is needed for really good tyranny is an unquestionable idea or authority. Political disagreement is political disagreement. But political disagreement with a theocracy is heresy.
MARGARET ATWOOD
Moving Targets: Writing with Intent
In an age that persecutes deviants, you can yet lose your life for being the possessor of a dangerous or unacceptable story. Words are powerful, which means that words can also be fatal.
MARGARET ATWOOD
address at the Jaipur Literature Festival, January 21, 2016
No luck was dumb because luck was just another name for miracle.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Year of the Flood
But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Handmaid's Tale
Hunger is the best sauce.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Year of the Flood
What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Year of the Flood
As God contains all good things, He must also contain a sense of playfulness -- a gift he has shared with Creatures other than ourselves, as witness the tricks Crows play, and the sportiveness of Squirrels, and the frolicking of Kittens.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Year of the Flood
Potential has a shelf life.
MARGARET ATWOOD
Cat's Eye
You can only be jealous of someone who has something you think you ought to have yourself.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Handmaid's Tale
Hunger is a powerful reorganizer of the conscience.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Year of the Flood
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.
MARGARET ATWOOD
Cat's Eye
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
The Handmaid's Tale