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Margaret Atwood Quotes

born 1939 Canada

Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born 18 November 1939) is a Canadian novelist, poet, and literary critic.

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Also known as: Atwood, Margaret, Nolite te bastardes carborundorum

Random Margaret Atwood quote

89 quotes

You can forget who you are if you're alone too much.

The Year of the Flood (2009)

Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic.

MaddAddam (2013)

After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? Because it is.

Oryx and Crake (2003)

There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

Now we come to forgiveness. Don’t worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. For instance: keep the others safe, if they are safe. Don’t let them suffer too much.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

“Anyway, maybe there weren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. It never learned, it made the same cretinous mistakes over and over, trading short-term gain for long-term pain."

Oryx and Crake (2003)

It's a feature of our age that if you write a work of fiction, everyone assumes that the people and events in it are disguised biography — but if you write your biography, it's equally assumed you're lying your head off.

On Writing Poetry (1995)

“I'm fine," said Pilar, "for the moment. And the moment is the only time we can be fine in.”

The Year of the Flood (2009)

In order to avoid her death, her particular death, with
wrung neck and swollen tongue, she must marry the
hangman.

Selected Poems 1976-1986 (1987)

“There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive.”

Oryx and Crake (2003)

“We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young.”

The Year of the Flood (2009)

Furthermore, I believe that in order to have civil and human rights for women there have to be civil and human rights, period …

Am I a bad feminist? (2018)

Mirrors
are the perfect lovers.

You are Happy (1974)

When I was sixteen, it was simple. Poetry existed; therefore it could be written; and nobody had told me — yet — the many, many reasons why it could not be written by me.

On Writing Poetry (1995)

By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you, I believe you're there, I believe you into being. Because I'm telling you this story I will your existence. I tell, therefore you are.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

A lot of people facing fascism didn’t become fascists. I don’t happen to believe that we are all monsters.

The Progressive interview (2010)

Tell, rather than write, because I have nothing to write with and writing is in any case forbidden. But if it’s a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don’t tell a story only to yourself. There’s always someone else.
Even when there is no one.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it.

The Year of the Flood (2009)

When you hear me singing
you get the rifle down
and the flashlight, aiming for my brain,
but you always miss and when you set out the poison
I piss on it
to warn the others.

Selected Poems 1965-1975 (1976)

I said "writer," not "poet;" I did have some common sense.

On Writing Poetry (1995)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Margaret Atwood (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.