Quotes from Margaret Atwood

Fatigue is here, in my body, in my legs and eyes. That is what gets you in the end. Faith is only a word, embroidered. I

I want to see what can be seen, of him, take him in, memorize him, save him up so I can live on the image, later: the lines of his body, the texture of his flesh, the glisten of sweat on his pelt, his long sardonic unrevealing face.

We must all make sacrifices in order to help other people," she said in a soothing tone. "Men must make sacrifices in war, and women must make sacrifices in other ways. That is how things are divided.

We have learned to see the world in gasps. To

What men are most afraid of is not lions, not snakes, not the dark, not women. Not any more. What men are most afraid of is the body of another man. Men's bodies are the most dangerous things on earth.

The next few weeks were the worst he could remember. Too many things were coming back to him, too much of what he'd lost - or - sadder - had never had in the first place. All that wasted time, and he didn't even know who'd wasted it.

Hacer caso omiso no es lo mismo que ignorar, hay que esforzarse para ello.

Though it's hard to concentrate on the idea of a future. She's too immersed in the present:

The circumstances have been reduced; for those of us who still have circumstances.

The stories the children whispered to one another - while they sat weaving their endless carpets, while they could still see - was about this possible future life. It was a saying among them that only the blind are free.

Melanie told me that all the early pictures of me had been burnt up in a fire. Only an idiot would have believed this, so I did.

this could be a college guest room, for the less distinguished visitors; or a room in a rooming house, of former times, for ladies in reduced circumstances. That is what we are now. The circumstances have been reduced; for those of us who still have circumstances.

But my dreaming self refuses to be consoled.

She said gently that she wished he would talk more about his feelings. He said that if she had his feelings, she wouldn't want to talk about them either. This intrigued her. She was now more in love with him and more curious than ever.

I was the age at which parents suddenly transform from people who know everything into people who know nothing.

no event is allowed into it that does not have a precedent in human history.

God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform, as Reenie used to say. Could it be that Myra is my designated guardian angel? Or is she instead a foretaste of Purgatory? And how do you tell the difference?

The tulip is not a reason for disbelief in the hanged man, or vice versa. Each thing is valid and really there. It is through a field of such valid objects that I must pick my way, every day and in every way. I put a lot of effort into making such distinctions. I need to make them. I need to be very clear, in my own mind. I

If you ask a human being what makes his flesh creep more, a bat or a bomb, he will say the bat. It is difficult to experience loathing for something merely metal, however ominous. We save these sensations for those with skin and flesh: a skin, a flesh, unlike our own.

Maybe acting as if she believes in such a future will help to create it

Jack quit his advertising job and devoted himself to the life of the pen. Or rather, to the life of the Remington, soon to be replaced with an IBM Selectric, with the bouncing ball that let you change the typeface. Now that was cool!

Nothing. Just that sound, like the sound of starlight scratching its way through outer space: kkkkkkk.

The Dead Hand , yeah, it was, like, seminal, but tame by today's standards. Violet, for instance, did not get her intestines ripped out. There wasn't any torture, nobody's liver got fried in a pan, there wasn't any gang rape. So what's the fun of that?

Who cares, who cares. The perennial adolescent riposte. I cared, of course. I cared what people thought. I always did care. Unlike Laura, I have never had the courage of my convictions.