Quotes from Margaret Atwood

Religions in general have to rediscover their roots. In Hinduism and the Koran, animals are described as equals. If you walk into a cathedral and look at the decorations of early Christianity, there are vines, animals, creatures and birds thriving all over the stonework.

The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you will be free.

expectation isn't the same as desire

But my dreaming self refuses to be consoled. It continues to wander, aimless, homeless, alone. It cannot be convinced of its safety by any evidence drawn from my waking life.

Writing... is an act of faith: I believe it's also an act of hope, the hope that things can get better than they are.

The Eskimos have 52 words for snow because it is so special to them; there ought to be as many for love.

Heroes need monsters to establish their heroic credentials. You need something scary to overcome.

Time is not a thing that passes ... it's a sea on which you float.

There is more than one kind of freedom... 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.

Human reason is a pin dancing on the head of an angel, so small is it in comparison to the Divine vastness that encircles us.

The best way of keeping a secret is to pretend there isn't one.

Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered.

Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God.

There's nothing like drawing a thing to make you really see it.

The past is a closed door.

God gave unto the Animals A wisdom past our power to see: Each knows innately how to live, Which we must learn laboriously.

As with all knowledge, once you knew it, you couldn't imagine how it was that you hadn't known it before.

"Why do men feel threatened by women?" I asked a male friend of mine.... "They're afraid women will laugh at them," he said.... Then I asked some women students in a quickie poetry seminar I was giving, "Why do women feel threatened by men?" "They're afraid of being killed," they said.

Vanity is becoming a nuisance, I can see why women give it up, eventually. But I'm not ready for that yet.

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.

Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. Solid flesh can never live up to the bright shadow cast by its absence.

The Eskimo has fifty-two names for snow because it is important to them; there ought to be as many for love.

No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well.

Hunger is a powerful reorganizer of the conscience.