Quotes from Margaret Atwood

I don't even close my eyes. Out there or inside my head, it's an equal darkness. Or light.

A divorce is like an amputation, you survive but there's less of you.

Had she believed all that? Old Pilar's folklore? No, not really; or not exactly. Most likely Pilar hadn't quite believed it either, but it was a reassuring story: that the dead were not entirely dead but were alive in a different way; a paler way admittedly, and somewhat darker. But still able to send messages, if only such messages could be recognized and deciphered. People need such stories, Pilar said once, because however dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void.

So that's what art is, for the artist," said Crake. "An empty drainpipe. An amplifier. A stab at getting laid.

Love is a discipline, like prayer," I said.

Despite their cool poses they wear their cravings on the outside, like the suckers on a squid. They want it all.

I didn't much like it, this grudge-holding against the past.

In front of us, to the right, is the store where we order dresses. Some people call them habits , a good word for them. Habits are hard to break.

Nobody's heart is perfect.

Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and can be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing.

A hot wind was blowing around my head, the strands of my hair lifting and swirling in it, like ink spilled in water.

What is believed in society is not always the equivalent of what is true; but as regards to a woman's reputation, it amounts to the same thing.

To want is to have a weakness. It's this weakness, whatever it is, that entices me. It's like a small crack in a wall, before now impenetrable.

Knowledge is power only as long as you keep your mouth shut.

Two-thirty comes during Testifying. It's Janine, telling about how she was gang-raped at fourteen and had an abortion.But whose fault was it? Aunt Helena says, holding up one plump finger. Her fault, her fault, her fault. We chant in unison. Who led them on? She did. She did. She did. Why did God allow such a terrible thing to happen? Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson.

Wedlock: it had a dull metallic sound, like an iron door clicking shut.

I want my father to be just my father, the way he has always been, not a separate person with an earlier, mythological life of his own. Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.

He could never get used to her, she was fresh every time, she was a casketful of secrets. Any moment now she would open herself up, reveal to him the essential thing, the hidden thing at the core of her life, or of her life, or of his life--the thing he was longing to know. The thing he'd always wanted.

Looking down, she became aware of the water, which was covered with a film of calcinous hard-water particles of dirt and soap, and of the body that was sitting in it, somehow no longer quite her own. All at once she was afraid that she was dissolving, coming apart layer by layer like a piece of cardboard in a gutter puddle.

friendship was always contingent.

But unshed tears can turn rancid. So can memory. So can biting your tongue. My bad nights were beginning. I couldn't sleep.

The adult female body was one big booby trap as far as I could tell. If there was a hole, something was bound to be shoved into it and something else was bound to come out, and that went for any kind of hole: a hole in a wall, a hole in a mountain, a hole in the ground. There were so many things that could be done to it or go wrong with it, this adult female body, that I was left feeling I would be better off without it.

It made him feel invisible—not that he wanted to feel anything else.

And yes, I know it's you; and that is what we will come to, sooner or later, when it's even darker than It is now, when the snow is colder, when it's darkest and coldest and candles are no longer any use to us and the visibility is zero: Yes. It's still you. It's still you.