Quotes from Margaret Atwood

After we're gone the work of our knives will survive us.

Most of the time, that is what it feels like here, far away from the war, in the still heart of the tornado. So peaceful, the streets; so tranquil, so orderly; yet underneath the deceptively placid surfaces, a tremor, like that near a high-voltage power line. We're stretched thin, all of us; we vibrate; we quiver, we're always on the alert. Reign of terror, they used to say, but terror does not exactly reign. Instead it paralyzes. Hence the unnatural quiet.

Part of the life she should have had is just a gap, it isn't there, it's nothing.

Az igazságot egyetlen módon lehet csak megírni: ha feltételezzük, hogy amit megírtunk, soha nem fogja elolvasni senki, Se más, se mi magunk valamikor késÅ'bb. Különben csak mentegeti magát az ember.

It's psychic. It's the age. It's chemical.

of course you'll die but not yet, you'll outlive even my distortions of you

Why was she doing that?" I asked cautiously. "Collecting penises?" "Some people collect stamps, she collected penises. Many of us did in those days. Anyway, he consulted me—through a clairvoyant, of course, as I was no longer in that earthly incarnation. I told him to complain to the authorities, so he did, and she was forced to give the penis back.

there goes this day, down to where all the other days have gone, each one carrying something away with it.

Maybe nothing happened, maybe these emotions I remember are not the right emotions.

Avenging a toad. Pointing at a tree. Who could handle that kind of thing, in a mother?

You attempt merely power you accomplish merely suffering

It's her second baby, she had another child, once, I know that from the Center, when she used to cry about it at night, like the rest of us only more noisily. So she ought to be able to remember this, what it's like, what's coming. 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.

I'm training to be an Aunt," I said. "I'm not really supposed to like anyone.

No, you will not be cooked on a fire when you die. Because you are not a fish.

What is it that I'll want from you? Not love: that would be too much to ask. Not forgiveness, which isn't yours to bestow. Only a listener, perhaps; only someone who will see me. Don't prettify me though, whatever else you do: I have no wish to be a decorated skull.

Never trust a man with new clothes.

I will bend, I will touch the ground, or as close to it as I can get without rupture. I will lay a wreath of invisible money on her grave.

homelessness is a nationality now. Somehow the war never ended after all, it just broke up into pieces and got scattered, it gets in everywhere, you can't shut it out. Killing is endless now, it's an industry, there's money in it, and the good side and the bad side are pretty hard to tell apart.

Thank you for bringing me this fish. Thank you means: Thank you means you did something good for me. Or something you thought was good. And that good thing was giving me a fish. So that made me happy, but the part that really made me happy was that you wanted me to be happy. That's what Thank you means. No, you don't need to give me another fish. I am happy enough for now.

You were such a sensitive child. So easily wounded. So I told you those things. I didn't want you to feel defenseless in the face of life. Life can be harsh. I wanted you to feel protected, and to know that there was a greater power watching over you. That the Universe was taking a personal interest.

How long do you expect me to wait while you cauterize your senses, one after another turning yourself to an impervious glass tower?

I remember adapt," says Toby. "It was another way of saying tough luck. To people you weren't going to help

To have them sizing him up. To have them thinking, He can't do it, he won't do, he'll have to do, this last as if he were a garment, out of style or shoddy, which must nevertheless be put on because there's nothing else available. To

Weeping willow, weeping willow, branches waving like the sea, While I'm lying on my pillow, come and take my pain from me… Hell