Quotes from Margaret Atwood

I expect he did it awkwardly, but awkwardness in men was a sign of sincerity then.

Can't play it safe, can't play at all any more

How long will you demand I love you?

This was the story of the Concubine Cut into Twelve Pieces.

Galleries are frightening places, places of evaluation, of judgement.

Letting yourself go is an alarming notion; it is said of older women who become frowzy and fat, and of things that are sold cheap. Of course there is something to it. I am letting myself go.

Calling a piece of short fiction a "tale" removes it at least slightly from the realm of mundane works and days, as it evokes the world of the folk tale, the wonder tale, and the long-ago teller of tales.

and then she smiled and said that we were precious flowers, and who ever heard of a rebellious flower?

I write as if I've lived a lot of things I haven't lived..

I stand there on the top step, frozen with hate. What I hate is not Grace or even Cordelia. I can't go as far as that. I hate Mrs. Smeath, because what I thought was a secret, something going on among girls, among children, is not one. It has been discussed before, and tolerated. Mrs. Smeath has known and approved. She has done nothing to stop it. She thinks it serves me right.

What is the real breath of a man— the breathing out or the breathing in? Such was the nature of the gods

She says the clogs are comfortable, and that comfort trumps fashion as far as she's concerned. Gavin has tried quoting Yeats to the effect that women must labour to be beautiful, but Reynolds Ã¢â'¬â€œ who used to be a passionate Yeats fan Ã¢â'¬â€œ is now of the opinion that Yeats is entitled to his point of view, but that was then and social attitudes were different, and in actual fact Yeats is dead. Reynolds

They should all be cheered by it, for isn't it what they want? What we all want: to leave a message behind us that has an effect, if only a dire one: a message that cannot be cancelled out.

I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real. So that's how they do it, I thought. I seemed never to have known that before.

She was something of his own that he had lost.

If my eyes could shoot out fatal rays like the ones in comic books I would incinerate her on the spot. She is right, I am a heathen. I cannot forgive.

a shocking 40 percent of the population in this region is jobless, with 50 percent of those being under twenty-five. That's a recipe for systems breakdown, right there: for anarchy, for chaos, for the senseless destruction of property, for so-called revolution, which means looting and gang rule and warlords and mass rape, and the terrorization of the weak and helpless.

At least, I said, she's got what she thinks she wants, and I suppose that's something.

When push comes to shove, only one's own nightmares are of any interest or significance

La grandeza está en la virtud, no en la venganza

If in doubt, play dumb," said Ada

Waiting is also a place: it is wherever you wait. For me it's this room. I am a blank, here, between parentheses. Between other people The knock comes at my door. Cora, with the tray.

They were too careful around me, as if I was breakable. It was like I was a prize cat they were cat-sitting: you'd take your own cat for granted, you'd be casual about it, but someone else's cat would be another story because if you lost that cat you would feel guilty about it in a completely different way.

There is only so much manpower and tax revenue that can be devoted to riot control, to social surveillance, to chasing fast youths down dark alleyways, to fire-hosing and pepper-spraying suspicious-looking gatherings.