Quotes from Margaret Atwood

Being here with him is safety; it's a cave, where we huddle together while the storm goes on outside.

I wanted to ask why it had to be like this, but I already knew the answer: because it was God's plan. That was how the Aunts got out of everything

I've had cause to notice over the course of what you might call my Gilead career that underlings given sudden power frequently become the worst abusers of it.

but love was undependable, it came and then it went, so it was good to have a money value, because then at least those who wanted to make a profit from you would make sure you were fed enough and not damaged too much.

She sighed. "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.

Is that all there is? they must be thinking. Shouldn't it be less ordinary, more sordid, more epic, more truly harrowing, this flesh wound of your? Tell us more! Couldn't we please crank up the pain?

Who are you, my reader? And when are you? Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps fifty years from now, perhaps never.

I wish to show you the darkness you are so afraid of. Trust me. This darkness is a place you can enter and be as safe in as you are anywhere; you can put one foot in front of the other and believe the sides of your eyes. Memorize it. You will know it again in your own time. When the appearances of things have left you, you will still have this darkness. Something of your own you can carry with you.

Commander Judd is a great believer in the restorative powers of young women, as were King David and assorted Central American drug lords

O, lente, lente currite noctis equi!

But to note is not to disparage. All observations of life are harsh, because life is. I lament that fact, but I cannot change it.

There were places you didn't want to walk, precautions you took that had to do with locks on windows and doors, drawing the curtains, leaving on lights. These things you did were like prayers; you did them and you hoped they would save you.

Melanie laughed and said, "No he isn't." I decided she was naive. I was the age at which parents suddenly transform from people who know everything into people who know nothing.

She who does not hesitate is lost.

When chlorophyll chewing gum came into fashion two decades later, it was that colour.)

Their mother died early, and not in a good way. Not that anyone dies in a good way, Tin footnotes to himself, but there are degrees. Being hit by a truck after closing time while jaywalking blinded with mournful tears was not a good way. Though it was quick.

Then I remembered something I'd seen and hadn't noticed, at the time. It wasn't the army. It was some other army.

The lion-sheep splice was commissioned by the Lion Isaiahists in order to force the advent of the Peaceable Kingdom. They'd reasoned that the only way to fulfil the lion/lamb friendship prophecy without the first eating the second would be to meld the two of them together.

I hate petit point. I want to make bread." "We can't always do what we want," said Zilla gently. "Even you." "And sometimes we have to do what we hate," said Vera. "Even you." "Don't let me, then!" I said. "You're being mean!" And I ran out of the kitchen.

In my own present day I am a legend, alive but more than alive, dead but more than dead. I'm a framed head that hangs at the backs of classrooms, of the girls exalted enough to have classrooms: grimly smiling, silently admonishing. I'm a bugaboo used by the Marthas to frighten small children

time, what a bankrupt idea, as if he's been given a box of time belonging to him alone, stuffed to the brim with hours and minutes that he can spend like money. Trouble is, the box has holes in it and the time is running out, no matter what he does with it.

His letters always begin without greeting and end without signature, as if they're part of one single letter, unrolling through time like an endless paper towel.

violated by bloodshed and gluttony and pride and disdain. Say their Names.

But perhaps it is too late for that. You take the first step, and to save yourself from the consequences, you take the next one. In times like ours, there are only two directions: up or plummet.