Quotes by Margaret Atwood

How furious she must be, now that shes been taken at her word.

Creating some god for ones inspirations was always a good way to avoid accusations of pride should the scheme succeed, as well as the blame if did not.

It isnt the sort of thing you ask questions about, because the answers are not usually answers you want to know.

Am I shallow? she asks the mirror. Yes, I am shallow. The sun shines on the ripples where its shallow. Deep is too dark.

Also I could hear Amanda’s voice: Why are you being so weak? Love’s never a fair trade. So Jimmy’s tired of you, so what, there’s guys all over the place like germs, and you can pick them like flowers and toss them away when they’re wilted. But you have to act like you’re having a spectacular time and every day’s a party.

A Tennyson garden, heavy with scent, languid; the return of the word swoon.

Alcohols a depressant, it will let me down later.

What else can I do? Once youve gone this far you arent fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. Youre overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it.

She would roll up her sleeves and dispense with sentimentality, and do whatever blood-soaked, bad-smelling thing had to be done. She would become adept with axes.

Science fiction, to me, has not only things that wouldnt happen, but other planets.

It cant last forever. Others have thought such things, in bad times before this, and they were always right, they did get out one way or another, and it didnt last forever. Although for them it may have lasted all the forever they had.

It can’t last forever. Others have thought suchthings, in bad times before this, and they were always right, they did get out one way or another, and it didn’tlast forever. Although for them it may have lasted all the forever they had.

Girl Without HandsWalking through the ruinson your way to workthat do not look like ruinswith the sunlight pouring overthe seen worldlike hail or meltedsilver, that brightand magnificent, each leafand stone quickened and specific in it,and you cant hold it,you cant hold any of it. Distance surrounds you,marked out by the ends of your armswhen they are stretched to their fullest.You can go no farther than this,you think, walking forward,pushing the distance in front of youlike a metal cart on wheelswith its barriers and horizontals.Appearance melts away from you,the offices and pyramidson the horizon shimmer and cease.No one can enter that circleyou have made, that clean circleof dead space you have madeand stay inside,mourning because it is clean.Then theres the girl, in the white dress,meaning purity, or the failureto be any colour. She has no hands, its true.The scream that happened to the airwhen they were taken offsurrounds her now like an aureoleof hot sand, of no sound.Everything has bled out of her.Only a girl like thiscan know whats happened to you.If she were here she wouldreach out her arms towardsyou now, and touch youwith her absent handsand you would feel nothing, but you would betouched all the same.

He’s a young man, my own age or a little older, which is young for a man although not for a woman, as at my age a woman is an old maid but a man is not an old bachelor until he’s fifty, and even then there’s still hope for the ladies, as Mary Whitney used to say.

Two-thirty comes during Testifying. Its 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.

What a moron I was to think you were sweet and innocent, when it turns out you were actually college-educated the whole time!

Have I been conditioned to believe that if I am not solicitous, if I am not forthcoming, if I am not a never-ending cornicopia of entertaining delights, they will take their collections of milk-bottle tops and their mangy one-eared teddy bears and go away into the woods by themselves to play snipers? Probably. What my mother thinks was merely cute may have been lethal.

Have I been conditioned to believe that if I am not solicitous, if I am not forthcoming, if I am not a never-ending cornicopia of entertaining delights, they will take their collections of milk-bottle tops and their mangy one-eared teddy bears and go away into the woods by themselves to play snipers? Probably. What my mother things was merely cute may have been lethal.

What thumbsuckers we all are...when it comes to mothers.

[T]he mothers who had sold their children felt empty and sad. They felt as if this act, done freely by themselves (no one had forced them, no one had threatened them) had not been performed willingly. They felt cheated as well, as if the price had been too low. Why hadnt they demanded more? And yet, the mothers told themselves, theyd had no choice.