Quote

Debt is part of the human condition. Civilization is based on exchanges - on gifts, trades, loans - and the revenges and insults that come when they are not paid back.

Margaret Atwood

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Margaret Atwood
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: November 18
Essayist
Inventor
Literary Critic
Non-Fiction Writer
Novelist
Pedagogue
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Ottawa (Ontario)
Margaret Eleanor Atwood
Conditions
Gifts
Part
Revenge
Revenges
Back
Condition
Exchanges
Human
Debt
Trades
Humans
Trade
Insults
Come
Paid
Loans
Based
Loan
Civilization
Insult

More quotes by Margaret Atwood

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But people will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning. No use, that is. No plot.
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The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don't think I solve problems in my poetry I think I uncover the problems.
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I am rather saddened at the end of a book. I think most writers find this. It's like a friend departing on a voyage.
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Powerlessness and silence go together.
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...how much needless despair has been caused by a series of biological mismatches, a misalignment of the hormones and pheromones? Resulting in the fact that the one you love so passionately won't or can't love you. As a species we're pathetic that way: imperfectly monogamous.
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Knowledge is power only as long as you keep your mouth shut.
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All I can hope for is a reconstruction: the way love feels is always only approximate.
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I would rather dance as a ballerina, though faultily, than as a flawless clown.
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The problem is huge. We've just added seventy-five million people to the already large proportion of people in the world who are malnourished all the time, whose bodies are being starved.
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There may not be one Truth - there may be several truths - but saying that is not to say that reality doesn't exist.
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For the children with their greedy little mouths represent the future, which like time itself will devour all now alive.
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The body is so easily damaged, so easily disposed of, water and chemicals is all it is, hardly more to it than a jellyfish drying on sand.
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Lose your temper and you lose the fight.
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A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there's less of you.
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This is what I miss, Cordelia: not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. Two old women giggling over their tea.
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If you're a woman writer, sometime, somewhere, you will be asked: Do you think of yourself as a writer first, or as a woman first? Look out. Whoever asks this hates and fears both writing and women.
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I have never had any problems with editors who wanted me to change my methods or point of view. I pay a lot of attention to editors, but in a different way. They sometimes catch mistakes and help with the order of poems in a book. I do not underestimate them! Indeed, I have been one myself.
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How shrunk, how dwindled, in our times Creation's mighty seed - For Man has broke the Fellowship With murder, lust, and greed.
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More of your brain is involved when reading than it is when you watch television... because you are supplying just about everything... you're a creator.
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The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner.
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