Quote

Foreignness is all around. Only in the heart of the heart of the country, namely the heart of the United States, can you avoid such a thing. In the center of an empire, you can think of your experience as universal. Outside the empire or on the fringes of the empire, you cannot.

Margaret Atwood

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Heart
Universal
Foreignness
Thing
Outside
Fringes
Think
United
Fringe
Thinking
Experience
Namely
Cannot
Empire
Around
Empires
States
Center
Country
Avoid

More quotes by Margaret Atwood

Image
I don't think it's a question of whether you eat meat. It's a question of what kind of meat, and where it comes from.
Margaret Atwood
Image
We are a society dying, said Aunt Lydia, of too much choice.
Margaret Atwood
Image
In the animal world individuals cheat, as do we.
Margaret Atwood
Image
Jimmy had been full of himself back then, thinks Snowman with indulgence and a little envy. He’d been unhappy too, of course. It went without saying, his unhappiness. He’d put a lot of energy into it.
Margaret Atwood
Image
Writing is very improvisational. It's like trying to fix a broken sewing machine with safety pins and rubber bands. A lot of tinkering.
Margaret Atwood
Image
There may not be one Truth - there may be several truths - but saying that is not to say that reality doesn't exist.
Margaret Atwood
Image
Life's not fair why should I be?
Margaret Atwood
Image
So much better to travel than to arrive.
Margaret Atwood
Image
Where do you draw the line, between love and greed? We never did know, we always wanted more. We want to take it all in, for one last time, we want to eat the world with our eyes.
Margaret Atwood
Image
I walk away from him. It's enormously pleasing to me, this walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will.
Margaret Atwood
Image
In the evenings there's been thunder, a distant bumping and stumbling, like God on a sullen binge.
Margaret Atwood
Image
But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling.
Margaret Atwood
Image
It's his word against the Commander's, unless he wants to head a posse. Kick in the door, and what did I tell you? Caught in the act, sinfully Scrabbling. Quick, eat those words.
Margaret Atwood
Image
While he writes, I feel as if he is drawing me or not drawing me, drawing on me - drawing on my skin - not with the pencil he is using, but with an old-fashioned goose pen, and not with the quill end but with the feather end. As if hundreds of butterflies have settled all over my face, and are softly opening and closing their wings.
Margaret Atwood
Image
The scroll is coming back (Twitter is a scroll.)
Margaret Atwood
Image
We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.
Margaret Atwood
Image
Walter turned on the radio: electric violins wailing, twisted romance, the four-square beat of heartbreak. Trite suffering, but suffering nonetheless. The entertainment business. What voyeurs we have all become.
Margaret Atwood
Image
You could tell 'The Handmaid's Tale' from a male point of view. People have mistakenly felt that the women are oppressed, but power tends to organise itself in a pyramid. I could pick a male narrator from somewhere in that pyramid. It would interesting.
Margaret Atwood
Image
If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending... But if it's a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don't tell a story only to yourself. There's always someone else. Even when there is no one.
Margaret Atwood
Image
Gravity works in your life, the notion of free will works in your life, however problematic it may at times be.
Margaret Atwood