Quote

Imagine a famine. Now imagine a piece of bread. Both of these things are real but you happen to be in the same room with only one of them. Put yourself into a different room, that’s what the mind is for.

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
Happen
Imagine
Happens
Famine
Real
Bread
Different
Piece
Mind
Room
Things
Pieces
Rooms

More quotes by Margaret Atwood

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Happy as a clam, is what my mother says for happy. I am happy as a clam: hard-shelled, firmly closed.
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I'm a Red Tory. To get a fix on this category, you have to go back to the 19th century. The Tories were the ones who believed that those in power had a responsibility to the community, that money should not be the measure of all things.
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I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow or rather, no shadow unless there is also light.
Margaret Atwood
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The young habitually mistake lust for love, they're infested with idealism of all kinds.
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If your not annoying somebody, you're not alive.
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Write down the thoughts and even more, write down a specific line. If you don't, it'll fly away forever.
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A reader can never tell if it's a real thimble or an imaginary thimble, because by the time you're reading it, they're the same. It's a thimble. It's in the book.
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But maybe boredom is erotic, when women do it, for men.
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You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there's no free lunch. Writing is work. It's also gambling. You don't get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ­essentially you're on your own. Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don't whine.
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My favorite author's question of all time - because it's so simple to answer ... 'Is your hair really like that, or do you get it done?
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In high school, in 1956, at the age of sixteen, we were not taught creative writing. We were taught literature and grammar. So no one ever told me I couldn't write both prose and poetry, and I started out writing all the things I still write: poetry, prose fiction - which took me longer to get published - and non-fiction prose.
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The society in 'The Handmaid's Tale' is a throwback to the early Puritans whom I studied extensively at Harvard under Perry Miller, to whom the book is dedicated.
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All you have to do, I tell myself, is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard.
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I lie on the floor, washed by nothing and hanging on. I cry at night. I am afraid of hearing voices, or a voice. I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over.
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Things might have been different if she hadn't been able to drift if she'd had to concentrate on her next meal, instead of dwelling on all the injuries she felt we'd done her. An unearned income encourages self-pity in those already prone to it.
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You fit into me like a hook into an eye a fish hook an open eye
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Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space.
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We thought we were running away from the grownups, and now we are the grownups.
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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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Winning intoxicates you, and numbs you to the sufferings of others.
Margaret Atwood