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Hatred would have been easier. With hatred, I would have known what to do. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering unlike love.

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
Unlike
Hatred
Easier
Clear
Known
Would
Metallic
Love
Unwavering
Handed

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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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As human beings, we are always torn between individual freedom and the ability of choose our actions, and the need for at least enough social structure so that anarchy, chaos, and warlordery - or the war of all against all - can be avoided.
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All it takes,” said Crake, “is the elimination of one generation. One generation of anything. Beetles, trees, microbes, scientists, speakers of French, whatever. Break the link in time between one generation and the next, and it’s game over forever.
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A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason. Think of it as the altar of the Muse Oblivion, to whom you sacrifice your botched first drafts, the tokens of your human imperfection.
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If you want to be a writer, you should go into the largest library you can find and stand there contemplating the books that have been written. Then you should ask yourself, 'Do I really have anything to add?' If you have the arrogance or the humility to say yes, you will know you have the vocation.
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Why is it he feels some line has been crossed, some boundary transgressed? How much is too much, how far is too far?
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Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized.
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My parents were gardeners themselves, and perforce they used environmental techniques because it was during the war, and you didn't have the new sorts of chemicals.
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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.
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I grew up in the golden age of Flash Gordon and sci-fi.
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You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer, an almost physical nerve, the kind you need to walk a log across a river.
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Richard liked to say he picked things up for a song, which was odd, because he never sang. He never even whistled. He was not a musical person.
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Everybody acts as if they have free will. They act as if they can make these decisions do they know they don't? I think there's been some back-down on the idea that everything is determined.
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It's in Macbeth: The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon. I seldom have occasion to pull it out, but it's ready and waiting!
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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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I began to forget myself in the middle of sentences.
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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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oil paints...the look of licked lips.
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You aren't sick & unhappy only alive & stuck with it.
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There's nothing like a shovel full of dirt to encourage literacy.
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