Quote

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.

Margaret Atwood

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Margaret Atwood
Age: 84
Born: 1939
Born: November 18
Essayist
Inventor
Literary Critic
Non-Fiction Writer
Novelist
Pedagogue
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Ottawa (Ontario)
Margaret Eleanor Atwood
Might
Hadn
Prone
Self
Pity
Drift
Done
Income
Encourages
Different
Instead
Dwelling
Things
Already
Meal
Felt
Concentrate
Next
Meals
Unearned
Able
Injury
Injuries

More quotes by Margaret Atwood

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I don't think the relationship between novels and realities are one to one. Of course novels play different roles. It's essentially just a long narrative form. What you use that long narrative form for can be very different.
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Don't eat anything you aren't prepared to kill. Don't kill anything you aren't prepared to eat.
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I grew up in the north woods of Canada. You had to know certain things about survival. Wilderness survival courses weren't very formalized when I was growing up, but I was taught certain things about what to do if I got lost in the woods.
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Why aren't we investing more in alternate tech? The Saudi Arabians are, Scottish Power is. I was just there. Could it be that we're counting on the oil going on forever and ever and ever and us having all of it and getting very rich?
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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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Without the protection of surliness and levity, all children would be crushed by the past—the past of others, loaded onto their shoulders. Selfishness is their saving grace.
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... Remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest.
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Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress.
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For years I wanted to be older, and now I am.
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We shouldn't be saying 'Save the planet' we should be saying: 'Save viable conditions in which people can live.' That's what we're dealing with here.
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When things are really dismal, you can laugh, or you can cave in completely.
Margaret Atwood
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The fabric of democracy is always fragile everywhere because it depends on the will of citizens to protect it, and when they become scared, when it becomes dangerous for them to defend it, it can go very quickly.
Margaret Atwood
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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
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To live in prison is to live without mirrors. To live without mirrors is to live without the self.
Margaret Atwood
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I enjoyed teaching. I liked the students. Having to formulate my ideas about literature made them clearer. I did not particularly enjoy the more bureaucratic aspects of the job. However, if you are teaching fervently, your energy and time are used up at a great rate.
Margaret Atwood
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How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it.
Margaret Atwood
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I felt white, drained of blood, cared for, purified. Peaceful.
Margaret Atwood
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Stick a shovel into the ground almost anywhere and some horrible thing or other will come to light. Good for trade, we thrive on bones without them there'd be no stories.
Margaret Atwood
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Your hand is a warm stone I hold between two words.
Margaret Atwood
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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?
Margaret Atwood