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When any civilization is dust and ashes, he said, art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.

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
Civilization
Structures
Meaning
Imaginative
Words
Ashes
Left
Admit
Art
Images
Music
Dust
Human
Defined
Humans
Structure

More quotes by Margaret Atwood

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There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive.
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If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive.
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I always thought eating was a ridiculous activity anyway. I'd get out of it myself if I could, though you've got to do it to stay alive, they tell me.
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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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As we know from the study of history, no new system can impose itself upon a previous one without incorporating many of the elements to be found in the latter.
Margaret Atwood
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Show me a character totally without anxieties and I will show you a boring book.
Margaret Atwood
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The cat jumps up on the bed and tries to get onto my head. It's his way of telling whether or not i'm dead. If i'm not, he wants to be scratched if i am - he'll think of something
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Better not to invent her in her absence. Better to wait until she's actually here. Then he can make her up as she goes along.
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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.
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What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question.
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Some days I do appreciate things more, eggs, flowers, but then I decide I'm only having an attack of sentimentality, my brain going pastel Technicolor, like a beautiful-sunset greeting cards they used to make so many of in California. High-gloss hearts. The danger is grayout.
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A lot of the stuff Kafka said he thought was hilariously funny.
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Always good to take a look at the long list for the Mann Booker, for the Commonwealth. It gives you an overview.There is so much going on all over the world that it's impossible for one person to keep up. And I can't.
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His mouth is on me, his hands, I can't wait and he's moving, already, love, it's been so long, I'm alive in my skin, again, arms around him, falling and water softly everywhere, never-ending.
Margaret Atwood
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When women let their hair down, it means either sexiness or craziness or death, the three by Victorian times having become virtually synonymous.
Margaret Atwood
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Blank pages inspire me with terror.
Margaret Atwood
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friendship was always contingent.
Margaret Atwood
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We battled in secret, undeclared, and after a while I no longer fought back because I never won. The only defense was flight, invisibility.
Margaret Atwood
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The young habitually mistake lust for love, they're infested with idealism of all kinds.
Margaret Atwood
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Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized.
Margaret Atwood