Quote

Those walls and bars are there for a reason,” said Crake. “Not to keep us out, but to keep them in. Mankind needs barriers in both cases.” “Them?” “Nature and God.” “I thought you didn’t believe in God,” said Jimmy. “I don’t believe in Nature either,” said Crake. “Or not with a capital N.

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
Nature
Capital
Thought
Bars
Reason
Wall
Needs
Mankind
Believe
Cases
Crake
Either
Jimmy
Keep
Walls
Didn
Barriers

More quotes by Margaret Atwood

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I was kidnapped by literature at a young age and never wanted to be ransomed.
Margaret Atwood
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Moira was like an elevator with open sides. She made us dizzy.
Margaret Atwood
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But in the end, back she comes. There's no use resisting. She goes to him for amnesia, for oblivion. She renders herself up, is blotted out enters the darkness of her own body, forgets her name. Immolation is what she wants, however briefly. To exist without boundaries.
Margaret Atwood
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The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don't think I solve problems in my poetry I think I uncover the problems.
Margaret Atwood
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Without the light, no chance without the dark, no dance.
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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He's lost something, some illusion I used to think was necessary to him. He's come to realize he too is human. Or is this a performance, for my benefit, to show me he's up-to-date? Maybe men shouldn't have been told about their own humanity. It's only made them uncomfortable. It's only made them trickier, slier, more evasive, harder to read.
Margaret Atwood
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Roughing it builds a boy's character, but only certain kinds of roughing it.
Margaret Atwood
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I am not your justification for existence.
Margaret Atwood
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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.
Margaret Atwood
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Your hand is a warm stone I hold between two words.
Margaret Atwood
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Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody--a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules.
Margaret Atwood
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Science fiction, to me, has not only things that wouldn't happen, but other planets.
Margaret Atwood
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We do not know how we'd behave. But a lot of people facing fascism didn't become fascists. I don't happen to believe that we are all monsters.
Margaret Atwood
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I am certain that a Sewing Machine would relieve as much human suffering as a hundred Lunatic Asylums, and possibly a good deal more.
Margaret Atwood
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But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.
Margaret Atwood
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To take that risk, to offer life and remain alive, open yourself like this and become whole.
Margaret Atwood
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Vampires get the joy of flying around and living forever, werewolves get the joy of animal spirits. But zombies, they're not rich, or aristocratic, they shuffle around. They're a group phenomenon, they're not very fast, they're quite sickly. So what's the pleasure of being one?
Margaret Atwood
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Some of our earliest writing, in cuneiform, was about who owes what.
Margaret Atwood
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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.
Margaret Atwood