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Men are not to be told anything they might find too painful the secret depths of human nature, the sordid physicalities, might overwhelm or damage them. For instance, men often faint at the sight of their own blood, to which they are not accustomed. For this reason you should never stand behind one in the line at the Red Cross donor clinic.

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
Reason
Blood
Crosses
Donors
Find
Stand
Depth
Faint
Might
Lines
Painful
Depths
Human
Secret
Sight
Accustomed
Donor
Humans
Pain
Line
Damage
Sordid
Never
Often
Behinds
Instance
Overwhelm
Men
Nature
Behind
Red
Clinic
Anything
Told
Cross
Physicality

More quotes by Margaret Atwood

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When things are really dismal, you can laugh, or you can cave in completely.
Margaret Atwood
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So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with. That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.
Margaret Atwood
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friendship was always contingent.
Margaret Atwood
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I wish you good writing and good luck. Even if you've already done the good writing, you'll still need the good luck. It's a shark-filled lagoon out there. Cross your fingers and watch your back.
Margaret Atwood
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In the evenings there's been thunder, a distant bumping and stumbling, like God on a sullen binge.
Margaret Atwood
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I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.
Margaret Atwood
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The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read.
Margaret Atwood
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Publishers are in business to make money, and if your books do well they don't care if you are male, female, or an elephant.
Margaret Atwood
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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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It's clear, it's fresh, like a mint candy.
Margaret Atwood
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If it's all instruction, you get annoyed with it and bored, and you stop reading. If it's all entertainment, you read it quite quickly, your heart going pitty-pat, pitty-pat. But when you finish, that's it. You're not going to think about it much afterward, apart from the odd nightmare. You're not going to read that book again.
Margaret Atwood
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There's something final about saying you were married once. It's like saying you were dead once. It shuts them up.
Margaret Atwood
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Canadians are fond of a good disaster, especially if it has ice, water, or snow in it. You thought the national flag was about a leaf, didn't you? Look harder. It's where someone got axed in the snow.
Margaret Atwood
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I never say I'm an ist of any kind unless I know how the other person is defining it.
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
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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Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress.
Margaret Atwood
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Gravity works in your life, the notion of free will works in your life, however problematic it may at times be.
Margaret Atwood
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Perhaps they were looking for passion perhaps they delved into this book as into a mysterious parcel - a gift box at the bottom of which, hidden in layers of rustling tissue paper, lay something they'd always longed for but couldn't ever grasp.
Margaret Atwood
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Show me a character totally without anxieties and I will show you a boring book.
Margaret Atwood