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It's a feature of our age that if you write a work of fiction, everyone assumes that the people and events in it are disguised biography — but if you write your biography, it's equally assumed you're lying your head off.

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
Work
Fiction
Biography
People
Head
Assumed
Age
Biographies
Lying
Feature
Everyone
Equally
Write
Features
Book
Assuming
Disguised
Writing
Events
Assumes

More quotes by Margaret Atwood

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She had no images of this love. She could offer no anecdotes. It was a belief rather than a memory.
Margaret Atwood
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I was delighted with the film [Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth] it almost made me want to be a film-maker!
Margaret Atwood
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There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive.
Margaret Atwood
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A voice is a human gift it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.
Margaret Atwood
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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.
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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Blank pages inspire me with terror.
Margaret Atwood
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I'm a refugee from the past, and like other refugees I go over the customs and habits of being I've left or been forced to leave behind me, and it all seems just as quaint, from here, and I am just as obsessive about it.
Margaret Atwood
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My brother and I were both good at science, and we were both good at English literature. Either one of us could have gone either way.
Margaret Atwood
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Today on the way home, it snows. Big, soft caressing flakes fall onto our skin like cold moths the air fills with feathers.
Margaret Atwood
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...and nostalgia swept through Jimmy like a sudden hunger.
Margaret Atwood
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The fact is that blank pages inspire me with terror. What will I put on them? Will it be good enough? Will I have to throw it out?
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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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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I think every age lives in a blend of technology so there's always older ones mixed in with newer ones, and when the new technology goes down, the immediate fallback position is either that technology just before that or one several technologies back.
Margaret Atwood
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Nobody quite knows the truth about cats purring, but it does seem to be also a self-healing thing for them, which is why, when you take your cat to the vet and it's frightened, it will purr.
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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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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I myself have 12 hats and each one represents a different personality. Why just be yourself.
Margaret Atwood