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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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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
Facts
Enough
Blank
Good
Terror
Throw
Inspire
Pages
Fact
Fear

More quotes by 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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But people will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning. No use, that is. No plot.
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His father was self-made, but his mother was constructed by others, and such edifices are notoriously fragile.
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I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow or rather, no shadow unless there is also light.
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The scroll is coming back (Twitter is a scroll.)
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All you have to do, I tell myself, is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard.
Margaret Atwood
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I felt white, drained of blood, cared for, purified. Peaceful.
Margaret Atwood
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Science never makes things that do not have to do with what we feel, by which I mean what we want and what we fear.
Margaret Atwood
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I'm with the spirit of Earth-Day-yet-to-come. Nobody can really predict the future, all you can do is look at trends, and that could change at any moment.
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The truly fearless think of themselves as normal.
Margaret Atwood
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If you want to be a writer, you should go into the largest library you can find and stand there contemplating the books that have been written. Then you should ask yourself, 'Do I really have anything to add?' If you have the arrogance or the humility to say yes, you will know you have the vocation.
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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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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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I suppose these deadlines we set for ourselves are really a way of saying we appreciate time, and want to use all of it.
Margaret Atwood
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Snowman wakes before dawn.
Margaret Atwood
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If you want what's in the package you should at least know how to get the string off, is what I say.
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I got into trouble a while ago for saying that I thought the internet led to increased literacy - people scolded me about the shocking grammar to be found online - but I was talking about fundamentals: quite simply, you can't use the net unless you can read.
Margaret Atwood
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The objects I chose were designed to hold something, but I didn't fill them up. They remained empty. They were little symbolic shrines to thirst.
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So this was the rest of his life. It felt like a party to which he'd been invited, but at an address he couldn't actually locate. Someone must be having fun at it, this life of his only, right at the moment, it wasn't him.
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A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.
Margaret Atwood