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I'm a novelist, and idle speculation is what novelists do. How odd to spend one's life trying to pretend that non-existent people are real: though no odder, I suppose, than what government bureaucrats do, which is trying to pretend that real people are non-existent.

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
Suppose
Bureaucrats
Spend
Novelist
Though
Bureaucracy
Government
Speculation
Real
Odd
Trying
Idle
Life
Novelists
People
Pretend
Existent

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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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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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Snowman wakes before dawn.
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I was kidnapped by literature at a young age and never wanted to be ransomed.
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The best way of keeping a secret is to pretend there isn't one.
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Disease has always been a much bigger killer of human beings than wars.
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The facts of this world seen clearly are seen through tears.
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Writers and books are cheap dates, especially when you compare the cost of a book with a ticket to the opera - or an NHL game.
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Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy?
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I'm the only person you've ever met who has read Longfellow.
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If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive.
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It's clear, it's fresh, like a mint candy.
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You can't keep a cool head when you're drowning in love. You just trash around a lot and scream, and wear yourself out.
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­Do back exercises. Pain is distracting.
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As an artist your first loyalty is to your art. Unless this is the case, you're going to be a second-rate artist.
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Can I be blamed for wanting a real body, to put my arms around? Without it I too am disembodied. I can listen to my own heartbeat against the bedsprings...but there’s something dead about it, something deserted.
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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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friendship was always contingent.
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More of your brain is involved when reading than it is when you watch television... because you are supplying just about everything... you're a creator.
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I grew up in the golden age of Flash Gordon and sci-fi.
Margaret Atwood