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Everybody acts as if they have free will. They act as if they can make these decisions do they know they don't? I think there's been some back-down on the idea that everything is determined.
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
Free
Idea
Back
Ideas
Acts
Everything
Decisions
Make
Determined
Think
Decision
Thinking
Everybody
More quotes by Margaret Atwood
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.
Margaret Atwood
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
I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.
Margaret Atwood
If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go but it’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength.
Margaret Atwood
Jimmy had been full of himself back then, thinks Snowman with indulgence and a little envy. He’d been unhappy too, of course. It went without saying, his unhappiness. He’d put a lot of energy into it.
Margaret Atwood
A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there's less of you.
Margaret Atwood
There is no fool like an educated fool.
Margaret Atwood
This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year's threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future the place of caught breath.
Margaret Atwood
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.
Margaret Atwood
It's his word against the Commander's, unless he wants to head a posse. Kick in the door, and what did I tell you? Caught in the act, sinfully Scrabbling. Quick, eat those words.
Margaret Atwood
In high school, in 1956, at the age of sixteen, we were not taught creative writing. We were taught literature and grammar. So no one ever told me I couldn't write both prose and poetry, and I started out writing all the things I still write: poetry, prose fiction - which took me longer to get published - and non-fiction prose.
Margaret Atwood
You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there's no free lunch. Writing is work. It's also gambling. You don't get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but essentially you're on your own. Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don't whine.
Margaret Atwood
Vanity is becoming a nuisance, I can see why women give it up, eventually. But I'm not ready for that yet.
Margaret Atwood
What we share may be a lot like a traffic accident but we get one another. We are survivors of each other. We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something.
Margaret Atwood
Karen wasn't hard, she was soft, too soft. A soft touch. Her hair was soft, her smile was soft, her voice was soft. She was so soft there was no resistance. Hard things sank into her, they went right through her, and if she made a real effort, out the other side. Then she didn't have to see them or hear them, or even touch them.
Margaret Atwood
Even in the tragedies, [William] Shakespeare always put in parts for the comic actors because his audience was mixed. He puts in people who talk like aristocrats. He puts in idiots and fools.
Margaret Atwood
Snowman wakes before dawn.
Margaret Atwood
He doesn't know which is worse, a past he can't regain or a present that will destroy him if he looks at it too clearly. Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo.
Margaret Atwood
There may not be one Truth - there may be several truths - but saying that is not to say that reality doesn't exist.
Margaret Atwood
Where do the words go when we have said them?
Margaret Atwood