1,705 Quotes by Margaret Atwood

I stand in the dark, start to unbutton. Then I hear something inside my body. I've broken, something has cracked, that must be it. Noise is coming up, coming out, of the broken place, in my face. Without warning: I wasn't thinking about here or there or anywhere. If I let the noise get out into the air it will be laughter, too loud, too much of it, someone is bound to hear.

Expand your world. (Stories about wizards and spells) are very frequently about power relationships...

Look—my feet don’t hit the marble!Like breath or a balloon, I’m rising,I hover six inches in the airin my blazing swan-egg of light.You think I’m not a goddess?Try me.This is a torch song.Touch me and you’ll burn.

So by the time the morning came, Odysseus and I were indeed friends, as Odysseus had promised we would be. Or let me put it another way: I myself had developed friendly feelings towards him - more than that, loving and passionate ones - and he behaved as if he reciprocated them. Which is not quite the same thing.

I made choices, and then, having made them, I had fewer choices.

Though I knew how this failure would hurt you, I had to fold like a grey moth and let go.You could not believe I was more than your echo.

The line of her cheek has a marble, a classic, a simplicity; to look at her is to believe that suffering does indeed purify.

I bet it’s your mouldy socks,” said Jimmy. “All the perfumes of Arabia willnot sweeten these little socks.

People change, though, especially after they are dead.