1,705 Quotes by Margaret Atwood

The question, then, is not whether boy should meet girl in Winnipeg or in New York; instead it is, What happens in Canadian literature when boy meets girl? And what sort of boy, and what sort of girl? If you've got this far, you may predict that when boy meets girl she gets cancer and he gets hit by a meteorite. . . .

At some indeterminate point in their life cycles, they cause themselves to be placed in artificial stone or wooden cocoons, or chrysalises. They have an idea that they will someday emerge from these in an altered state, which they symbolize with carvings of themselves with wings. However, we did not observe that any had actually done so.

She lived with several men, but in each of the apartments there were always cardboard boxes, belonging to her, that she never got around to unpacking; just as well, because it was that much easier to move out. When she got past thirty she decided it might be nice to have a child, some time, later. She tried to figure out a way of doing this without becoming a mother.

No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn't do too badly by one another, we did as well as most.I wish she were here, so I could tell her I finally know this.

I've forgotten about these things all winter, but here they are again, and when I see them I remember them, I know them, I greet them as if they are home.

مادرها چه ماهیتی دارند؟ طرح های خام، لولوی سرخرمن، یا عروسک مومی ای که سنجاق به آن بزنند؟ راحتشان نمی گذاریم و وادارشان می کنیم خود را به میل ما، به خاطر گرسنگی، هوس ها و نقص هایمان، شکل دهند. تا وقتی خودم مادر نشدم این را نمی فهمیدم.

Antinous sighed. 'The gods wanted to destroy us,' he said. 'That's everyone's excuse for behaving badly,' I said.

Jamás creerían que esto es solo una mujer natural, un estado de la naturaleza, eso se lo parece un cuerpo moreno en la playa, con pelo ondeando como pañuelos al viento; no esto, cara con barro seco y manchada, piel sucia y costrosa, pelo como una alfombrilla deshilachada llena de hojas y ramas.

When they're gone out of his head, these words, they'll be gone, everywhere, forever. As if they had never been.