1,705 Quotes by Margaret Atwood

A profile used to mean a picture of somebody's nose seen from the side, she wrote. Now it means the picture of somebody's nose seen from the bottom.

As you ramble on through life, Brother,Whatever be your goal,Keep your eye upon the doughnut,And not upon the hole.

I wanted to ask why it had to be like this, but I already knew the answer: because it was God’s plan. That was how the Aunts got out of everything

but nothing I ever gave was good for you;it was like white bread to goldfish.they cram and cram, and it kills them,and they drift in the pool, belly-up,making stunned facesand playing on our guiltas if their own toxic gluttonywas not their own faultthere you are, still outside the window,still with your hands out, stillpallid and fish-eyed, still actingstupidly innocent and starved.

There's more than one way to skin a cat, my father used to say; it bothered me, I didn't see why they would want to skin a cat even one way.

[T]he mothers who had sold their children felt empty and sad. They felt as if this act, done freely by themselves (no one had forced them, no one had threatened them) had not been performed willingly. They felt cheated as well, as if the price had been too low. Why hadn't they demanded more? And yet, the mothers told themselves, they'd had no choice.

Walking into the crowd was like sinking into a stew - you became an ingredient, you took on a certain flavour.

The best way of keeping a secret is to pretend there isn't one.

Any death is stupid from the viewpoint of whoever is undergoing it, Adam One used to say, because no matter how much you've been warned, Death always comes without knocking. Why now? is the cry. Why so soon? It's the cry of a child being called home at dusk, it's the universal protest against Time. Just remember, dear Friends: What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. // The Year of the Flood