27 Margaret Atwood Quotes For You To Enjoy

Margaret Atwood

Canadian Novelist

Born: Nov 18, 1939

Because People Science Think Writing You

Related authors: Claire Cameron David Bergen Joy Fielding Mordecai Richler Rachel Cusk Robertson Davies Ruth Ozeki

There's a difference between describing and evoking something. You can describe something and be quite clinical about it. To evoke it, you call it up in the reader. That's what writers do when they're good. Margaret Atwood

Good You Evoke Evoking About Something Writers Between Call Reader Clinical Up Quite Difference Describe Describing

The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love. Margaret Atwood

Love Valentines Day Important Ought Had Names Because Snow Them Many

Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy - which many believe goes hand in hand with it - will be dead as well. Margaret Atwood

Democracy Writing Will Practice Reading Young Older Believe Else Everything Everything Else Writers Like Dead Well Readers Course Hand Hand-In-Hand Improve Goes Literacy Which Many

Optimism means better than reality; pessimism means worse than reality. I'm a realist. Margaret Atwood

Reality Better Worse Optimism Than Realist Means Pessimism

If you're put on a pedestal, you're supposed to behave yourself like a pedestal type of person. Pedestals actually have a limited circumference. Not much room to move around. Margaret Atwood

You Yourself Pedestal Type Circumference Put Like Supposed Around Limited Person Behave Move Room Much Actually

Our generation in the west was lucky: we had readymade gateways. We had books, paper, teachers, schools and libraries. But many in the world lack these luxuries. How do you practice without such tryout venues? Margaret Atwood

I'm a strict, strict agnostic. It's very different from a casual, 'I don't know.' It's that you cannot present as knowledge something that is not knowledge. You can present it as faith, you can present it as belief, but you can't present it as fact. Margaret Atwood

Faith Knowledge You Strict Something Fact Casual Know Very Different Cannot Agnostic Belief Present

I think every age lives in a blend of technology so there's always older ones mixed in with newer ones, and when the new technology goes down, the immediate fallback position is either that technology just before that or one several technologies back. Margaret Atwood

The beginning of Canadian cultural nationalism was not 'Am I really that oppressed?' but 'Am I really that boring?' Margaret Atwood

Beginning Nationalism Boring Am Cultural Oppressed Canadian Really

This above all, to refuse to be a victim. Margaret Atwood

Victim Above Refuse

Gardening is not a rational act. Margaret Atwood

Gardening Rational Act

Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized. Margaret Atwood

Girl Cute Only Small Adult Another Little Little Girls

Vampires get the joy of flying around and living forever, werewolves get the joy of animal spirits. But zombies, they're not rich, or aristocratic, they shuffle around. They're a group phenomenon, they're not very fast, they're quite sickly. So what's the pleasure of being one? Margaret Atwood

You could tell 'The Handmaid's Tale' from a male point of view. People have mistakenly felt that the women are oppressed, but power tends to organise itself in a pyramid. I could pick a male narrator from somewhere in that pyramid. It would interesting. Margaret Atwood

You Women People Somewhere Power Tell Would Point Could Point Of View Tends Pick Pyramid Tale Mistakenly Felt Narrator Male Oppressed Women Are Itself Handmaid Interesting Organise View

Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked: as I never was when I was not one. Margaret Atwood

Mother Never Because Am Shocked Being Capable

The story as told in The Odyssey doesn't hold water. There are too many inconsistencies. Margaret Atwood

Water Too Odyssey Hold Story Many

I grew up in the golden age of Flash Gordon and sci-fi. Margaret Atwood

Age Gordon Sci-Fi Up Flash Golden Golden Age Grew

The myth that everyone once read great literature is just a myth. Margaret Atwood

Great Myth Everyone Once Great Literature Read Just Literature

I don't think of poetry as a 'rational' activity but as an aural one. My poems usually begin with words or phrases which appeal more because of their sound than their meaning, and the movement and phrasing of a poem are very important to me. Margaret Atwood

Like many modern poets, I tend to conceal rhymes by placing them in the middle of lines, and to avoid immediate alliteration and assonance in favor of echoes placed later in the poems. Margaret Atwood

Later Immediate Favor Echoes Poems Poets Tend Conceal Like Lines Modern Middle Rhymes Placed Placing Them Avoid Many

Storytelling is a very old human skill that gives us an evolutionary advantage. If you can tell young people how you kill an emu, acted out in song or dance, or that Uncle George was eaten by a croc over there, don't go there to swim, then those young people don't have to find out by trial and error. Margaret Atwood

You People Song Old Dance Uncle Young Trial Trial And Error Those Evolutionary Out Tell Find Eaten Gives Advantage Over How Go George Error Very Human Young People Storytelling Then Us Skill Acted Swim

If I pick up a book with spaceships on the cover, I want spaceships. If I see one with dragons, I want there to be dragons inside the book. Proper labeling. Ethical labeling. I don't want to open up my cornflakes and find that they're full of pebbles... You need to respect the reader enough not to call it something it isn't. Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood Quotes

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