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Margaret Atwood Quotes
Margaret Atwood Quotes
Margaret Atwood
Canadian
Novelist
Born:
Nov 18
,
1939
Because
People
Science
Think
Writing
You
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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
A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.
Margaret Atwood
Silence
Together
Gift
Possible
Voice
Powerlessness
Cherished
Go
Human
Should
Used
Fully
Utter
Speech
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
I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one 'race' - the human race - and that we are all members of it.
Margaret Atwood
Hope
People
Will
Finally
Members
Only
Come
Human
Race
Realize
Human Race
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
Every utopia - let's just stick with the literary ones - faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don't fit in?
Margaret Atwood
You
People
Problem
Every
Faces
Stick
Fit
Same
Just
Literary
Who
Utopia
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
You
Generation
World
Practice
Luxuries
Our
Books
Our Generation
Paper
Libraries
Had
Schools
Venues
Without
How
West
Lack
Teachers
Many
Lucky
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
Technology
Age
Before
Down
Older
Every
Think
Back
Immediate
Several
Blend
New
Always
Mixed
New Technology
Goes
Just
Either
Lives
Technologies
Position
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
Animal
Joy
Rich
Group
Living
Sickly
Pleasure
Flying
Vampires
Spirits
Aristocratic
Around
Werewolves
Very
Forever
Get
Quite
Being
Fast
Shuffle
Zombies
Phenomenon
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
I didn't go to school for a full year until I was 12. In the summer I was a wild child in the woods, with no shoes, and in the fall it was back to the city, shoe shops and school.
Margaret Atwood
School
Year
Fall
Shoes
Wild
Back
Summer
City
Until
Go
Shoe
Child
Shops
Woods
Full
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
Me
Words
Important
Think
Phrases
Poem
Poems
More
Poetry
Rational
Because
Sound
Aural
Very
Begin
Than
Movement
Which
Meaning
Appeal
Activity
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
You
Respect
Book
Labeling
Enough
Find
Inside
See
Proper
Something
Open
Pick
Call
Reader
Cover
Up
Want
Ethical
Full
Need
Pebbles
Dragons
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