Quotes about Margaret Atwood

Nature is an expert in cost-benefit analysis,' she says. 'Although she does her accounting a little differently. As for debts, she always collects in the long run...

Oblivion is increasingly attractive to the young, and even to the middle-aged, since why retain your brain when no amount of thinking can even begin to solve the problem?

Love is not a profession genteel or otherwise sex is not dentistry the slick filling of aches and cavities you are not my doctor you are not my cure, nobody has that power, you are merely a fellow/traveler.

He keeps his voice kindly but remote. A cross between a pedagogue, soothsayer, and a benevolent uncle — that should be his tone.

She takes after Laura in that respect: the same tendency towards absolutism, the same refusal to compromise, the same scorn for the grosser human failings. To get away with that, you have to be beautiful. Otherwise it seems mere peevishness.

They understood about dreaming, he knew that: they dreamed themselves. Crake hadn't been able to eliminate dreams. We're hard-wired for dreams, he'd said. He couldn't get rid of the singing either. We're hard-wired for singing. Singing and dreams were entwined.

It would make me feel that I have power. But such a feeling would be an illusion, and too risky.

I will say you ... You can mean more than one. You can mean thousands. I'm not in immediate danger, I'll say to you. I'll pretend you can hear me. But its no good, because I know you can't.

The protector was her, the greater power was her, the Universe that took an interest was her as well; always her. "I love you," I said.

Stan got the message. He allowed the chicken assignations. What did that make him? A chicken pimp. Better than dead.

I try not to think too much. Like other things now, thought must be rationed. There's a lot that doesn't bear thinking about. Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last.

The thing to remember is that there is nothing new about the society depicted in The Handmaid's Tale except the time and place. All of the things I have written about have been done before, more than once.