In Shakespeare Saved My Life, [author Laura Bates] said she got better papers from [prisoners] than she got from people in her regular classes. Because she was teaching, of course, Macbeth, and a number of them had murdered people. The guy who wrote the best paper said, "You do have this, 'Is this a dagger which I see before me?' before you do it, but in my case it was a gun."

Margaret Atwood

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

equality race people

There is no fool like an educated fool.

Margaret Atwood

educated-fools fool educated

Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.

Margaret Atwood

women relationship laughing

In the end, we'll all become stories.

Margaret Atwood

ends stories

When we're young, we like happy endings. When we're a little older, we think happy endings are unrealistic and so we prefer bad but credible endings. When we're older still, we realize happy endings aren't so bad after all.

Margaret Atwood

happy-endings littles thinking

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

bad-ass voice silence

Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.

Margaret Atwood

wall patience children

Reality simply consists of different points of view.

Margaret Atwood

different views reality

I don't find the idea of sewing degrading. A thing is degrading when you are forced to do it, through economic reasons or through slavery or some other form of compulsion.

Margaret Atwood

economic slavery reason

There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too.

Margaret Atwood

real-story real stories

Time has not stood still. It has washed over me, washed me away, as if I'm nothing more than a woman of sand, left by a careless child too near the water.

Margaret Atwood

time water children

Happiness is a garden walled with glass: there's no way in or out. In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It's loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.

Margaret Atwood

regret journey loss

And she finds it difficult to believe—that a person would love her even when she isn't trying. Trying to figure out what other people need, trying to be worthy.

Margaret Atwood

trying believe people

The world is being run by people my age, men my age, with falling-out hair and health worries, and it frightens me. When the leaders were older than me I could believe in their wisdom, I could believe they had transcended rage and malice and the need to be loved. Now I know better. I look at the faces in newspapers, in magazines, and wonder: what greeds, what furies drive them on?

Margaret Atwood

running believe fall

Show me a character totally without anxieties and I will show you a boring book.

Margaret Atwood

anxiety character book

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

Margaret Atwood

valentines-day names love

Lose your temper and you lose the fight.

Margaret Atwood

temper loses fighting

You can think clearly only with your clothes on.

Margaret Atwood

clothes inspiring thinking

Debt is part of the human condition. Civilization is based on exchanges - on gifts, trades, loans - and the revenges and insults that come when they are not paid back.

Margaret Atwood

debt revenge civilization

The sands of time are quicksands ... so much can sink into them without a trace.

Margaret Atwood

without-a-trace sand time