Some of our earliest writing, in cuneiform, was about who owes what. Margaret Atwood More Quotes by Margaret Atwood More Quotes From Margaret Atwood Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance. Margaret Atwood chance light dark I suppose it's everyone's fate to be reduced to quaintness by those younger than themselves. Margaret Atwood fate As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes. Margaret Atwood echoes darkness past Where to start is the problem, because nothing begins when it begins and nothing's over when it's over, and everything needs a preface: a preface, a postscript, a chart of simultaneous events. Margaret Atwood events problem needs It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you're telling it, to yourself or to someone else. Margaret Atwood shattered-glass stories She had her reasons. Not that they were the same as anybody else's reasons. Margaret Atwood reason You want the truth, of course. You want me to put two and two together. But two and two doesn’t necessarily get you the truth. Two and two equals a voice outside the window. Two and two equals the wind. The living bird is not its labeled bones. Margaret Atwood voice wind two A prison does not only lock its inmates inside, it keeps all others out. Her strongest prison is of her own construction. Margaret Atwood inmates locks doe Cleverness is a quality a man likes to have in his wife as long as she is some distance away from him. Up close, he'll take kindness any day of the week, if there's nothing more alluring to be had. Margaret Atwood distance kindness men Home is where the heart is, I thought now, gathering myself together in Betty's Luncheonette. I had no heart any more, it had been broken; or not broken, it simply wasn't there any more. It had been scooped neatly out of me like the yolk from a hard-boiled egg, leaving the rest of me bloodless and congealed and hollow. I'm heartless, I thought. Therefore I'm homeless. Margaret Atwood eggs home heart Why are you so interested in amoebas?" "Oh, they're immortal," he said, "and sort of shapeless and flexible. Being a person is getting too complicated. Margaret Atwood immortal complicated said Anybody who writes a book is an optimist. First of all, they think they're going to finish it. Second, they think somebody's going to publish it. Third, they think somebody's going to read it. Fourth, they think somebody's going to like it. How optimistic is that? Margaret Atwood optimistic writing book This is what I miss, Cordelia: not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. Two old women giggling over their tea. Margaret Atwood missing tea two When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that. Margaret Atwood beautiful believe past She knows the rituals, she knows how we're supposed to be behaving...But I think these things are impenetrable and fraudulent, and I can't do them without feeling I'm acting. Margaret Atwood acting feelings thinking Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we're still alive. We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants. We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas, our silver-plated cups; we monogram our linen, we carve our names on trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls. It's all the same impulse. What do we hope from it? Applause, envy, respect? Or simply attention, of any kind we can get? At the very least we want a witness. We can't stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down. Margaret Atwood wall dog running Extreme good, extreme evil: the abilities required are similar. Margaret Atwood extremes ability evil Every ending is arbitrary, because the end is where you write The end. A period, a dot of punctuation, a point of stasis. A pinprick in the paper: you could put your eye to it and see through, to the other side, to the beginning of something else. Or, as Tony says to her students, Time is not a solid, like wood, but a fluid, like water or the wind. It doesn't come neatly cut into even-sized length, into decades and centuries. Nevertheless, for our purposes we have to pretend it does. The end of any history is a lie in which we all agree to conspire. Margaret Atwood eye writing lying How old do you have to get before wisdom descends like a plastic bag over your head and you learn to keep your big mouth shut? Maybe never. Maybe you get more frivolous with age. Margaret Atwood bags mouths age I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened. Margaret Atwood despair hopeless fall
