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 More Quotes by Margaret Atwood More Quotes From Margaret Atwood As human beings, we are always torn between individual freedom and the ability of choose our actions, and the need for at least enough social structure so that anarchy, chaos, and warlordery - or the war of all against all - can be avoided. Margaret Atwood our-actions war needs We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories. Margaret Atwood space white people By now you know: I come from another planet. But I will never say to you, "Take me to your leaders." Even I--unused to your ways though I am--would never make that mistake. We ourselves have such beings among us, made of cogs, pieces of paper, small disks of shiny metal, scraps of coloured cloth. I do not need to encounter more of them. Instead I will say, "Take me to your trees. Take me to your breakfasts, your sunsets, your bad dreams, your shoes, your nouns. Take me to your fingers; take me to your deaths." These are worth it. These are what I have come for. Margaret Atwood sunset dream mistake The astrologers would tell that the U.S. is ruled by fire and Canada is ruled by water. Short version: You pep us up, we cool you down. Margaret Atwood pep water But the adjectives change,” said Jimmy. “Nothing’s worse than last year’s adjectives. Margaret Atwood adjectives lasts years More of your brain is involved when reading than it is when you watch television... because you are supplying just about everything... you're a creator. Margaret Atwood creativity reading brain You can forget who you are if you're alone too much. Margaret Atwood too-much ifs forget There are some women who seem to be born without fear, just as there are people who are born without the ability to feel pain ... Providence appears to protect such women, maybe out of astonishment. Margaret Atwood pain fear people People dressed in a certain kind of clothing are never wrong. Also they never fart. Margaret Atwood fart kind people It was exciting to work with director Jennifer Baichwal, who made Manufactured Landscapes and others, on the film of Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth. It's called, simply, PAYBACK. Jennifer didn't want to do a transliteration of the book, a kind of illustrated version, but to go into the core of the book: owing and being owed, paying and paying back, on all sorts of levels. So she found real-life, visceral stories that embodied the themes of the book. Margaret Atwood shadow real book The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it. Margaret Atwood truth writing hands The society in 'The Handmaid's Tale' is a throwback to the early Puritans whom I studied extensively at Harvard under Perry Miller, to whom the book is dedicated. Margaret Atwood puritan harvard book Men and women are not "equal" if "equal" means "exactly the same." Our many puzzlements and indeed unhappinesses come from trying to figure out what the differences really mean, or should mean, or should not mean. Margaret Atwood differences men mean Potential has a shelf life. Margaret Atwood shelf-life shelves Maybe the life I think I'm living is a paranoid delusion...Sanity is a valuable possession; I hoard it the way people once hoarded money. I save it, so I will have enough, when the time comes. Margaret Atwood people way thinking I think calling it climate change is rather limiting. I would rather call it the everything change. Margaret Atwood climate calling thinking In view of the fading animals the proliferation of sewers and fears the sea clogging, the air nearing extinction we should be kind, we should take warning, we should forgive each other Instead we are opposite, we touch as though attacking, the gifts we bring even in good faith maybe warp in our hands to implements, to manoeuvres Margaret Atwood views air animal Our biggest technology that we ever, ever invented was articulated language with built-out grammar. It is that that allows us to imagine things far in the future and things way back in the past. Margaret Atwood technology way past I walk away from him. It's enormously pleasing to me, this walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will. Margaret Atwood walking-away able people I want, I don’t want. How can one live with such a heart? Margaret Atwood want heart
