Margaret Atwood Quotes & Sayings (Page 4)

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.”

“This above all, to refuse to be a victim.”

“If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia.”

“A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason.”

“Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space.”

“When I was 16, I started publishing all kinds of things in school magazines.”

“As an artist your first loyalty is to your art. Unless this is the case, you're going to be a second-rate artist.”