Quotes from Margaret Atwood

Wars happen because the ones who start them think they can win.

The only sure camouflage was unpredictability.

Love is a discipline, like prayer, I said.

Despite their cool poses they wear their cravings on the outside, like the suckers on a squid. They want it all.

In front of us, to the right, is the store where we order dresses. Some people call them habits , a good word for them. Habits are hard to break.

Nobody's heart is perfect.

Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and can be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing.

A hot wind was blowing around my head, the strands of my hair lifting and swirling in it, like ink spilled in water.

I want my father to be just my father, the way he has always been, not a separate person with an earlier, mythological life of his own. Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.

But unshed tears can turn rancid. So can memory. So can biting your tongue. My bad nights were beginning. I couldn't sleep.

The adult female body was one big booby trap as far as I could tell. If there was a hole, something was bound to be shoved into it and something else was bound to come out, and that went for any kind of hole: a hole in a wall, a hole in a mountain, a hole in the ground. There were so many things that could be done to it or go wrong with it, this adult female body, that I was left feeling I would be better off without it.

Which does a man prefer? Bacon and eggs, or worship? Sometimes one, sometimes the other, depending how hungry he is.