Quotes from Margaret Atwood

Now I wanted to be acknowledged, but I feared it.

but they mean well, I remind myself. Is that ever a convincing excuse when there's blood on the carpet?

But if you happen to be a man, sometime in the future, and you've made it this far, please remember: you will never be subjected to the temptation of feeling you must forgive, a man, as a woman.

It's old light, and there's not much of it. But it is enough to see by.

It's a gamble every time you get up in the morning.

You all right? he said again. I didn't love him, I was far away from him, it was as though I was seeing him through a smeared window or glossy paper; he didn't belong here. But he existed, he deserved to be alive. I was wishing I could tell him how to change so he could get there, the place where I was. Yes, I said. I touched him on the arm with my hand. My hand touched his arm. Hand touched arm. Language divides us into fragments, I wanted to be whole.

Torture is like dancing: I'm too old for it. Let the younger ones practice their bravery.

But maybe he was destructive by nature since he messed up every girl he touched.

Perhaps he was merely being friendly. Perhaps he saw the look on my face and mistook it for something else. Really what I wanted was the cigarette.

Inside John, she thinks, is another John, who is much nicer. This other John will emerge like a butterfly from a cocoon, a Jack from a box, a pit from a prune, if the first John is only squeezed enough.

I wish I knew what You were up to. But whatever it is, help me to get through it, please. Though maybe it's not Your doing; I don't believe for an instant that what's going on out there is what You meant. I have enough daily bread, so I won't waste time on that. It isn't the main problem. The problem is getting it down without choking on it.

I don't want a man around, what use are they except for ten seconds' worth of half babies. A man is just a woman's strategy for making other women.