Quotes from Margaret Atwood

I agree with you that Gilead ought to fade away-there is too much wrong in it, too much that is false, and too much that is surely contrary to what God intended-but you must permit me some space to mourn the good that will be lost.

Sex has been domesticated, stripped of the promised mystery, added to the category of the merely expected. It's just what is done, mundane as hockey. It's celibacy these days that would raise eyebrows.

The protector was her, the greater power was her, the Universe that took an interest was her as well; always her. "I love you," I said.

your kiss no longer literature but fine print, a set of instructions.

she'd have been gnawing her way through his bedroom walls to sink her avid fingers into his youthful flesh.

Her life began to seem long. Her adrenalin was running out. Soon she would be thirty, and all she could see ahead was more of the same.

Kick in the door, and what did I tell you? Caught in the act, sinfully Scrabbling. Quick, eat those words.

Something about a bunch of trees made people think they could cut loose. "Wherever there's Nature, there's assholes," he said cheerfully.

Who can fathom the secrets of the human soul?" I said. "None of us is exempt from sin.

She breathes in the cold air; pellets of blown ice whip against her face. The wind's getting up, as the TV said it would. Nonetheless there's something brisk about being out in the storm, something energizing: it whisks away the cobwebs, it makes you inhale. The

Any death is stupid from the viewpoint of whoever is undergoing it, Adam One used to say, because no matter how much you've been warned, Death always comes without knocking. Why now? is the cry. Why so soon? It's the cry of a child being called home at dusk, it's the universal protest against Time. Just remember, dear Friends: What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. // The Year of the Flood

Part of the life she should have had is just a gap, it isn't there, it's nothing.