Margaret Atwood: Other

Margaret Atwood is Canadian writer. Explore interesting quotes on other.
Margaret Atwood: 696   quotes 31   likes

“The moment of betrayal is the worst, the moment when you know beyond any doubt that you've been betrayed: that some other human being has wished you that much evil”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Evil , Betrayal

“After a year or two of keeping my head down and trying to pass myself off as a normal person, I made contact with the five other people at my university who were interested in writing”

Margaret Atwood

On Writing Poetry (1995)
Context: After a year or two of keeping my head down and trying to pass myself off as a normal person, I made contact with the five other people at my university who were interested in writing; and through them, and some of my teachers, I discovered that there was a whole subterranean Wonderland of Canadian writing that was going on just out of general earshot and sight

People , Universe , Personality

“Now we come to forgiveness. Don’t worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. For instance: keep the others safe, if they are safe. Don’t let them suffer too much.”

Margaret Atwood

Source: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 30 (pp. 194-195)
Context: (She is reciting the Lord’s prayer) Now we come to forgiveness. Don’t worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. For instance: keep the others safe, if they are safe. Don’t let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. You might even provide a Heaven for them. We need You for that. Hell we can make for ourselves.

Forgiveness , Suffering

“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

"They are hostile nations" http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=177292
Selected Poems 1965-1975 (1976)

Fear , Faith , Forgiveness , Animals

“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.”

Margaret Atwood book Cat's Eye

Source: Cat's Eye

People , Understanding

“And she finds it difficult to believe—that a person would love her even when she isn't trying. Trying to figure out what other people need, trying to be worthy.”

Margaret Atwood
Love , People , Personality

“I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. I repeat my former name; remind myself of what I once could do, how others saw me. I want to steal something.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Way

“What we share may be a lot like a traffic accident but we get one another. We are survivors of each other. We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something.”

Margaret Atwood book Cat's Eye

Source: Cat's Eye

“It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

“One and one and one and one doesn't equal four. Each one remains unique, there is no way of joining them together. They cannot be exchanged, one for the other. They cannot replace each other.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Way

“When you're unhinged, things make their way out of you that should be kept inside, and other things get in that ought to be shut out. The locks lose their powers. The guards go to sleep. The passwords fail.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin

Way , Sleep

“A man is just a woman’s strategy for making other women.”

Margaret Atwood

Source: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 20 (p. 121)

Women

“We are survivors, of each other. We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something.”

Margaret Atwood book Cat's Eye

Source: Cat's Eye

“I see that there will be no end to imperfection, or to doing things the wrong way. Even if you grow up, no matter how hard you scrub, whatever you do, there will always be some other stain or spot on your face or stupid act, somebody frowning.”

Margaret Atwood book Cat's Eye

Source: Cat's Eye

Stupidity , Way

“No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn't do too badly by one another, we did as well as most.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Way , Idea

“We love each other, that’s true whatever it means, but we aren’t good at it; for some it’s a talent, for others only an addiction.”

Margaret Atwood book Dancing Girls

Source: Dancing Girls

Love

“He stops, looks up at this window, and I can see the white oblong of his face. We look at each other. I have no rose to toss, he has no lute. But it's the same kind of hunger.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Hunger

“Craziness was considered funny, like all other things that were in reality frightening and profoundly shameful.”

Margaret Atwood book Cat's Eye

Source: Cat's Eye

Reality

“A prison does not only lock its inmates inside, it keeps all others out. Her strongest prison is of her own construction.”

Margaret Atwood book Alias Grace

Source: Alias Grace