Margaret Atwood: Want

Margaret Atwood is Canadian writer. Explore interesting quotes on want.
Margaret Atwood: 696 quotes32 likes

“If you want what's in the package you should at least know how to get the string off, is what I say.”

Margaret Atwood

Source: The Tent

“Maybe I don't really want to know what's going on. Maybe I'd rather not know. Maybe I couldn't bear to know. The Fall was a fall from innocence to knowledge.”

Margaret Atwood

“I want, I don’t want.
How can one live with such a heart?”

Margaret Atwood

Source: Selected Poems II: 1976 - 1986

“It's his word against the Commander's, unless he wants to head a posse. Kick in the door, and what did I tell you? Caught in the act, sinfully Scrabbling. Quick, eat those words.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

“He was not condemned to death, freedom awaited
him. What was the temptation, the one that worked?
Perhaps he wanted to live with a woman whose life
he had saved, who had seen down into the earth but
had nevertheless followed him back up to life. It was
his only chance to be a hero, to one person at least,
for if he became the hangman the others would
despise him. He was in prison for wounding another
man, on one finger of the right hand, with a sword.
This too is history.”

Margaret Atwood

Selected Poems 1976-1986 (1987), Marrying the Hangman

“He wants only the simple things: a chair,
someone to pull off his shoes, someone to watch him
while he talks, with admiration and fear, gratitude if
possible, someone in whom to plunge himself for rest
and renewal. These things can best be had by marrying
a woman who has been condemned to death by other
men for wishing to be beautiful. There is a wide
choice.”

Margaret Atwood

Selected Poems 1976-1986 (1987), Marrying the Hangman

“He had that faint sick look in his eyes, as if he wanted to give her something, charity for instance.”

Margaret Atwood book Bodily Harm

Bodily Harm (1981)

“"Well, maybe I'm a latent homosexual." He considered that for a moment. "Or maybe I'm a latent heterosexual. Anyway, I'm pretty latent. I don't know why. Of course, I've taken a number of stabs at it, but then I start thinking about the futility of it all and I give up. Maybe it's because you're expected to do something and after a certain point all I want to do is lie there and stare at the ceiling."”

Margaret Atwood book The Edible Woman

The Edible Woman (1969)