MARGARET ATWOOD READING MONTH: Quotations

Memorable quotations from the maestro

Margaret Atwood Reading Month is a literary jolly organized by Naomi at Consumed by Ink and Marcie at BuriedInPrint. Every November participants read and review Atwood’s work (including her journalism, fiction, poetry and comics), take part in scheduled events or simply concentrate on a single piece of her writing.

With only one day to spare, I’m scrambling to catch Week Four of MARM (hosted by Naomi). I have been rifling through old jotters, discoloured clippings and scribbled-on Post-it notes left inside books to share with you a mere handful of my favourite Atwood quotations. There are so very many from which to choose but I’ve dwindled it down to the most succinct, amusing and epigrammatic:

THE QUOTATIONS

“Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before you knew it.”
– The Handmaid’s Tale

“If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon?”
– Power Politics

“Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.”
– Surfacing

“He’s pretty good – he mostly just keeps out of the way.”
– On her partner, Graeme Gibson

“If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.”
– Alias Grace

“I wanted to forget the past, but it refused to forget me; it waited for sleep, then cornered me.”
– Lady Oracle

“Which of us can resist the temptation of being thought indispensable?”
– The Penelopiad

“Our biggest moral debt is to the environment. Take-take-take, nothing given back.”
– Maclean’s Interview: Margaret Atwood

“The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read.”
– The Blind Assassin

“The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner.”
– Morning in the Burned House

“First wave, the vote. Second wave, the image. Now it’s about violence and rape and death: we’ve got down to the nitty-gritty.”
– On feminism

“War is what happens when language fails.”
– The Robber Bride

“Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized.”
– Cat’s Eye

“Nature is to zoos as God is to churches.”
– The MaddAddam Trilogy

“I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.”
– Dancing Girls

Menopause. A pause while you reconsider men.
– Wilderness Tips

“Time rises and rises, and when it reaches the level of your eyes you drown.”
– The Blind Assassin