Welcome to our collection of “50 Provocative Margaret Atwood Quotes”. This blog post pays homage to the remarkable Margaret Atwood, a woman who has wielded her pen to stir hearts, challenge norms, and illuminate the human condition with her incisive wit and wisdom. From her debut in the 1960s until now, Atwood's work has been a blend of the personal, political, and prophetic, making her one of the most influential figures in contemporary literature. Her quotes, just like her literary creations, are the perfect mix of provocative, profound, and poignant – a reflection of the world around us and the intricate workings of our minds.
If you didn't know, Atwood's journey with the written word started in a very unusual way. At the young age of six, while on a trip to the wilderness with her entomologist father, she began writing poems, stories, and even a novel. Little did she know, this early affinity for storytelling would blossom into an enduring career, making her a household name across the globe. Over the years, Margaret Atwood has bestowed upon us a treasure trove of thought-provoking insights – “Margaret Atwood Quotes” that have often left us ruminating about life, love, power, and everything in between. Now, we invite you to delve into this compilation of her most provocative and insightful expressions. Let's explore together the wisdom of Atwood!
The Power of Words and Stories
1. “A word after a word after a word is power.”
2. “You're never going to kill storytelling because it's built into the human plan. We come with it.
3. “In the end, we'll all become stories.”
4. “The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose.”
5. “We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.”
6. “Every single person in the world is interesting – they're a walking story.”
7. “I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one ‘race' – the human race – and that we are all members of it.”
8. “A story is not like a road to follow … it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows.”
9. “All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel.”‘
10. “Writing is not a job description. A great deal of it is luck. Don't do it if you are not a gambler.”
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Human Nature and the Human Condition
- “War is what happens when language fails.”
- “Humanity, how are you doing on this beautiful day?”
- “I've never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It's probably because they have forgotten their own.”
- “We thought we were being given a new life; but all that’s happened is that we’ve been deprived of our old one.”
- “If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.”
- “You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave.”
- “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.”
- “We are all just prisoners here of our own device.”
- “We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.”
- “The fabric of democracy is always fragile everywhere because it depends on the will of citizens to protect it, and when they become scared, when it becomes dangerous for them to defend it, it can go very quickly.”
Women and Feminism
- “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”
- “If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending… But if it’s a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don’t tell a story only to yourself. There’s always someone else. Even when there is no one.”
- “Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.”
- “Falling in love, we said; I fell for him. We were falling women. We believed in it, this downward motion: so lovely, like flying, and yet at the same time so dire, so extreme, so unlikely.”
- “The desire to be loved is the last illusion: Give it up and you will be free.”
- “What fabrications they are, mothers. Scarecrows, wax dolls for us to stick pins into, crude diagrams.”
- “Any woman who has a great deal to offer intellectually is going to have a lot less time for being a mommy.”
- “A divorce is like an amputation: You survive it, but there's less of you.”
- “If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.”
- “Being a woman, I was taught not to fight, but I think everyone should learn how to do it.”
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Environmental Issues and the Future
- “In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”
- “We're using up the Earth. It's almost gone. You can't live with such fears and keep on whistling.”
- “The earth is what we all have in common.”
- “We can’t make another Earth. But maybe we can make another we.”
- “It’s not climate change, it’s everything change.”
- “Potential has a shelf life.”
- “This is what happens. You put it away for a little while, and now and again you look in the box, and you see if it's changed. It never has.”
- “If we do destroy the environment, we are also destroying ourselves.”
- “All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you.”
- “Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you’ve been.”
The Complexities of Love and Relationships
- “The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains.”
- “I lie in bed, my brain twisting with worst-case scenarios. It's amazing, the things your brain can come up with when you just let it run and you don't try to stop it with TV or work or shopping or whatever else people stop their brains with.”
- “Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever.”
- “Love is as love does. And it is our loving, not our being loved, that constitutes our worth.”
- “The Eskimos had 52 names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love.”
- “Love her but leave her wild.”
- “Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.”
- “Desire creates havoc when it is the only thing between two people, or when it is what's missing.”
- “We yearn for the beautiful, the unknown, and the mysterious.”
- “You fit into me like a hook into an eye. A fishhook. An open eye.”
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