“There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“The best way of being kind to bears is not to be very close to them.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“Life is warped. I'm just in sync.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“It had helped to keep her sane, that writing. Then, when time had begun again and real people had entered it, she'd abandoned it here. Now it's a whisper from the past.
Is that what writing amounts to? The voice your ghost would have, if it had a voice?”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“Why is it always such a surprise? thinks Toby. The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“Perfection exacts a price, but it's the imperfect who pay it”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“She is about to add, "I have scars, inside me," but she stops herself. What is a scar, Oh Toby? That would be the next question. Then she'd have to explain what a scar is. A scar is like writing on your body. It tells about something that once happened to you, such as a cut on your skin where blood came out.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“Glenn used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, "I'll be dead," you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's how people got the idea of immortality of the soul - it was a consequence of grammar. And so was God, because as soon as there's a past tense, there has to be a past before the past, and you keep going back in time until you get to I don't know, and that's what God is. It's what you don't know - the dark, the hidden, the underside of the visible, and all because we have grammar ...”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“Though as he'd say, what is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives?”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“Why is war so much like a practical joke? she thinks. Hiding behind bushes, leaping out, with not much difference between Boo! and Bang! except the blood.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“Gender roles suck," says Swift Fox.
Then you should stop playing them, thinks Toby.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“Had she believed all that? Old Pilar's folklore? No, not really; or not exactly. Most likely Pilar hadn't quite believed it either, but it was a reassuring story: that the dead were not entirely dead but were alive in a different way; a paler way admittedly, and somewhat darker. But still able to send messages, if only such messages could be recognized and deciphered. People need such stories, Pilar said once, because however dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“The moon. Even though we know it’s coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“I remember adapt,” says Toby. “It was another way of saying tough luck. To people you weren’t going to help out.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“He was twisted as a pretzel, he was a tinfoil-halo shitnosed frogstomping king rat asshole, but he wasn't stupid.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“People need such stories, because however dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“I already told you,” said Adam. “There is no need to swear.”
“Sorry, it just fucking slipped out,” said Zeb.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“When you focus on details like this - close up, really clear, totally useless - you know you're in shock”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“Is that what writing amounts to? The voice your ghost would have, if it had a voice?”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“But I have already told the beginning, so right now it's the middle. And Zeb is in the middle of the story about Zeb. He is in the middle of his own story.
I am not in this part of the story; it hasn't come to the part with me. But I'm waiting, far off in the future. I'm waiting for the story of Zeb to join up with mine. The story of Toby. The story I am in right now, with you.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“Would I laugh?"
"Matter of fact, you would," says Zeb. "Heart like shale. What you need is a good fracking.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“The people in the chaos cannot learn. They cannot understand what they are doing to the sea and the sky and the plants and the animals. They cannot understand that they are killing them, and that they will end by killing themselves. And there are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. And when”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“The only sure camouflage was unpredictability.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“Why is it always such a surprise? thinks Toby. The moon. Even though we know it’s coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“This is how it starts, among the closed circles of the marooned, the shipwrecked, the besieged: jealousy, dissention, a breach in the groupthink walls. Then the entry of the foe, the murderer, the shadow slipping in through the door we forgot to lock because we were distracted by our darker selves: nursing our minor hatreds, indulging our petty resentments, yelling at one another, tossing the crockery.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“There’s the story, then there’s the real story, then there’s the story of how the story came to be told. Then there’s what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
“The possibility of injury or death was a strong attraction: as the online world became more and more pre-edited and slicked up, and as even its so-called reality sites raised questions about authenticity in the minds of the viewers, the rough, unpolished physical world was taking on a mystic allure.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
Margaret Atwood
Born place: in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
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“Bit by bit, I found myself relaxing into the conversation. Kitty had a natural talent for drawing people out of themselves, and it was easy to fall in with her, to feel comfortable in her presence. As Uncle Victor had once told me long ago, a conversation is like having a catch with someone. A good partner tosses the ball directly into your glove, making it almost impossible for you to miss it; when he is on the receiving end, he catches everything sent his way, even the most errant and incompetent throws. That’s what Kitty did. She kept lobbing the ball straight into the pocket of my glove, and when I threw the ball back to her, she hauled in everything that was even remotely in her area: jumping up to spear balls that soared above her head, diving nimbly to her left or right, charging in to make tumbling, shoestring catches. More than that, her skill was such that she always made me feel that I had made those bad throws on purpose, as if my only object had been to make the game more amusing. She made me seem better than I was, and that strengthened my confidence, which in turn helped to make my throws less difficult for her to handle. In other words, I started talking to her rather than to myself, and the pleasure of it was greater than anything I had experienced in a long time.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Moon Palace
“It's not morning until you're awake. And it's not night until you're asleep in your bed under my roof. And I could go on and on but hope is a horrible thing, and I love you too much to give you any.”
― Tiffany Reisz, quote from The Siren
“That's the spirit! Forward momentum."
Mayhew snorted. "Your forward momentum is going to lead all your followers over a cliff someday." He paused, beginning to grin. "On the way down, you'll convince 'em all they can fly." He stuck his fists in his armpits, and waggled his elbows. "Lead on, my lord. I'm flapping as hard as I can.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from The Warrior's Apprentice
“Fate. As a child, that word was often my only companion. It whispered to me from dark corners during lonely nights. It was the song of the birds in spring and the call of the wind through bare branches on a cold winter afternoon. Fate. Both my anguish and my solace. My escort and my cage.”
― Leslye Walton, quote from The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
“Charles could care less about shoes - and he suspected he wasn't alone among men in his feelings. Shoe, no shoe, he didn't care. Naked was good, though over the past couple of weeks he was beginning to think that dressed in his clothes was a decent second best.”
― Patricia Briggs, quote from Hunting Ground
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