Quotes By Margaret Atwood

The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose.

The object is very clear in the fight against racism; you have reasons why you're opposed to it. But when you're writing a novel, you don't want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that.

The beginning of Canadian cultural nationalism was not 'Am I really that oppressed?' but 'Am I really that boring?'

Our generation in the west was lucky: we had readymade gateways. We had books, paper, teachers, schools and libraries. But many in the world lack these luxuries. How do you practice without such tryout venues?

A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.

Myths can't be translated as they did in their ancient soil. We can only find our own meaning in our own time.

Popular art is the dream of society; it does not examine itself.

All fat women look the same; they all look 42.

As an artist your first loyalty is to your art. Unless this is the case, you're going to be a second-rate artist.

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.

This above all, to refuse to be a victim.

A word after a word after a word is power.

A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there's less of you.

I'm the only person you've ever met who has read Longfellow.

Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy - which many believe goes hand in hand with it - will be dead as well.

I'm bad at picking heroes.

I got into trouble a while ago for saying that I thought the internet led to increased literacy - people scolded me about the shocking grammar to be found online - but I was talking about fundamentals: quite simply, you can't use the net unless you can read.

For years I wanted to be older, and now I am.