Margaret Atwood Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old Margaret Atwood quotes, Margaret Atwood sayings, and Margaret Atwood proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.'

Debt is part of the human condition. Civilization is based on exchanges - on gifts, trades, loans - and the revenges and insults that come when they are not paid back. Margaret Atwood
Canada was built on dead beavers. Margaret Atwood
Canada is a balloon-puncturing country. You are not really allowed to be an icon unless you also make an idiot of yourself. Margaret Atwood
Inside the peach, there is a stone. Margaret Atwood
The myth that everyone once read great literature is just a myth. Margaret Atwood
All myths are stories, but not all stories are myths: among stories, myths hold a special place. Margaret Atwood
Paper isn't important. It's the words on them that are important. Margaret Atwood
A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze. Margaret Atwood
Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling the artists, because they're a mouthy lot and they don't line up and salute very easily. Margaret Atwood
Laughter may instruct but it may also conceal, defending the joker against anger and retaliation: a game is only a game. Margaret Atwood
Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized. Margaret Atwood
The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner. Margaret Atwood
All observations of life are harsh, because life is. I lament that fact, but I cannot change it. Margaret Atwood
Fear has a smell, as love does. Margaret Atwood
It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge. Margaret Atwood
We thought we were running away from the grownups, and now we are the grownups. Margaret Atwood
Madness is only an amplification of what you already are. Margaret Atwood
In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. Margaret Atwood
There's nothing like a shovel full of dirt to encourage literacy. Margaret Atwood
A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze. Margaret Atwood
Every utopia - let's just stick with the literary ones - faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don't fit in? Margaret Atwood
Who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain larks you, but too deep to see. Margaret Atwood
I would rather dance as a ballerina, though faultily, than as a flawless clown. Margaret Atwood
Walking into the crowd was like sinking into a stew - you became an ingredient, you took on a certain flavour. Margaret Atwood
Beginnings are sudden, but also insidious. They creep up on you sideways, they keep to the shadows, they lurk unrecognized. Then, later, they spring. Margaret Atwood
You hear doom and gloom about the Internet ruining young people's command of English - that's nonsense. Margaret Atwood
You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer. Margaret Atwood
Debt is part of the human condition. Civilization is based on exchanges - on gifts, trades, loans - and the revenges and insults that come when they are not paid back. Margaret Atwood
Every habit he’s ever had is still there in his body, lying dormant like flowers in the desert. Given the right conditions, all his old addictions would burst into full and luxuriant bloom. Margaret Atwood
A home filled with nothing but yourself. It's heavy, that lightness. It's crushing, that emptiness. Margaret Atwood