Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood, CC OOnt FRSCis a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is a winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, winning once, and has been a finalist for the Governor General's Award several times, winning twice. In 2001, she was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. She is also a founder of the Writers' Trust of Canada, a...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth18 November 1939
CityOttawa, Canada
CountryCanada
Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. It's like the tide going out, revealing whatever's been thrown away and sunk: broken bottles, old gloves, rusting pop cans, nibbled fishbodies, bones. This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes, not knowing the future.
Soon it will be daybreak. Soon the day will break. I can't stop it from breaking in the same way it always does, and then from lying there broken; always the same day, which comes around again like clockwork. It begins with the day before the day before, and then the day before, and then it's the day itself. A Saturday. The breaking day. The day the butcher comes.
Love is the pursuit of shadows ...
Love was like a steamroller. There was no avoiding it; it went over you and you came out flat.
Although from you I far must roam, do not be broken hearted. We two, who in the souls are one, are never truly parted.
Writing is very improvisational. It's like trying to fix a broken sewing machine with safety pins and rubber bands. A lot of tinkering.
A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there's less of you.
The basic Female body comes with the following accessories: garter belt, panty-girdle, crinoline, camisole, bustle, brassiere, stomacher, chemise, virgin zone, spike heels, nose ring, veil, kid gloves, fishnet stockings, fichu, bandeau, Merry Widow, weepers, chokers, barrettes, bangles, beads, lorgnette, feather boa, basic black, compact, Lycra stretch one-piece with modesty panel, designer peignoir, flannel nightie, lace teddy, bed, head.
They've removed anything you can tie a rope to.
Once upon a time you could wander around one country, then the next and then maybe you'd go to England or wherever. Now they all want you to do it at the same time and you can't. It's just not physically possible.
I'm curious. If someone says 'Don't open that door', I'm right there!
The Orange prize has been pivotal in the careers of many women writers - it's given them that extra push, and that extra dollop of confidence.
They all disowned their parents long ago, the way you are supposed to
I've never bought into any sort of hard and fast, this-box/that-box characterization. People are individuals. Yes, they may be expected to be a particular way. But that doesn't mean they're going to be that way.