Your friend is intellectually honourable," Jimmy's mother would say. "He doesn't lie to himself. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked: as I never was when I was not one. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
His father was self-made, but his mother was constructed by others, and such edifices are notoriously fragile. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Besides, who would think of marrying a mothball? A question my mother put to me often, later, in other forms.” — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
They all disowned their parents long ago, the way you are supposed to. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Happy as a clam, is what my mother says for happy. I am happy as a clam: hard-shelled, firmly closed. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“After they had skated around the pond several times, my father asked my mother to marry him. I expect he did it… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
My parents were gardeners themselves, and perforce they used environmental techniques because it was during the war, and you didn't have the… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
All fathers are invisible in daytime; daytime is ruled by mothers and fathers come out at night. Darkness brings home fathers, with… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Humanity is so adaptable, my mother would say. Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“They did not set out to disappoint their father, not on purpose, but neither did they wish to shoulder the lumpy, enervating… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“My mother said Aunt Pauline meant kindly but had standars, which were all very well for those that could afford them.” — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Their mothers had finally caught up to them and been proven right. There were consequences after all but they were the consequences… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“No mother is ever, completely, a child’s idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Their mother died early, and not in a good way. Not that anyone dies in a good way, Tin footnotes to himself,… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“There were a few other moves of his father's he could do without as well - the sucker punches, the ruffling of… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“No mother is ever, completely, a child’s idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“My parents are like younger, urchinlike brothers and sisters whose faces are dirty and who blurt out humiliating things that can neither… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
I feel despised there, for having so little money; also for once having had so much. I never actually had it, of… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“My mother took the train to Halifax to see my father off. It was crammed with men en route to the Front;… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“if the teenage kids want to carouse, that's where they do it. They make bonfires, and drink too much and smoke dope,… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Every child should have love, every person should have it. She herself would rather have had her mother's love - the love… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“A man is just a woman's strategy for making other women. Not that your father wasn't a nice guy and all, but...… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Sometimes she would cry. I was so lonely, she'd say. You have no idea how lonely I was. And I had friends,… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“At school, he enacted a major piece of treachery against his parents. His right hand was Evil Dad, and his left was… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“I know more about my father than I used to know: I know he wanted to be a pilot in the war… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Mother, I think. Wherever you may be. Can you hear me? You wanted a women’s culture. Well, now there is one. It… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
There's more than one way to skin a cat, my father used to say; it bothered me, I didn't see why they… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“You're not my real parents, every child has thought. I'm not your real child. But with orphans, it's true. What freedom, to… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
What fabrications they are, mothers. Scarecrows, wax dolls for us to stick pins into, crude diagrams. We deny them an existence of… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Nate stares at his mother, who however looks just the same as she has always looked. It’s not only the revelation but… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
My father was a forest entomologist, which means he was aware that spraying forests for spruce budworm was counterproductive in that it… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“I want my father to be just my father, the way he has always been, not a separate person with an earlier,… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“All those years I'd kept an outline of my father in my head, like a chalk line enclosing a father-shaped space. When… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“I'm fine," said Pilar, "for the moment. And the moment is the only time we can be fine in.” — Margaret Atwood Copy Share
And yet it disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share
“Mary: Some call this "Eve's curse," but I think that is stupid because the real curse of Eve was having to put up with… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share
“The birds were singing around me, but I reflected that the very birds were strangers to me, for I did not even know their… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share
“Strange how we decorate pain. These ribbons, for instance, and the small hard teardrops of blood. Who are they for? Do we think the… — margaret atwood Copy Share
I wanted to forget the past, but it refused to forget me; it waited for sleep, then cornered me. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share
“Back at home they drew the curtains and read, with disapproval, with relish, with avidity and glee - even the ones who'd never thought… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share
All fiction is about people, unless it's about rabbits pretending to be people. It's all essentially characters in action, which means characters moving through… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share
“Simon walks back to the house alone. The night is clear and warm, with a moon, almost full, enclosed in a nimbus of mist;… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share
“There is indeed something delightful about being able to combine obedience and disobedience in the same act.” — Margaret Atwood Copy Share
“Every time the women appear, Snowman is astonished all over again. They're every known colour from the deepest black to whitest white, they're various… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share
Once you publish a book, it is out of your control. You cannot dictate how people read it. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share
“The more difficult it was to love the particular man beside us, the more we believed in Love, abstract and total. We were waiting,… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share
“She knows she's deceiving herself about that, but she prefers to deceive herself. She desperately needs to believe such pure joy is still possible.” — Margaret Atwood Copy Share
