As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.” — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Time: old cold time, old sorrow, settling down in layers like silt in a pond.” — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
The sands of time are quicksands ... so much can sink into them without a trace. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
The future of narrative? Built in, part of the human template. Not going away. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“I have them, these attacks of the past, like faintness, a wave sweeping over my head.” — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“I sink down into my body as into a swamp, fenland, where only I know the footing. Treacherous ground, my own territory.… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Though at that time men and women tried each other on, casually, like suits, rejecting whatever did not fit.” — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Stories are no good, not even the short ones, because by the time you get to the second page he's forgotten the… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Don't cry any more, she tells herself. Just do one thing at a time. Get from hour to hour and day to… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
What a moron I was to think you were sweet and innocent, when it turns out you were actually college-educated the whole… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“By the time he got around to meaning it, the words had sounded fraudulent to him and he'd been afraid to pronounce… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
I have long since decided if you wait for the perfect time to write, you'll never write. There is no time that… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“These men, we’ve been told, are like war criminals. It’s no excuse that what they did was legal at the time: their… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
We are silent, considering shortfalls. There's not much time left, for us to become what we once intended. Jon had potential, but… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
So this was the rest of his life. It felt like a party to which he'd been invited, but at an address… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Some of the best things are done by those with nowhere to turn, by those who don't have time, by those who… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Because they were ready for us, and waiting. The moment of betrayal is the worst, the moment when you know beyond any… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
It had helped to keep her sane, that writing. Then, when time had begun again and real people had entered it, she'd… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Fear is synonymous with the future, and the future consists of forked roads, I should say forking roads, because the roads are… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Every month there is a moon, gigantic, round, heavy, an omen. IT transits, pauses, continues on and passes out of sight, and… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Feathers," he says. They ask this question at least once a week. He gives the same answer. Even over such a short… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
And sometimes it happened, for a time. That kind of love comes and goes and is hard to remember afterwards, like pain.… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“At the time of my visit, there were only forty women in the Penitentiary. This speaks much for the superior moral training… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Every time the women appear, Snowman is astonished all over again. They're every known colour from the deepest black to whitest white,… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“I had now been a servant for three years, and could act the part well enough by that time. But Nancy was… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
No more photos. Surely there are enough. No more shadows of myself thrown by light onto pieces of paper, onto squares of… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“And sometimes it happened, for a time. That kind of love comes and goes and is hard to remember afterwards, like pain.… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“My name isn't Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it's forbidden. I tell myself it doesn't matter, your… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Genres aren't closed boxes. Stuff flows back and forth across the borders all the time. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“in the future you’d be able to get your very own pig made, with second copies of everything.” — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
I wanted to forget the past, but it refused to forget me; it waited for sleep, then cornered me. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Likely you would think at those times: What if he doesn’t love me?” — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
We yearned for the future. How did we learn it, that talent for insatiability? — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“Like the trains, she's never on time and always departing. Sympathy from strangers can be ruinous.” — 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
