Writing Quotes by Margaret Atwood

Do back exercises. Pain is distracting.

— Margaret Atwood

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

— Margaret Atwood

Don't wait until you're 'in the mood.' Get into the mood by writing.

— Margaret Atwood

There is good and mediocre writing within every genre.

— Margaret Atwood

Blank pages inspire me with terror.

— Margaret Atwood

Some of our earliest writing, in cuneiform, was about who owes what.

— Margaret Atwood

“Some people write letters, in the library.”

— Margaret Atwood

Writing poetry is a state of free float.

— Margaret Atwood

“Bless you. Be careful. Anyone intending to meddle with words needs such blessing, such warning.”

— Margaret Atwood

Writers and books are cheap dates, especially when you compare the cost of a book with a ticket to the opera -…

— Margaret Atwood

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer, an almost physical nerve, the kind you need to walk a…

— Margaret Atwood

About no subject are poets tempted to lie so much as about their own lives.

— Margaret Atwood

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

Don't be married to a line or verse if it can't rhyme, fit the meter, or doesn't fit the outline.

— Margaret Atwood

Good writing takes place at intersections, at what you might call knots, at places where the society is snarled or knotted up.

— Margaret Atwood

A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason.

— Margaret Atwood

If you're waiting for the perfect moment, you'll never write a thing because it will never arrive. I have no routine. I…

— Margaret Atwood

Writing is alone, but I don't think it's lonely. Ask any writer if they feel lonely when they're writing their book, and…

— Margaret Atwood

It is my contention that the process of reading is part of the process of writing, the necessary completion without which writing…

— Margaret Atwood

“Writing is work. It’s also gambling. You don’t get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ­essentially you’re…

— Margaret Atwood

I tried for the longest time to find out what deconstructionism was. Nobody was able to explain it to me clearly. The…

— Margaret Atwood

Anybody who writes a book is an optimist. First of all, they think they're going to finish it. Second, they think somebody's…

— Margaret Atwood

There's a difference between describing and evoking something. You can describe something and be quite clinical about it. To evoke it, you…

— Margaret Atwood

I began writing at the age of 5, but there was a dark period between the ages of 8 and 16 when…

— Margaret Atwood

The one good thing to be said about announcing yourself as a writer in the colonial Canadian fifties is that nobody told…

— Margaret Atwood

I never have [suffered writer’s block], although I’ve had books that didn’t work out. I had to stop writing them. I just…

— Margaret Atwood

Whatever the scientists may come up with, writers and artists will continue to portray altered mental states, simply because few aspects of…

— Margaret Atwood

“...the values ascribed to the Indian will depend on what the white writer feels about Nature, and America has always had mixed…

— Margaret Atwood

All Creatures know that some must die That all the rest may take and eat; Sooner or later, all transform Their blood…

— Margaret Atwood

If you want to be a writer, you should go into the largest library you can find and stand there contemplating the…

— Margaret Atwood

You cannot teach somebody to write a masterpiece, but you can certainly teach them how to improve their writing skills. And you…

— Margaret Atwood

You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book,…

— Margaret Atwood

“Rosalind Porter: As a writer, how important do you feel it is to engage with the digital revolution? Margaret Atwood: I don’t…

— Margaret Atwood

“Most of us will. We'll choose knowledge no matter what, we'll maim ourselves in the process, we'll stick our hands into the…

— Margaret Atwood

“I would like to believe this is a story I'm telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who…

— Margaret Atwood

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

— Margaret Atwood

If I waited for perfection... I would never write a word.

— Margaret Atwood

A word after a word after a word is power.

— Margaret Atwood

I write as if I've lived a lot of things I haven't lived.

— Margaret Atwood

No male writer is likely to be asked to sit on a panel addressing itself to the special problems of a male…

— Margaret Atwood