“Back at home they drew the curtains and read, with disapproval, with relish, with avidity and glee - even the ones who'd… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Once you publish a book, it is out of your control. You cannot dictate how people read it. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
I am too old to have ever been very worried about what "genre" any given book of mine might be. I read… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
You quickly find, when you are a hand-reader as I am, that nothing interests people so much as themselves. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book,… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
It's rather useless to write a gripping narrative with nothing in it but climate change because novels are always about people even… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Reading ... changes you. You aren't the same person after you've read a particular book as you were before, and you will… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. Some bottles drown, some come… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“I worked transferring books to computer discs, to cut down on storage space and replacement costs, they said. Discers, we called ourselves.… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
I am rather saddened at the end of a book. I think most writers find this. It's like a friend departing on… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
In high school, in 1956, at the age of sixteen, we were not taught "creative writing." We were taught literature and grammar.… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“I thought, men who changed their names were likely to be con-men, criminals, undercover agents or magicians, whereas women who changed their… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
I think the book you always like best is the one you're about to write. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Make the verses flow together. If a following verse has nothing to do with the previous, you may lose our listener/reader. You… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“gazing down at the black water remembering all the stories of women who had thrown themselves into it. They'd done it for… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Reading is one of the most individual things that happens. So every reader is going to read a piece in a slightly… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
If it's all instruction, you get annoyed with it and bored, and you stop reading. If it's all entertainment, you read it… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Sometimes reactions can be quite surprising: readers like things that you, the author, feel you've barely gotten away with; or they dislike… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
A reader can never tell if it's a real thimble or an imaginary thimble, because by the time you're reading it, they're… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
If I pick up a book with vampires on the cover, I want there to be vampires. If I pick up a… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
I'm interested in the Gothic novel because it's very much a woman's form. Why is there such a wide readership for books… — 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 Image
And yet it disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 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
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“There is indeed something delightful about being able to combine obedience and disobedience in the same act.” — 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, they're various… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image