“I reach out in love, my hands are guns, my good intentions are completely lethal.” — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
I feel that the task of criticizing my poetry is best left to others (i.e. critics) and would much rather have it… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“ Variation on the Word Sleep I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Poetry isn't written from the idea down. It's written from the phrase, line and stanza up, which is different from what your… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Ah men, why do you want all this attention? I can write poems for myself, make love to a doorknob if absolutely… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“CELL Now look objectively. You have to admit the cancer cell is beautiful. If it were a flower, you'd say, How pretty,… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
About no subject are poets tempted to lie so much as about their own lives. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“This world is not enough, but it will have to do. You can either hold on or let go.” — 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
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
“There is a little verse I remember from a child: Needles and pins, needles and pins, When a man marries his trouble… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“I had a boyfriend once who sent me--in a plastic bag, so it wouldn't drip--a real cow's heart with a real arrow… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
When I was sixteen, it was simple. Poetry existed; therefore it could be written; and nobody had told me — yet —… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Like all twenty-one-year-old poets, I thought I would be dead by thirty, and Sylvia Plath had not set a helpful example. For… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
making final judgements about poets, cities or regions on the basis of an anthology is always dangerous: anthologies are mirages created, finally,… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I don't think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems. — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
A suicide is both a rebuke to the living and a puzzle that defies them to solve it. Like a poem, suicide… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“SPRING POEM It is spring, my decision, the earth ferments like rising bread or refuse, we are burning last year's weeds, the… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“UP You wake up filled with dread. There seems no reason for it. Morning light sifts through the window, there is birdsong,… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
A lot of being a poet consists of willed ignorance. If you woke up from your trance and realized the nature of… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“One young fellow pointed to another steamer in the distance, and said it was the Lady of the Lake, a United States… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“How much longer can I get away with being so fucking cute? Not much longer.” — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Kill what you can't save what you can't eat throw out what you can't throw out bury What you can't bury give… — 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
