“ Their youngness is terrifying. How could I have put myself into the hands of such inexperience? Margaret Atwood
“ The willow is full plumage and is no help, with its insinuating whispers.Rendevous, it says. Terraces;the sibilants run up my spine, a shiver as if in fever. The summer dress rustles against the flesh… Margaret Atwood
“ The war takes place in black and white. For those on the sidelines that is. For those who are actually in it there are many different colours, excessive colours, too bright, too red and orange, too li… Margaret Atwood
“ The truth is I don’t want him watching me while I eat. I don’t want him to see my hunger. If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting an… Margaret Atwood
“ The sitting room is subdued, symmetrical; it’s one of the shapes money takes when it freezes. Margaret Atwood
“ The moon is a stone and the sky is full of deadly hardware, but oh God, how beautiful anyway. Margaret Atwood
“ The future is in your hands, she resumed. She held her own hands out to us, the ancient gesture that was both an offering and an invitation, to come forward, into an embrace, an acceptance. In your ha… Margaret Atwood
“ The beauty is an illusion, and also a warning: there’s a dark side to beauty, as with poisonous butterflies. Margaret Atwood
“ The answer can only be that God has given Adam free will, and therefore Adam may do things that God Himself cannot anticipate in advance. Margaret Atwood
“ Staring at the magazine, as he dangled it before me like fish bait, I wanted it. I wanted it with a force that made the ends of my fingers ache. At the same time I saw this longing of mine as trivial… Margaret Atwood
“ Soon it will be daybreak. Soon the day will break. I can't stop it from breaking in the same way it always does, and then from lying there broken; always the same day, which comes around again like cl… Margaret Atwood
“ Sometimes when I am dusting the mirror with the grapes I look at myself in it, although I know it is vanity. In the afternoon light of the parlour my skin is a pale mauve, like a faded bruise, and my… Margaret Atwood
“ Sometimes in the dusk he runs up and down on the sand, flinging stones at the ocean and screaming, Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! He feels better afterwards. Margaret Atwood
“ So many crucial events take place behind people’s backs, when they aren’t in a position to watch: birth and death, for instance. And the temporary oblivion of sex. Margaret Atwood
“ She's not extravagant or greedy, she tells herself: all she ever wanted was to be protected by layer upon layer of kind, soft, insulating money, so that nobody and nothing could get close enough to ha… Margaret Atwood
“ She stood for a long time, breathing in and breathing in, the scent of the trees and dogs and night flowers and water, because this was the best thing, it was what she wanted, to be outside in the nig… Margaret Atwood
“ She knows the rituals, she knows how we're supposed to be behaving...But I think these things are impenetrable and fraudulent, and I can't do them without feeling I'm acting. Margaret Atwood
“ She had no images of this love. She could offer no anecdotes. It was a belief rather than a memory. Margaret Atwood
