WIST Quotations

Atwood, Margaret -- “Attitude,” Commencement Address, University Of Toronto (14 Jun 1983)

Dave — Fri, 22 May 2015 15:36:13 +0000

They taught me that the truth would make me free but failed to warn me of the kind of trouble I’d get into by trying to tell it — I remain duly grateful.

Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
“Attitude,” Commencement Address, University Of Toronto (14 Jun 1983)
(Source)

Atwood, Margaret -- “Hair Jewellery,” Dancing Girls (1982)

Dave — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 19:31:28 +0000

I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.

Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
“Hair Jewellery,” Dancing Girls (1982)
(Source)

Atwood, Margaret -- “Writing the Male Character,” Hagey Lecture, U. of Waterloo (9 Feb 1982)

Dave — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 12:45:21 +0000

“Why do men feel threatened by women?” I asked a male friend of mine. (I love that wonderful rhetorical device, “a male friend of mine.” It’s often used by female journalists when they want to say something particularly bitchy but don’t want to be held responsible for it themselves. It also lets people know that you do have male friends, that you aren’t one of those fire-breathing mythical monsters, The Radical Feminists, who walk around with little pairs of scissors and kick men in the shins if they open doors for you. “A male friend of mine” also gives — let us admit it — a certain weight to the opinions expressed.) So this male friend of mine, who does by the way exist, conveniently entered into the following dialogue. “I mean,” I said, “men are bigger, most of the time, they can run faster, strangle better, and they have on the average a lot more money and power.” “They’re afraid women will laugh at them,” he said. “Undercut their world view.” Then I asked some women students in a quickie poetry seminar I was giving, “Why do women feel threatened by men?” “They’re afraid of being killed,” they said.

Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
“Writing the Male Character,” Hagey Lecture, U. of Waterloo (9 Feb 1982)
(Source)

Published in a revised version as "Writing the Male Character," Second Words: Selected Critical Prose, 1960-1982 (1983).

Usually paraphrased, "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them."

Atwood, Margaret -- Cat’s Eye, ch. 22 (1988)

Dave — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 20:43:25 +0000

Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized.

Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
Cat’s Eye, ch. 22 (1988)
(Source)

Atwood, Margaret -- Cat’s Eye, Part 2 (1988)

Dave — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 16:29:51 +0000

Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.

Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
Cat’s Eye, Part 2 (1988)
(Source)

Atwood, Margaret -- Negotiating with the Dead, ch. 2 “Duplicity: The jekyll hand, the hyde hand, and the slippery double” (2002)

Dave — Tue, 27 May 2014 12:56:28 +0000

Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like paté.

Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
Negotiating with the Dead, ch. 2 “Duplicity: The jekyll hand, the hyde hand, and the slippery double” (2002)
(Source)

Usually directly attributed to Atwood, but she made it clear that it was not hers:

There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine -- [the quotation]. That's a light enough comment upon the disappointments of encountering the famous, or even the moderately well-known -- they are always shorter and older and more ordinary than you expected -- but there's a more sinister way of looking at it as well. In order for the paté to be made and then eaten, the duck must first be killed. And who is it that does the killing?

Atwood, Margaret -- Surfacing, ch. 3 (1972)

Dave — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 15:31:42 +0000

Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.

Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
Surfacing, ch. 3 (1972)
(Source)

Atwood, Margaret -- The Handmaid’s Tale, ch. 7 (1986)

Dave — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 15:15:21 +0000

Nobody dies from lack of sex. It’s lack of love we die from.

Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
The Handmaid’s Tale, ch. 7 (1986)
(Source)

Atwood, Margaret -- The Handmaid’s Tale, ch. 34 (1986)

Dave — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 23:49:58 +0000

There is something powerful in the whispering of obscenities, about those in power. There’s something delightful about it, something naughty, secretive, forbidden, thrilling. It’s like a spell, of sorts. It deflates them, reduces them to the common denominator where they can be dealt with.

Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
The Handmaid’s Tale, ch. 34 (1986)
(Source)

Atwood, Margaret -- The Handmaid’s Tale, “Historical Notes” (1986)

Dave — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 16:31:14 +0000

When power is scarce, a little of it is tempting.

Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
The Handmaid’s Tale, “Historical Notes” (1986)
(Source)

On using women (the "Aunts") as collaborative enforcers of the woman-oppressing Gilead regime.

Atwood, Margaret -- The Handmaid’s Tale, ch. 28 (1986)

Dave — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 21:04:05 +0000

No mother is ever, completely, a child’s idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well.

Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
The Handmaid’s Tale, ch. 28 (1986)
(Source)

Atwood, Margaret -- The Handmaid’s Tale, ch. 37 (1986)

Dave — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 18:00:02 +0000

Perhaps he’s reached that stage of intoxication which power is said to inspire, the state in which you believe you are indispensable and can therefore do anything, absolutely anything you feel like, anything at all.

Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
The Handmaid’s Tale, ch. 37 (1986)
(Source)

Atwood, Margaret -- In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)

Dave — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 14:05:31 +0000

You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You’ve been backstage. You’ve seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.

Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)