The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.
Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
When we think of the past it’s the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that.
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
When you’re young, you think everything you do is disposable. You move from now to now, crumpling time up in your hands, tossing it away. You’re your own speeding car. You think you can get rid of things, and people too—leave them behind. You don’t yet know about the habit they have, of coming back.
Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you’d be doomed. You’d be ruined as God. You’d be a stone. You’d never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You’d never love anyone, ever again. You’d never dare to.
Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.
Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace
This has been her problem all her life: picturing other people’s responses. She’s too good at it. She can picture the response of anyone—other people’s reactions, their emotions, their criticisms, their demands—but somehow they don’t reciprocate. Maybe they can’t. Maybe they lack the gift, if it is one.
Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride
If he wants to be an asshole, it’s a free country. Millions before him have made the same life choice.
Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake
We yearned for the future. How did we learn it, that talent for insatiability?
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.
Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye
Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we’re still alive. We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants.
Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
Nevertheless, blood is thicker than water, as anyone knows who has tasted both.
Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
