Margaret Atwood

Gardening is not a rational act.

We shouldn't be saying 'Save the planet'; we should be saying: 'Save viable conditions in which people can live.' That's what we're dealing with here.

Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked: as I never was when I was not one.

A word after a word after a word is power.

If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia.

An eye for an eye only leads to more blindness.

A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.

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

This above all, to refuse to be a victim.

The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love.

I don't think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.

You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there's no free lunch. Writing is work. It's also gambling. You don't get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ­essentially you're on your own. Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don't whine.

No one knows what cuases an outer landscape to become an inner one.

About no subject are poets tempted to lie so much as about their own lives.

I began to forget myself _x000D_ in the middle _x000D_ of sentences.

Love is the pursuit of shadows.

Popular art is the dream of society; it does not examine itself.

Gardening is not a rational act. What matters is the immersion of the hands in the earth, that ancient ceremony of which the Pope kissingthe tarmac is merely a pallid vestigial remnant.

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

Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been.

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 abandoned them. It was depressing, but it wasn’t the end of the world. When it really isn’t working, and you’ve been bashing yourself against the wall, it’s kind of a relief. I mean, sometimes you bash yourself against the wall and you get through it. But sometimes the wall is just a wall. There’s nothing to be done but go somewhere else.