quotes from classic

I hate to tell you this, but you will never actually go to a galaxy far, far away and encounter Darth Vader. That's science fiction; it isn't going to happen.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

Fiction is not necessarily about what you know, it's about how you feel. That is the truth about fiction, and the other truth is that all science is a tool, and we use our tools not to actualise what we know, but to implement how we feel.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

Our generation in the west was lucky: we had readymade gateways. We had books, paper, teachers, schools and libraries. But many in the world lack these luxuries. How do you practice without such tryout venues?

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

I was warped early by Ray Bradbury and Edgar Allan Poe. I was very fond of Franz Kafka.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

Science never makes things that do not have to do with what we feel, by which I mean what we want and what we fear.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

When I was 16, I started publishing all kinds of things in school magazines.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

I know that some books and some writers, you can pretty much draw a square around it and say, 'Nobody under 40,' or 'Nobody under 25.' With my books, it always has been, and continues to be, spread right across the board, and I think the operative term is 'reader.'

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

I've never bought into any sort of hard and fast, this-box/that-box characterization. People are individuals. Yes, they may be expected to be a particular way. But that doesn't mean they're going to be that way.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

If it's all instruction, you get annoyed with it and bored, and you stop reading. If it's all entertainment, you read it quite quickly, your heart going pitty-pat, pitty-pat. But when you finish, that's it. You're not going to think about it much afterward, apart from the odd nightmare. You're not going to read that book again.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

Some bioengineering is good, especially if it results in plants that are more drought-resistant or perennial food crops.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

You quickly find, when you are a hand-reader as I am, that nothing interests people so much as themselves.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

There is good and mediocre writing within every genre.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

Science and fiction both begin with similar questions: What if? Why? How does it all work? But they focus on different areas of life on earth.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

If you're put on a pedestal, you're supposed to behave yourself like a pedestal type of person. Pedestals actually have a limited circumference. Not much room to move around.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

Storytelling is a very old human skill that gives us an evolutionary advantage. If you can tell young people how you kill an emu, acted out in song or dance, or that Uncle George was eaten by a croc over there, don't go there to swim, then those young people don't have to find out by trial and error.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

Reality simply consists of different points of view.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

'1984' is not a wonder tale. Not only could it happen, but it has happened, but under different names.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

War is what happens when language fails.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

Vampires get the joy of flying around and living forever, werewolves get the joy of animal spirits. But zombies, they're not rich, or aristocratic, they shuffle around. They're a group phenomenon, they're not very fast, they're quite sickly. So what's the pleasure of being one?

more quotes from Margaret Atwood

Canada was built on dead beavers.

more quotes from Margaret Atwood