Margaret Atwood Quotes About Books

Quotes about: Books

• I read for pleasure and that is the moment I learn the most.

  Margaret Atwood

  Inspirational, Motivational, Inspiring

• The society in 'The Handmaid's Tale' is a throwback to the early Puritans whom I studied extensively at Harvard under Perry Miller, to whom the book is dedicated.

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, Puritan, Harvard

• 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.

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, Writing, Mean

  "Ten rules for writing fiction". www.theguardian.com. February 20, 2010.

• 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?

  Margaret Atwood

  Teacher, Book, School

  "Margaret Atwood: why Wattpad works" by Margaret Atwood, www.theguardian.com. July 6, 2012.

• 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.

  Margaret Atwood

  Depressing, Wall, Block

• It's a feature of our age that if you write a work of fiction, everyone assumes that the people and events in it are disguised biography — but if you write your biography, it's equally assumed you're lying your head off.

  Margaret Atwood

  Lying, Book, Writing

  "Margaret Atwood : Writing Philosophy". Waterstone's Poetry Lecture, Delivered At Hay On Wye, canpoetry.library.utoronto.ca. June 1995.

• 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

  Reading, Book, Writing

  "Ten rules for writing fiction". www.theguardian.com. February 20, 2010.

• Show me a character totally without anxieties and I will show you a boring book.

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, Character, Anxiety

  Margaret Atwood (1990). “Margaret Atwood: Conversations”, Princeton, N.J. : Ontario Review Press

• Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. Some bottles drown, some come safe to land, where the notes are read and then possibly cherished, or else misinterpreted, or else understood all too well by those who hate the message. You never know who your readers might be.

  Margaret Atwood

  Hate, Book, Sea

• Once you publish a book, it is out of your control. You cannot dictate how people read it.

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, People, Publish

  "Margaret Atwood on green rabbits, writing sex and Twitter". Interview with Carolyn Kellogg, latimesblogs.latimes.com. October 9, 2009.

• I have been known to buy e-versions of my books because I was in a hotel room and I needed one right away to look up something in it; very handy for that - you can have it just the next minute; you can press the button and just have it.

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, Buttons, Looks

• Some cleric putting a match to her. /Neither of them looks happy about it. /Once lit, she'll burn like a book, /like a book that was ever finished, /like a locked-up library.

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, Library, Looks

  Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Door”, p.69, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• I think the book you always like best is the one you're about to write.

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, Philosophical, Writing

  Margaret Atwood (2006). “Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood”

• Anybody who writes a book is an optimist. First of all, they think they're going to finish it. Second, they think somebody's going to publish it. Third, they think somebody's going to read it. Fourth, they think somebody's going to like it. How optimistic is that?

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, Writing, Optimistic

• I'll make you mine, lovers said in old books. They never said, I'll make you me.

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, Lovers, Said

  Margaret Atwood (2004). “Oryx and Crake”, p.315, Anchor

• Perhaps they were looking for passion; perhaps they delved into this book as into a mysterious parcel - a gift box at the bottom of which, hidden in layers of rustling tissue paper, lay something they'd always longed for but couldn't ever grasp.

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, Passion, Tissue Paper

  Margaret Atwood (2000). “The Blind Assassin”, Random House Large Print Publishing

• We all know that a book is not really a person. It isn’t a human being. But if you are a lover of books as books – as objects, that is – and ignore the human element in them – that is, their voices – you will be committing an error of the soul, because you will be an idolator, or else a fetishist.

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, Errors, Voice

• Writers and books are cheap dates, especially when you compare the cost of a book with a ticket to the opera - or an NHL game.

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, Nhl, Games

• It doesn't really matter what "genre" your book is. What matters is that it's a good book of its kind. Whatever that kind may be.

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, What Matters, May

• I am rather saddened at the end of a book. I think most writers find this. It's like a friend departing on a voyage.

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, Thinking, Saddened

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

• I'm interested in the Gothic novel because it's very much a woman's form. Why is there such a wide readership for books that essentially say, 'Your husband is trying to kill you'?

  Margaret Atwood

  Husband, Book, Trying

  Margaret Atwood (1990). “Margaret Atwood: Conversations”, Princeton, N.J. : Ontario Review Press

• I am too old to have ever been very worried about what "genre" any given book of mine might be. I read everything. I am easily amused.

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, Might, Worried

• The future of narrative? Built in, part of the human template. Not going away. The future of the codex book, with pages and so forth? A platform for transmitting narratives. There are others. The scroll is coming back (Twitter is a scroll.) Short forms are returning online. Interactivity is coming back; it was always there in oral storytelling. Each form has its pluses and its minuses.

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, Going Away, Storytelling

  Source: www.marandapleasantmedia.com

• A reader can never tell if it's a real thimble or an imaginary thimble, because by the time you're reading it, they're the same. It's a thimble. It's in the book.

  Margaret Atwood

  Real, Book, Reading

  "Double bluff". Interview with Katharine Viner, www.theguardian.com. September 26, 2000.

• If you want to be a writer, you should go into the largest library you can find and stand there contemplating the books that have been written. Then you should ask yourself, 'Do I really have anything to add?' If you have the arrogance or the humility to say yes, you will know you have the vocation.

  Margaret Atwood

  Book, Humility, Arrogance

  Margaret Atwood (1984). “Second words: selected critical prose”, Beacon Press, 1984

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