Margaret Atwood

I am not scoffing at goodness, which is far more difficult to explain than evil, and just as complicated. But sometimes it's hard to put up with.

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

Writers are much better behaved nowadays, for a couple of reasons. Once upon a time nobody was thinking of a career, unless you lived in New York, so there wasn__ as much pressure to present a respectable exterior. And secondly, there was no social media. So if you were found face down on the floor _ people did do that quite a bit; usually men, but not always _ or fell through plate glass windows or got into scrapes, it became a rumour, and rumours are hard to pin down.

With the young writers now it__ F and C all day long, which he, personally, finds boring.

There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine -- "Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pâté.

She__ a lean vixen: I can seethe ribs, the slytrickster__ eyes, filled with longing and desperation, the skinnyfeet, adept at lies.Why encourage the notionof virtuous poverty?It__ only an excusefor zero charity.Hunger corrupts, and absolute hungercorrupts absolutely,

Perhaps he was merely being friendly. Perhaps he saw the look on my face and mistook it for something else. Really what I wanted was the cigarette.

You always do good ones. We trust you, Mr. Duke," Says Dylan. Foolish lads, thinks Felix: never trust a professional ham.

I__ not mad because I__ a woman,_ I say. ____ mad because you__e an asshole.

Pink is supposed to weaken your enemies, make them go soft on you, which must be why it's used for baby girls. It's a wonder the military hasn't got on to this.

Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.

I wonderif I should let my hair go greyso my advice will be better.

You can think clearly only with your clothes on.

Ger says that Kat has a tendency to push things to extremes, to go over the edge, merely from a juvenile desire to shock, which is hardly a substitute for wit. One of these days, he says, she will go way too far. Too far for him, is what he means.

Here the children have a custom. After the celebration of evil they take those vacant heads that shone once with such anguish and glee and throw them over the bridge, watching the smash, orange, as they hit below, We were standing underneath when you told it. People do that with themselves when they are finished, light scooped out. He landed here, you said, marking it with your foot.You wouldn't do it that way, empty, you wouldn't wait, you would jump with the light still in you.

You cynical shit," he told himself. Then he started to weep."Don't be so fucking sentimental," Crake used to tell him. But why not? Why shouldn't he be sentimental? It wasn't as if there was anyone around to question his

I and the girl in the picture have ceased to be the same person. I am her outcome, the result of the life she once lived headlong; whereas she, if she can be said to exist at all, is composed only of what I remember. I have the better view - I can see her clearly, most of the time. But even if she knew enough to look, she can't see me at all.

you can't change the past,Aunt Lou used to say.Oh, but I wanted to;that was the one thing I really wanted to do