Margaret Atwood citáty

„V určitém okamžiku se musel můj krk nějak uzavřít, jako když zamrzne rybník nebo se zacelí rána, a já jsem zůstala uvězněná ve své hlavě; od té chvíle se ode mě všechno odráželo, jako bych byla uvnitř nějaké skleněné vázy nebo procházela vesnicí, jejíž obyvatele sice vidím, ale neslyším, protože jim nerozumím. Stěny lahve zkreslují obraz i vnějšímu pozorovateli: žába ve sklenici vypadá široká; když se na mě dívali, musela jsem jim připadat směšná.“

—  Margaret Atwood, kniha Z hlubin

Surfacing

„Žijte v přítomnosti, co nejvíc ji využívejte, nic jiného nemáte.“

—  Margaret Atwood, kniha Příběh služebnice

„Když jste mladí, myslíte si, že to, co děláte, můžete hodit za hlavu. Pohybujete se od teď do teď, mačkáte čas ve svých rukou, odhazujete to. Jste auto s vlastní rychlostí. Myslíte, že se můžete zbavit věcí i lidí - nechat je za sebou. Ještě nevíte, že mají ve zvyku se vracet.“

—  Margaret Atwood, kniha Slepý vrah

„Pokud je národní duševní nemocí Spojených států megalomanie, v Kanadě je to paranoidní schizofrenie.“

—  Margaret Atwood

[(en) If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia.]
(v doslovu sbírky The Journals of Susanna Moodie z roku 1970)
Zdroj: [Wilson, Sharon Rose, Margaret Atwood's textual assassinations: recent poetry and fiction, Svazek 1, Ohio State University Press, 2003, 978-0-81420-929-5, 16, anglicky]

„Moje seznámení s náboženstvím proběhlo způsobem, jakým se většina dětí v té době seznamovala se sexem, ne na ulici, ale na betonovém školním dvoře se štěrkovými cestičkami, během zimních měsíců, kdy jsem chodila do školy. Děti tu postávaly ve skupinkách, držely se za ruce v palčácích a špitaly si. Strašily mě líčením, že na nebi je nějaký mrtvý stařec, který vidí všechno, co dělám, a já jsem se jim pomstila tím, že jsem jim řekla, jak se rodí miminka. Některé matky pak telefonovaly mojí matce a stěžovaly si na mě, ale já jsem přesvědčená, že mě jejich děti vyděsily víc než já je: ony mi nevěřily, zato já jim ano.“

—  Margaret Atwood, kniha Z hlubin

Surfacing

„Come away with me, he said, we will live on a desert island. I said, I am a desert island. It was not what he had in mind.“

—  Margaret Atwood

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

—  Margaret Atwood, kniha Z hlubin

Zdroj: Surfacing

„A word after a word after a word is power.“

—  Margaret Atwood

„Then sail, my fine lady, on the billowing wave -
The water below is as dark as the grave,
And maybe you'll sink in your little blue boat -
It's hope, and hope only, that keeps us afloat“

—  Margaret Atwood, kniha The Penelopiad

Zdroj: The Penelopiad

„My trade is courage and atrocities.
I look at them and do not condemn.
I write things down the way they happened,
as near as can be remembered.
I don’t ask why, because it is mostly the same.
Wars happen because the ones who start them
think they can win.“

—  Margaret Atwood, kniha Morning in the Burned House

Morning in the Burned House (1995), The Loneliness of the Military Historian
Kontext: Instead of this, I tell
what I hope will pass as truth.
A blunt thing, not lovely.
The truth is seldom welcome,
especially at dinner,
though I am good at what I do.
My trade is courage and atrocities.
I look at them and do not condemn.
I write things down the way they happened,
as near as can be remembered.
I don’t ask why, because it is mostly the same.
Wars happen because the ones who start them
think they can win.

„After a year or two of keeping my head down and trying to pass myself off as a normal person, I made contact with the five other people at my university who were interested in writing“

—  Margaret Atwood

On Writing Poetry (1995)
Kontext: After a year or two of keeping my head down and trying to pass myself off as a normal person, I made contact with the five other people at my university who were interested in writing; and through them, and some of my teachers, I discovered that there was a whole subterranean Wonderland of Canadian writing that was going on just out of general earshot and sight

„We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.“

—  Margaret Atwood

„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, kniha Příběh služebnice

Zdroj: The Handmaid's Tale

„Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.“

—  Margaret Atwood

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

—  Margaret Atwood

„War is what happens when language fails.“

—  Margaret Atwood, kniha The Robber Bride

The Robber Bride (1993), Ch. 6

„I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.“

—  Margaret Atwood

„Do not let the bastards grind you down.“

—  Margaret Atwood, kniha Příběh služebnice

Originál: (la) Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.
Varianta: Do not let the bastards grind you down.
Zdroj: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 9 (p. 52)
Zdroj: The Handmaid's Tale

„Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.“

—  Margaret Atwood

Kontext: "Why do men feel threatened by women?" I asked a male friend of mine. (I love that wonderful rhetorical device, "a male friend of mine." It's often used by female journalists when they want to say something particularly bitchy but don't want to be held responsible for it themselves. It also lets people know that you do have male friends, that you aren't one of those fire-breathing mythical monsters, The Radical Feminists, who walk around with little pairs of scissors and kick men in the shins if they open doors for you. "A male friend of mine" also gives — let us admit it — a certain weight to the opinions expressed.) So this male friend of mine, who does by the way exist, conveniently entered into the following dialogue. "I mean," I said, "men are bigger, most of the time, they can run faster, strangle better, and they have on the average a lot more money and power." "They're afraid women will laugh at them," he said. "Undercut their world view." Then I asked some women students in a quickie poetry seminar I was giving, "Why do women feel threatened by men?" "They're afraid of being killed," they said.