If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go; but itโs not easy being quiet and good, itโs like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when youโve already fallen over; you donโt seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength.
Margaret AtwoodI spent much of my childhood in northern Quebec, and often there was no radio, no television - there wasn't a lot to entertain us. When it rained, I stayed inside reading, writing, drawing.
Margaret AtwoodI began writing at the age of 5, but there was a dark period between the ages of 8 and 16 when I didn't write. I started again at 16. And have no idea why, but it was suddenly the only thing I wanted to do.
Margaret AtwoodBooks are frozen voices, in the same way that musical scores are frozen music. The score is a way of transmitting the music to someone who can play it, releasing it into the air where it can once more be heard. And the black alphabet marks on the page represent words that were once spoken, if only in the writer's head. They lie there inert until a reader comes along and transforms the letters into living sounds. The reader is the musician of the book: each reader may read the same text, just as each violinist plays the same piece, but each interpretation is different.
Margaret Atwood