Quote of the Day (Margaret Atwood, on ‘The Collective Memory’)

“The collective memory is notoriously faulty, and much of the past sinks into the ocean of time to be drowned forever; but once in a while the waters part, allowing us to glimpse a flash of hidden treasure, if only for a moment.” —Canadian novelist, poet and essayist Margaret Atwood, The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaid's Tale (2019)

Quote of the Day (Margaret Atwood, on Hope as ‘Part of the Human Tool Kit’)

“Hope is part of the human tool kit. We need it to go on in the face of negative odds. I’m probably an inherently hopeful person. If I weren't, why would I write? Think how much hope is involved! You hope your book will be good. You hope you will finish it. You hope it will be published. You hope the perfect reader will come across it, and find all the breadcrumbs you've dropped in the forest, and also find some meaning or delight in them. That's a lot of hope.” —Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood, “Margaret Atwood on the Wages of Whining” (part of the “Sane Advice for Crazy Times” article cluster), Esquire, October 2018

Quote of the Day (Margaret Atwood, on the Survival of the Book)

“Every prediction—radio would kill books, it didn’t; television would kill movies, it didn’t; e-reading will kill books, it hasn’t—these predictions have all been wrong. You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.”—Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood quoted in Lily Rothman, “Margaret Atwood on Serial Fiction and the Future of the Book,” Time, Oct. 8, 2012

Quote of the Day (Margaret Atwood, With a Rule for Writing Fiction)

“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, with her seventh rule for writing fiction, in “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian, February 20, 2010