Margaret Atwood Lines Quotations

Why is it he feels some line has been crossed, some boundary transgressed? How much is too much, how far is too far?

Like many modern poets, I tend to conceal rhymes by placing them in the middle of lines, and to avoid immediate alliteration and assonance in favor of echoes placed later in the poems.

Confronted by too much emptiness ... the brain invents. Loneliness creates company as thirst creates water. How many sailors have been wrecked in pursuit of islands that were merely a shimmering?

Write down the thoughts and even more, write down a specific line. If you don't, it'll fly away forever.

Don't be married to a line or verse if it can't rhyme, fit the meter, or doesn't fit the outline.

Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling the artists, because they're a mouthy lot and they don't line up and salute very easily.