Author: Margaret Atwood

Cites

• Homer (2)
  • IN: The Penelopiad (2006) Re-visionary fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: “. . . he took a cable which had been service on a blue-bowed ship, made one end fast to a high column in the portico, and threw the other over the round-house, high up, so that their feet would not touch the ground. As when long-winged thrushes or doves get entangled in a snare . . . so the women's heads were held fast in a row, with nooses round their necks, to bring them to the most pitiable end. For a little while their feet twitched, but not for very long.”
    FROM: The Odyssey, (-750), Poem, Greece
• Bible (1)
  • IN: The Handmaid's Tale (1998) Utopian and Dystopian Fiction, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: "And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. / And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel; and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? / And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her."
    FROM: Bible, Genesis 30:1-24 (King James Version), (-165), Bible, NULL
• Jonathan Swift (1)
  • IN: The Handmaid's Tale (1998) Utopian and Dystopian Fiction, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: "But as to myself, having been wearied out for many years with offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length utterly despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this proposal... "
    FROM: A Modest Proposal, (1729), Essay, Ireland
• NULL (3)
  • IN: The Handmaid's Tale (1998) Utopian and Dystopian Fiction, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: "In the desert there is no sign that says, Thou shalt not eat stones. "
    FROM: Sufi Proverb, (None), Proverb, NULL
  • IN: The Blind Assassin (2000) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: I swam, the sea was boundless, I saw no shore. Tanit was merciless, my prayers were answerd. O you who drown in love, remember me.
    FROM: Inscription on a Carthaginian Funerary Urn, (1919), NULL, Ancient Carthage
  • IN: The Year of the Flood (2009) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: THE GARDEN Who is it tends the Garden, The Garden oh so green? ’Twas once the finest Garden That ever has been seen. And in it God’s dear Creatures Did swim and fly and play; But then came greedy Spoilers, And killed them all away. And all the Trees that flourished And gave us wholesome fruit, By waves of sand are buried, Both leaf and branch and root. And all the shining Water Is turned to slime and mire, And all the feathered Birds so bright Have ceased their joyful choir. Oh Garden, oh my Garden, I’ll mourn forevermore Until the Gardeners arise, And you to Life restore.
    FROM: From The God’s Gardeners Oral Hymn book, (2009), Book, NULL
• John Berger (2)
  • IN: Bodily Harm (1981) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: A man's presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. By contrast, a woman's presence... defines what can and cannot be done to her.
    FROM: Ways of Seeing, (1972), Book, UK
• Ryszard Kapuściński (1)
  • IN: The Blind Assassin (2000) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: Imagine the monarch Agha Mohammed Khan, who orders the entire population of the city of Kerman murdered or blinded - no exceptions. His praetorians set energetically to work. They line up the inhabitants, slice of the heads of the adults, gouge out the eyes of the children... Later, processions of blinded children leave the city. Some, wandering around in the countryside, lose their way in the desert and die of thirst. Other groups reach inhabited settlements... singing songs about the extermination of the citizens of Kerman...
    FROM: Shah of Shahs, (1982), Book, Poland
• Sheila Watson (1)
  • IN: The Blind Assassin (2000) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: The word is a flame burning in a dark glass.
    FROM: Deep Hollow Creek, (1992), Novel, Canadian
• William Morris (1)
  • IN: Alias Grace (1996) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: Whatever may have happened through these years, God knows I speak truth, saying that you lie.
    FROM: The Defence of Guenevere, (1858), Poem, UK
• Emily Dickinson (1)
  • IN: Alias Grace (1996) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: I have no Tribunal.
    FROM: Letters, (1958), Letter, US
• Eugene Marais (1)
  • IN: Alias Grace (1996) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: I cannot tell you what the light is, but I can tell you what it is not... What is the motive of the light? What is the light?
    FROM: The Soul of the White Ant, (1936), Book, South Africa
• Virginia Woolf (1)
  • IN: Oryx and Crake (2003) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: Was there no safety? No learning by heart of the ways of the world? No guide, no shelter, but all was miracle and leaping from the pinnacle of a tower into the air?
    FROM: To the Lighthouse, (1927), Novel, UK
• Bjorn Kurten (2)
  • IN: Life Before Man (1980) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: Instead of a part of the organism itself, the fossil may be some kind of record of its presence, such as a fossilised track or brrow,,, These fossils give us our only chance to see the extinct animals in action and to study their behavior, though definite identification is only possible where the animal has dropped dead in its tracks and become fossilized on the spot.
    FROM: The Age of the Dinosaurs, (1968), Book, Finland
• Abram Tertz (2)
  • IN: Life Before Man (1980) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: Look, I'm smiling at you, I'm smiling at you, I'm smiling through you. How can I be dead if I breathe in every quiver of your hand?
    FROM: The Icicle, (1963), Book, Russia
• Ovid (1)
  • IN: The Heart Goes Last (2015) Fiction, Dystopia, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: ... with wonderful craftmanship he sculpted a gleaming white ivory statue.... It appeared to be a real living girl poised on the brink of motion but modestly holding back - so artfully did his artistry conceal itself.. he kissed her, convinced himself that she kissed him back, spoke to her, embraced her...
    FROM: Pygmalion and Galatea, Book X Metamorphoses, (8), Book, Italy
• Adam Frucci (1)
  • IN: The Heart Goes Last (2015) Fiction, Dystopia, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: When it gets down to it, these things just don't feel right. They're made of a rubbery material that feels absolutely nothing like anything resembling a human body part. They try to make up for that by instructing you to soak them in warm water first and then using a shitload of lube..
    FROM: I had Sex with Furniture, Gizmodo, 10/17/09, (2009), Article, US
• Shakespeare (1)
  • IN: The Heart Goes Last (2015) Fiction, Dystopia, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends
    FROM: A Midsummer's Night Dream, (1600), Play, UK
• Jessamyn West (1)
  • IN: The Robber Bride (1993) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: A rattlesnake that doesn’t bite teaches you nothing.
    FROM: The Life I Really Lived, (1979), Novel, US
• Günter Grass (1)
  • IN: The Robber Bride (1993) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Only what is entirely lost demands to be endlessly named: there is a mania to call the lost thing until it returns.
    FROM: NULL, (None), Novel, Germany
• Oscar Wilde (1)
  • IN: The Robber Bride (1993) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, Ireland
• I. S. Rombauer and M. R. Becker (1)
  • IN: The Edible Woman (1969) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The surface on which you work (preferably marble), the tools, the ingredients and your fingers should be chilled throughout the operation…
    FROM: Recipe for Puff Pastry in I. S. Rombauer and M. R. Becker, The Joy of Cooking., (1931), Book, US
• Eduardo Galeano (1)
  • IN: Cat's Eye (1988) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: When the Tukanas cut off her head, the old woman collected her own blood in her hands and blew it towards the sun. “My soul enters you, too!” she shouted. Since then anyone who kills receives in his body, without wanting or knowing it, the soul of his victim.
    FROM: Memory of Fire: Genesis, (1987), Book, Uruguayan
• Stephen W Hawking (1)
  • IN: Cat's Eye (1988) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Why do we remember the past, and not the future?
    FROM: A Brief History of Time, (1988), Book, UK
• (Sir) Bacon, Francis (1)
  • IN: Hag-Seed (2016) Psychological Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: This is certain, that a man the studies revenge, keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal, and do well.
    FROM: "On Revenge", (1625), Essay, UK
• Charles Dickens (1)
  • IN: Hag-Seed (2016) Psychological Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: … although there are nice people on the stage, there are some who would make your hair stand on end.
    FROM: Conversation with his daughter, Katey, (1870), Coversation, UK
• Bysshe Shelley, Percy (1)
  • IN: Hag-Seed (2016) Psychological Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: Other flowering isles must be In the sea of Life and Agony: Other spirits float and flee O’er that gulf...
    FROM: “Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills”, (1818), Poem, UK

Cited by

• Aditi Khorana (1)
  • IN: Mirror in the Sky (2016) Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Should is a futile word. It's about what didn't happen. It belongs in a parallel universe. It belongs in another dimension of space.
    FROM: The Blind Assassin, (2000), Novel, US
• Nova Ren Suma (1)
  • IN: The Walls Around Us (2015) Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.
    FROM: The Handmaid's Tale, (1985), Novel, Canada
• Courtney Sullivan (1)
  • IN: Saints for all Occasions (2017) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: I exist in two places, here and where you are.
    FROM: Corpse Song, (1974), Poem, Canada
• Robert Repino (1)
  • IN: Mort(e) (2015) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: God is love, they once said, but we reserved that...
    FROM: The Handmaid's Tale, (1985), Novel, Canada
• Nami Mun (1)
  • IN: Miles from Nowhere (2009) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: To see clearly and without flinching, without turning away, this is agony, the eyes taped open two inches from the sun.
    FROM: Notes towards a poem that can never be written, (1981), [NA], Canada
• Ofir Touché Gafla (1)
  • IN: The World of the End (2004) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: Every ending is arbitrary, because the end is where you write The end. A period, a dot of punctuation, a point of stasis. A pinprick in the paper: you could put your eye to it and see through, to the other side, to the beginning of something else.
    FROM: The Robber Bride, (1993), Novel, Canada
• Mona Awad (1)
  • IN: 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl (2016) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: There was always that shadowy twin, thin when I was fat, fat when I was thin, myself in silvery negative, with dark teeth and shining white pupils glowing in the black sunlight of that other world.
    FROM: Lady Oracle, (1976), Novel, Canada
• Anna Carey (1)
  • IN: Eve (None) Fiction, Irish
    EPIGRAPH: Maybe I really don't want to know what's going on. Maybe I'd rather not know. Maybe I couldn't bear to know. The Fall was a fall from innocence to knowldge.
    FROM: The Handmaid's Tale, (1985), Novel, Canada
• Cornelia Funke (1)
  • IN: Inkspell (2005) Fiction, Young Adult, German
    EPIGRAPH: He has been trying to sing Love into existence again And he has failed
    FROM: "Orpheus 2", Eating Fire, (1998), Poem, Canada
• Minette Walters (1)
  • IN: The Shape of Snakes (2001) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: Unhappiness has a habit of being passed around.
    FROM: BBc Radio 4's Book Club, (1999), NULL, Canada