Margaret Atwood Quotes About Art

Quotes about: Art

• As an artist your first loyalty is to your art. Unless this is the case, you're going to be a second-rate artist.

  Margaret Atwood

  Loyalty, Art, Firsts

  Interview with Marilyn Berlin Snell, www.motherjones.com. July, 1997.

• When any civilization is dust and ashes," he said, "art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.

  Margaret Atwood

  Art, Dust, Civilization

  Margaret Atwood (2004). “Oryx and Crake”, p.167, Anchor

• When faced with the inevitable, you always have a choice... As I learned during my liberal arts education, any symbol can have, in the imaginative context, two versions, a positive and a negative... If you spill your milk you're left with a glass which is either half empty or half full... You may not be able to alter reality, but you can alter your attitude towards it, and this, paradoxically, alters reality. Try it and see.

  Margaret Atwood

  Inspirational, Graduation, Art

  "Attitude". Margaret Atwood's commencement address at the University of Toronto, Canada, www.humanity.org. June 14, 1983.

• Popular art is the dream of society; it does not examine itself.

  Margaret Atwood

  Dream, Art, Society

  Margaret Atwood (2006). “Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood”

• The male frog in mating season," said Crake, "makes as much noise as it can. The females are attracted to the male frog with the biggest, deepest voice because it suggests a more powerful frog, one with superior genes. Small male frogs—it's been documented—discover if they position themselves in empty drainpipes, the pipe acts as a voice amplifier and the small frog appears much larger than it really is." So?" So that's what art is for the artist, an empty drainpipe. An amplifier. A stab at getting laid.

  Margaret Atwood

  Art, Powerful, Voice

  Margaret Atwood (2004). “Oryx and Crake”, p.168, Anchor

• The cemetery has ... an inscription: 'Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death I will Fear No Evil, For Thou Art With Me.' Yes, it does feel deceptively safer with two; but Thou is a slippery character. Every Thou I've known has had a way of going missing.

  Margaret Atwood

  Art, Character, Two

  Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.44, Anchor

• So that’s what art is, for the artist,” said Crake. “An empty drainpipe. An amplifier. A stab at getting laid.

  Margaret Atwood

  Art, Empty, Said

  Margaret Atwood (2004). “Oryx and Crake”, p.168, Anchor

• The heart with letters on it shining like a light bulb through the trim hole painted in the chest, art history.

  Margaret Atwood

  Art, Light, Shining

  Margaret Atwood (2012). “Surfacing”, p.43, Simon and Schuster

• There's nothing like drawing a thing to make you really see it.

  Margaret Atwood

  Art, Drawing

  Margaret Atwood (2014). “The MaddAddam Trilogy Bundle: The Year of the Flood; Oryx & Crake; MaddAddam”, p.526, Anchor

• art happens. It happens when you have the craft and the vocation and are waiting for something else, something extra, or maybe not waiting; in any case it happens. It's the extra rabbit coming out of the hat, the one you didn't put there.

  Margaret Atwood

  Art, Waiting, Crafts

  Margaret Atwood (1984). “Second words: selected critical prose”, Beacon Press, 1984

• The characters [of The Tempest] have always been favorites of mine. It is one of his meditations on art - what it does.

  Margaret Atwood

  Art, Character, Meditation

• As an artist your first loyalty is to your art. Unless this is the case, you're going to be a second-rate artist. I don't mean there's never any overlap. You learn things in one area and bring them into another area. But giving a speech against racism is not the same as writing a novel. The object is very clear in the fight against racism; you have reasons why you're opposed to it. But when you're writing a novel, you don't want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that. Reality simply consists of different points of view.

  Margaret Atwood

  Loyalty, Art, Writing

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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