Margaret Quotes & Sayings

I want here to make three suggestions: first, that the doubts the ordinary man feels about religion are justified, and need not be stifled or concealed; second, that there is no ground for the view that Christianity is the only alternative to communism, or that there can be no sound character training that is not based on religion; and, third, I want to make some practical suggestions to the parents who are not believers, on what they should tell the children about God, and what sort of moral training they should give them. — Margaret E. Knight

That's what you get for being food. — Margaret Atwood

And though I might have learnt more wit and advanced my understanding by living in a Court, yet being dull, fearful and bashful, I neither heeded what was said or practised, but just what belonged to my loyal duty and my own honest reputation. — Margaret Cavendish

I'm a refugee from the past, and like other refugees I go over the customs and habits of being I've left or been forced to leave behind me, and it all seems just as quaint, from here, and I am just as obsessive about it. — Margaret Atwood

The only antidote to the unnerving effects of such incoherence is integrity. People and organizations with integrity are wholly themselves. No aspect of self stands different or apart. At their center is clarity, not conflict. When they go inside to find themselves, there is only one self there. — Margaret Wheatley

A man is just a woman's strategy for making other women. — Margaret Atwood

A thinking partner who isn't an echo chamber ... How many of us dare to have such collaborators? — Margaret Heffernan

It's better to be crazy on one point and happy, than sane on all points and unhappy. — Margaret Deland

This lady is not for turning. — Margaret Thatcher

Everyone needs to remember that Ebola was not a worst-case scenario. Preparedness for the future means preparedness for a very severe disease that spreads via the airborne route or can be transmitted during the incubation period, before an infected person shows telltale signs of illness. — Margaret Chan

She longs for tonight, she longs to skip the day that's just begun and plunge headlong into the night as if into a pool; a pool with the moon reflected in it. She longs to swim in liquid moonlight. — Margaret Atwood

In the past, it was easier to believe in my own effectiveness. If I worked hard, with good colleagues and good ideas, we could make a difference. But now, I sincerely doubt that. — Margaret J. Wheatley

She had a fierce pleasure in the idea of telling Margaret unwelcome truths, in the shape of performance of duty. — Elizabeth Gaskell

She's not extravagant or greedy, she tells herself: all she ever wanted was to be protected by layer upon layer of kind, soft, insulating money, so that nobody and nothing could get close enough to harm her. — Margaret Atwood

Old lovers go the way of old photographs, bleaching out gradually as in a slow bath of acid: first the moles and pimples, then the shadings. Then the faces themselves, until nothing remains but the general outlines. — Margaret Atwood

I don't have children, and I am not sure if I have wanted them or never wanted them. It's weird not to be able to decide. — Margaret Cho

if the teenage kids want to carouse, that's where they do it. They make bonfires, and drink too much and smoke dope, and grope around in one another's clothing as if they've just invented it, and smash their parents cars up on the way back to town. — Margaret Atwood

Amanda says if there's something you really want, you can figure out a way to get it. She says being discouraged is a waste of time. I — Margaret Atwood

But the adjectives change," said Jimmy. "Nothing's worse than last year's adjectives. — Margaret Atwood

Coffee has ... expand[ed] humanity's working-day from twelve to a potential twenty-four hours. The tempo, the complexity, the tension of modern life, call for something that can perform the miracle of stimulating brain activity, without evil, habit-forming after-effects. — Margaret Meagher

People were always saying to Margaret, 'Well, Julia sings and Betsy writes. Now what is little Margaret going to do?' Margaret would smile politely, for she was very polite, but privately she stormed to Betsy with flashing eyes, 'I'm not going to do anything. I want to just live. Can't people just live? — Maud Hart Lovelace

Only the dreamer shall understand realities, though in truth his dreaming must be not out of proportion to his waking. — Margaret Fuller

Why, my goodness, honey. After looking at all those pictures of seraphic and perspirationless babes for so long in the privacy of a foxhole, what is a poor doughfoot going to do when he comes home and discovers that American women are, after all, biological and given, under stress, to shiny noses? — Margaret Mitchell

I try to conjure, to raise my own spirits, from wherever they are. I need to remember what they look like. I try to hold them still behind my eyes, their faces, like pictures in an album. But they won't stay still for me, they move, there's a smile and it's gone, their features curl and bend as if the paper's burning, blackness eats them. A glimpse, a pale shimmer on the air; a glow, aurora, dance of electrons, then a face again, faces. But they fade, though I stretch out my arms towards them, they slip away from me, ghosts at daybreak. Back to wherever they are. — Margaret Atwood

If you're a songwriter, you want to write a song like "Oh Yeah" that radically shifts everything. You can definitely retire on that song. You want to have something you can put in your songbook that everybody can recognize, whether it's a good or bad thing. — Margaret Cho

Don't be a goose! — Margaret Mitchell

Short forms are returning online. Interactivity is coming back; it was always there in oral storytelling. — Margaret Atwood

I don't visit my parents often because Delta Airlines won't wait in the yard while I run in. — Margaret Smith

If a woman like Eva Peron with no ideals can get that far, think how far I can go with the ideals that I have. — Margaret Thatcher

God gave unto the Animals A wisdom past our power to see: Each knows innately how to live, Which we must learn laboriously. — Margaret Atwood

There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty. — Margaret Thatcher

As a devout Baptist, she believed it was a sin to pray for anything for yourself. You ought to pray only for strength to bear whatever the Lord saw fit to send you, she thought. I was never able to follow this advice, for although I would often feel a sense of uneasiness over the tone of my prayers, I was the kind of person who prayed frantically-Please, God, please, please, PLEASE let Ross MacVey like me better than Mavis. — Margaret Laurence

I think, to give our bookshelf a little credit, our area of the library and the bookstore has attracted stronger writers as it's started to thrive. — Margaret Stohl

Sucked into the well of knowledge, you could only plummet, learning more and more, but not getting any happier. — Margaret Atwood

My hands are out of practice, my eyes disused. Most of what I do is drawing, because the preparation of the surface, the laborious underpainting and detailed concentration ... are too much for me. I have lost confidence: perhaps all I will ever be is what I am now. — Margaret Atwood

Business success isn't just a selfish aim. Profits spread beyond those who make them and bring jobs and prosperity. — Margaret Thatcher

The happiest days are when babies come. — Margaret Mitchell

Phones and soundtracks and Muzak and fountains replace genuine and unpredictable human contact with a seamless soundtrack from a bad movie and a cliche that makes us believe we must all be happy. — Margaret Heffernan

I mean, what's great about touring is that's what you do. You're in a constant state of motion and then you stop to do a show and you move onto the next city. All you have to do is do the show. That's the only responsibility that you have. — Margaret Cho

The middle years, caught between children and parents, free of neither: the past stretches back too densely, it is too thickly populated, the future has not yet thinned out. — Margaret Drabble

A hot wind was blowing around my head, the strands of my hair lifting and swirling in it, like ink spilled in water. — Margaret Atwood

I tend to feel if people say they're going to do something, they will, if given the chance. — Margaret Atwood

A love so strong, you can't tell where you end and the other person begins. — Margaret Stohl

The subliterary fiction she was churning out was many decades away from being in any way respectable. There was a small group that confessed to reading The Lord of the Rings, though you had to justify it through an interest in Old Norse. — Margaret Atwood

People change, though, especially after they are dead. — Margaret Atwood

They might play Extinctathon, or one of the others. Three-Dimensional Waco, Barbarian Stomp, Kwiktime Osama. They all used parallel strategies: you had to see where you were headed before you got there, but — Margaret Atwood

The way I teach people to sing ... I have them talk the lyric out until it sounds like something they really believe, like an actor with a monologue. — Margaret Whiting

All banks should be under government control. Deposits guaranteed, dividends reduced, officials turned into state servants taking their orders from Washington ... — Margaret Ayer Barnes

My former bullies pay extra to come backstage and meet me after shows, and I pretend not to know them in front of their friends. It is the most divine pleasure to exact the revenge of the brutalized child that resides within. — Margaret Cho

Baby smuggling is a serious crime,' he said. 'There were thirty-six babies on that plane. We could charge you with thirty-six counts of kidnapping.'
That, at least, got Second to look back at Mr. Reardon.
'Does FBI mean Federal Bureau of Idiots?' he asked. 'If any of you were any good at analyzing footprints, you would know that I fell when I was trying to sneak into the airport grounds, not out.'
'And why would you do that?' Mr. Reardon asked, hunching forward over a notepad.
'It was a dare, all right?' Second snarled. 'I was with my friends and we were talking about what it would be like to stand on a runway when a plane was landing and ... we decided to try it out.'
'That's a crime too,' Mr. Reardon said.
Second shrugged. 'It ain't thirty-six counts of kidnapping,' he said. — Margaret Peterson Haddix

You're so brutal to those who love you, Scarlett. You take their love and hold it over their heads like a whip. — Margaret Mitchell

We are glad you have been ordained as the first priest of your people. Now you can help us with their problem.' Tagoona asked, 'What is a problem?' and the white man said, 'Tagoona, if I held you by your heels from a third-story window, you would have a problem.' Tagoona considered this long and carefully. Then he said, 'I do not think so. If you saved me, all would be well. If you dropped me, nothing would matter. It is you who would have the problem. — Margaret Craven

Darkness does not leave us easily as we would hope. — Margaret Stohl

Don't let anyone else take the measure of your worth and capabilities.
Always stand proud in who you are! — Margaret Spellings

Nature is full for us of seeming inconsistencies and glad surprises. — Margaret E. Barber

Lawyers make their cake by cooking up other people's troubles. — Margaret Deland

Marxists get up early to further their cause. We must get up even earlier to defend our freedom. — Margaret Thatcher

Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last — Margaret Atwood

Acting in the movies is just like ditch-digging — Margaret Sullavan

I, personally, have found reading a continual support to writing. — Margaret Mahy

If you can't stop the waves, go sailing. — Margaret Atwood

The Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly said that America is not at war with Islam. And Republicans need to be vocal about condemning anyone, in America or abroad, who seeks to lump all Muslims together as America's enemies. America is not at war with Islam, and Republicans must continue to follow President Bush's example in condemning any expressions of prejudice against Muslims. — Margaret Hoover

This could be a college guest room, for the less distinguished visitors; or a room in a rooming house, of former times, for ladies in reduced circumstances. That is what we are now. The circumstances have been reduced; for those of us who still have circumstances. — Margaret Atwood

When you've spent half your political life dealing with humdrum issues like the environment, it's exciting to have a real crisis on your hands. — Margaret Thatcher

It is a noteworthy fact that not one of the women to whom I have spoken so far believes in abortion as a practice; but it is principle for which they are standing. They also believe that the complete abolition of the abortion law will shortly do away with abortions, as nothing else will. — Margaret Sanger

And she finds it difficult to believe - that a person would love her even when she isn't trying. Trying to figure out what other people need, trying to be worthy. — Margaret Atwood

They were always like two people talking to each other in different languages. But she loved him so much, when he withdrew as he had now done, it was like the warm sun going down and leaving her in chilly twilight dews. — Margaret Mitchell

Wide awake to the presence of God, I realized I had been so focused on asking why a good God allowed bad things to happen that I was missing out on the nearness of God all along. In becoming preoccupied with the why, I was missing the who. — Margaret Feinberg

An unearned income encourages self-pity in those already prone to it. The — Margaret Atwood

But I want to be loved. I have always been loved. I want my husband to love me with a passion, like in a troubadour tale, like a knight. — Philippa Gregory

There was no going back and she was going forward. — Margaret Mitchell

The act of making a photograph is less a question of what is being looked at than how. — Margaret Atwood

We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it. Nothing — Margaret Atwood

Histories of the Kennedy Space Center acknowledge without exaggeration that the obstacle posed by the mosquitoes was so serious that NASA quite literally could not have put a man on the moon by Kennedy's "before the decade is out" deadline without the invention of DDT. In this way, the challenges of spaceflight reveal themselves to be distinctly terrestrial. — Margaret Lazarus Dean

He can't shake the feeling that this place is some sort of pyramid scheme, and that those who fail to understand that will be left empty-handed. But there's no obvious reason for this feeling of his. Maybe he's ungrateful by nature. — Margaret Atwood

Of course it's the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story. — Margaret Thatcher

The middle of life is the testing-ground of character and strength. — Margaret Oliphant

All of us who grew up before World War II are immigrants in time, immigrants from an earlier world, living in an age essentially different from anything we knew before. — Margaret Mead

All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic preparedness plans. Countries should remain on high alert for unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness and severe pneumonia. — Margaret Chan

Started out, Funny, sexy, zaftig Margaret Cho ... What is zaftig? Isn't that German for big fat pig? I guess I was lucky- zaftig is kind of a nice word. It could have been, Funny, sexy, OBESE Margaret Cho. — Margaret Cho

The critic ... should be not merely a poet, not merely a philosopher, not merely an observer, but tempered of all three. — Margaret Fuller

Sometimes you do your very best and you lose anyway. — Margaret Peterson Haddix

Here's a health to our Captain, so gallant and free
Whether stuck on a rock or asleep 'neath a tree
Or rolled in the arms of some nymph of the sea
Which is where we would all like to be, man! — Margaret Atwood

?When a person is born we rejoice, and when they're married we jubilate, but when they die we try to pretend nothing has happened. — Margaret Mead

Religions in general have to rediscover their roots. In Hinduism and the Koran, animals are described as equals. If you walk into a cathedral and look at the decorations of early Christianity, there are vines, animals, creatures and birds thriving all over the stonework. — Margaret Atwood

One look at a banana and you can tell it came from outer space. — Margaret Atwood

Public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation. — Margaret Chase Smith

Red all over the cupboard, mirth rhymes with birth, oh to die of laughter. — Margaret Atwood

Glenn used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, 'I'll be dead,' you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's how people got the idea of the immortality of the soul - it was a consequence of grammar. — Margaret Atwood

I can tell you're admiring my febrility. I know it's appealing, I practice at it; every woman loves an invalid. But be careful. You might do something destructive: hunger is more basic than love. Florence Nightingale was a cannibal you know. — Margaret Atwood

Jimmy suspected him of wanting to make Grandmaster, not because it meant anything but just because it was there. — Margaret Atwood

Some time in our lives every man and woman of us, putting out our hands toward the stars, touch on either side our prison walls the immutable limitations of temperament — Margaret Deland

I need to feel physical pain, to attach myself to daily life. — Margaret Atwood

Broadly speaking, nervous women may be divided into two classes - those who are really nervous, and those who imagine themselves to be so. — Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

Forget that I'm a woman. Forget the accusations that I am a Right Winger demanding privilege - I had precious little privilege in my early years. — Margaret Thatcher

Maybe the human species has evolved too far, maybe we all move around too much, too pointlessly, and consciousness will implode upon itself. — Margaret Drabble

It's like I'd been walking a tightrope with a big safety net underneath me, but I never really thought about the net until someone took it away. And then every single step scared me to death. — Margaret Peterson Haddix

But it's love that does us in. — Margaret Atwood

Heart of my heart, bone of my bone, spirit of my spirt, we cannot be held. — Margaret George

You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave — Margaret Atwood