Margaret Atwood Quotes

For the whole earth is the tomb of famous men; not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions in their own country, but in foreign lands there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men.

I think all creative people are operating from the fear that, of the best of what they did, will anybody remember it? Will anybody tell stories about them? Will anybody keep those pictures on the mantle long after they are gone? It's why people write stories. It's peoples' grave markers.

Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?

Fame or infamy, either one is preferable to being forgotten when you have passed from this realm.

From famous artists to building contractors, we all want to leave our signature. Our lasting effect. Your life after death. We all want to explain ourselves. Nobody wants to be forgotten.

that as long as we are being remembered, we remain alive.

The second death. To think that you died and no one would remember you. I wondered if this was why we tried so hard to make our mark in America. To be known. Think of how important celebrity has become. We sing to get famous; expose our worst secrets to get famous; lose weight, eat bugs, even commit murder to get famous. Our young people post their deepest thoughts on public web sites. They run cameras from their bedrooms. It’s as if we are screaming Notice Me! Remember Me! Yet the notoriety barely lasts. Names quickly blur and in time are forgotten.

Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

The living carry us inside them like pearls. We survive only so long as they remember us.

I suppose that every one of us hopes secretly for immortality; to leave, I mean, a name behind him which will live forever in this world, whatever he may be doing, himself, in the next.

It's not whether you win or lose, it's how many people remember you when you die.

Age makes all things greater after their death; a name comes to the tongue easier from the grave.

Of present fame think little, and of future less; the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the flowers that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead.

The last thing I want is to die and then be put into the Hall of Fame. It's not because I won't be there to enjoy it, exactly. It's because I want to enjoy it with family and friends and fans. I want to see them enjoy it.

I want to go down in history.

Our deaths become a part of our lives in the sense that with our deaths we give something to those who are left behind, as we have given our lives to them.

Great lives never go out; they go on.

What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.

Actors have bodyguards and entourages not because anybody wants to hurt them - who would want to hurt an actor? - but because they want to get recognized. God forbid someone doesn't recognize them.

Who tracks the steps of glory to the grave?

I have an insatiable desire to be the center of attention.

Changes your life, getting into the Hall of Fame. For the rest of my life, I'll be known as Hall of Famer George Kell.

I want to be so famous that drag queens will dress like me in parades when I'm dead.

Many people believe that our lives end not when we die but when the very last person who knew us dies. Memory is part of it, yes, but I think it's much more than memory.

The only 'afterlife' is what other people remember of you.