Daily Inspiration Quote by Margaret Atwood

Writing gets sold as a quiet, indoor craft: tea, a desk, a tasteful notebook. Atwood cuts through that pastoral myth with one word: nerve. Not talent, not inspiration, not even discipline - nerve, the trait you reach for when you expect consequences. Her line reframes the writer less as a delicate antenna and more as a person willing to take a hit: from critics, from institutions, from friends who recognize themselves on the page, from the market that wants you legible and likable.

The intent is both practical and slightly accusatory. Atwood is telling aspiring writers that the job involves exposure, and exposure is a kind of risk. You are publishing your mind, your politics, your taste, your obsessions. You're also making an implicit claim to attention in a culture that treats attention as currency. That takes nerve because it invites judgment, and because the judgment is often personal even when the work isn't.

The subtext deepens given Atwood's career: a woman writing sharply about power, bodies, and social control in literary spaces that have not always welcomed women who refuse to soften their edges. In that context, "nerve" means stamina against dismissal, against moral panic, against the polite pressure to be "reasonable". It also nods to the quieter bravery of persistence - returning to the page after failure, writing the scene you want to avoid, saying the truest thing knowing it will cost you.