# Quote — Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood

> “We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young.”

- Author: [Margaret Atwood](https://www.leafyquotes.com/margaret-atwood.md)
- Book: [The Year of the Flood](https://www.leafyquotes.com/margaret-atwood/the-year-of-the-flood.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Atwood#The_Year_of_the_Flood_(2009)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/margaret-atwood/the-year-of-the-flood/we-shouldnt-have

## More from this book

> time is not a thing that passes, said Pilar: it’s a sea on which you float.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/margaret-atwood/the-year-of-the-flood/time-is-not.md)

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/margaret-atwood/the-year-of-the-flood/glenn-used-to-say.md)

> “It's better to hope than mope!”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/margaret-atwood/the-year-of-the-flood/its-better-to-hope.md)