Top quarks are abundantly produced in collision events at the LHC, either as pairs or single quarks. Inclusive and differential cross section measurements for such events represent a crucial part of the physics program of the ATLAS Collaboration. These measurements allow for precision studies for QCD predictions, including state-of-the-art next-to-next-to-leading order calculations. Furthermore, they can be exploited to measure fundamental parameters of the Standard Model, and to potentially get access to new physics phenomena beyond the Standard Model. An overview on recent results from the ATLAS experiment is presented.