The Handmaid’s Tale Quotes
"No guns though, even they could not be trusted with guns. Guns were for the guards, specially picked from the Angels."
"A return to traditional values. Waste not want not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want?"
"Nothing takes place in the bed but sleep; or no sleep. I try not to think too much."
"Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last."
"I never looked good in red, it's not my color."
"A chair, a table, a lamp. Above, on the white ceiling, a relief ornament in the shape of a wreath."
"Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from."
"I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation."
"Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I'm a cloud, congealed around a central object."
"I remember walking in art galleries, through the nineteenth century: the obsession they had then with harems."
"Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it."
"I've learned to do without a lot of things. If you have a lot of things, you get too attached to this material world."
"It's the choice that terrifies me. A way out, a salvation."
"I think of her as a woman for whom every act is done for show, is acting rather than a real act."
"There's time to spare. This is one of the things I wasn't prepared for—the amount of unfilled time."
"We would lie in those afternoon beds, afterwards, hands on each other, talking it over."
"But we lived as usual. Everyone does, most of the time. Whatever is going on is as usual."
"We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom."
"When the bell has finished I descend the stairs, a brief waif in the eye of glass that hangs on the downstairs wall."
"The sitting room would once have been called a drawing room, perhaps; then a living room."
"The sitting room is subdued, symmetrical; it's one of the shapes money takes when it freezes."
"The rug is authentic. Some things in this room are authentic, some are not."
"The tastes of Serena Joy are a strange blend: hard lust for quality, soft sentimental cravings."
"Perfume is a luxury, she must have some private source."
"I would like to steal something from this room."
"My hands stay where they are, folded in my lap."
"We are all obliged to sit through this, one way or another."
"Your daughters will have greater freedom. We are working towards the goal of a little garden for each one, each one of you."
"Men at the top have always had mistresses, why should things be any different now?"
"I am the outside woman. It's my job to provide what is otherwise lacking."
"I don't love the Commander or anything like it, but he's of interest to me, he occupies space, he is more than a shadow."
"To him I'm no longer merely a usable body... To him I am not merely empty."
"A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze."
"This was once the land of air sprays, pine and floral, and people retain the taste; especially the Commanders, who preach purity in all things."
"The machines print is prayers, roll upon roll, prayers going out endlessly."
"It's strange, now, to think about having a job. It's a funny word. It's a job for a man."
"Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control."
"The moment of betrayal is the worst, the moment when you know beyond any doubt that you've been betrayed."
"A little pain cleans out the mind, she'd say."
"Every night when I go to bed I think, In the morning I will wake up in my own house and things will be back the way they were."
"I should scratch marks on the wall, one for each day of the week, and run a line through them when I have seven."
"Yesterday was July the fourth, which used to be Independence Day, before they abolished it."
"But I tell time by the moon. Lunar, not solar."
"Being a woman this way is how I used to imagine it would be to be very old."
"Maybe you appreciate things more when you don't have much time left."
"I'd like to have Luke here, in this bedroom while I'm getting dressed, so I could have a fight with him."
"These days I script whole fights, in my head, and the reconciliations afterwards too."
"We can never stand long in any one place. We don't want to be picked up for loitering."
"So the J isn't for Jew. What could it be? Jehovah's Witness? Jesuit? Whatever it meant, he's just as dead."
"I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilized."
"I've tried to put some of the good things in as well. Flowers, for instance, because where would we be without them?"
"Humanity is so adaptable, my mother would say. Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations."
"Our job is not to censure but to understand."