The Handmaid's Tale

by Margaret Atwood

Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.

Is that how we lived, then? But we lived as usual. Everyone does, most of the time. Whatever is going on is as usual. Even this is as usual, now.

If you have a lot of things, said Aunt Lydia, you get too attached to this material world and you forget about spiritual values.

Whatever is silenced will clamor to be heard, though silently.

Things can change so quickly, buildings can be torn down or turned into something else, it’s hard to keep them straight in your mind the way they used to be.

I’m a refugee from the past, and like other refugees I go over the customs and habits of being I’ve left or been forced to leave behind me, and it all seems just as quaint, from here, and I am just as obsessive about it.

Humanity is so adaptable, my mother would say. Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.