The Handmaid's Tale

by Margaret Atwood

Freedom to and freedom from.

This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.

We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.

It’s this message, which may never arrive, that keeps me alive.

Sanity is a valuable possession; I hoard it the way people once hoarded money. I save it, so I will have enough, when the time comes.

In reduced circumstances the desire to live attaches itself to strange objects.

what did she ever want but to lead her life as agreeably as possible?

Mother, I think. Wherever you may be. Can you hear me? You wanted a women’s culture. Well, now there is one. It isn’t what you meant, but it exists. Be thankful for small mercies.

There can be alliances even in such places, even under such circumstances. This is something you can depend upon: there will always be alliances, of one kind or another.

For every rule there is always an exception: this too can be depended upon.

How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all. What an available temptation.

Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some.