The Testaments (The Handmaid's Tale, #2)

by Margaret Atwood

“When we look one another in the face, we’re neither of us just looking at a face we hate—no, we’re gazing into a mirror….Do you really not recognize yourselves in us…?”

We were custodians of an invaluable treasure that existed, unseen, inside us; we were precious flowers that had to be kept safely inside glass houses,

we must have been happier before we knew what we looked like.

it can put a lot of pressure on a person to be told they need to be strong.

One person alone is not a full person: we exist in relation to others.

human beings are at their most unhappy when in the midst of chaos?

Where there is an emptiness, the mind will obligingly fill it up. Fear is always at hand to supply any vacancies, as is curiosity.

how much of belief comes from longing?

The truth can cause a lot of trouble for those who are not supposed to know it.

a cruel thing, memory. We can’t remember what it is that we’ve forgotten. That we have been made to forget. That we’ve had to forget, in order to pretend to live here in any normal way.

“You are not unique in the universe. No one has an easy time in life.