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

by Margaret Atwood

I have still never been on a swing. It remains one of my wishes.

But for me it was like finding a handprint in a cave: it was a sign, it was a message. I was here. I existed. I was real.

“No one wants to die,” said Becka. “But some people don’t want to live in any of the ways that are allowed.”

Being able to read and write did not provide the answers to all questions. It led to other questions, and then to others. —

This was what the Aunts meant, then, when they said women’s minds were too weak for reading. We would crumble, we would fall apart under the contradictions, we would not be able to hold firm.

Up until that time I had not seriously doubted the rightness and especially the truthfulness of Gilead’s theology. If I’d failed at perfection, I’d concluded that the fault was mine. But as I discovered what had been changed by Gilead, what had been added, and what had been omitted, I feared I might lose my faith.

Still, I wanted to believe; indeed I longed to; and, in the end, how much of belief comes from longing?