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

by Margaret Atwood

I always made dough men, I never made dough women, because after they were baked I would eat them, and that made me feel I had a secret power over men.

Aunt Vidala said that best friends led to whispering and plotting and keeping secrets, and plotting and secrets led to disobedience to God, and disobedience led to rebellion, and girls who were rebellious became women who were rebellious, and a rebellious woman was even worse than a rebellious man because rebellious men became traitors, but rebellious women became adulteresses.

You don’t believe the sky is falling until a chunk of it falls on you.

The leaves of the trees had that glossy sheen, so fresh and newly unfolded; as if they were gifts, each one, unwrapping itself, shaken out for the first time.