The Handmaid’s Tale Quotes

“There are two types of freedom: freedom from and freedom to. In the Pre-anarchy days, it was freedom to. Now, it is freedom from. Don’t underate the freedom from. ”
-The Handmaid’s Tale quotes by Margaret Atwood

“ Still, it must be hell, to be a man, like that.
It must be just fine.
It must be hell.
It must be very silent.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“We can be read to from it, by him, but we cannot read.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

” Because they will have no memories, of any other way.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

She said instead, ” because they won’t want things they can’t have.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“I want anything that breaks the monotony, subverts the perceived respectable order if things.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“Better never means better for everyone… It always means worse, for some.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
“You can only be jealous of someone who has something you think you ought to have yourself.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“But people will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning. No use, that is. No plot.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“The moment of betrayal is the worst, the moment when you know beyond any doubt that you’ve been betrayed: that some other human being has wished you that much evil.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending…”
“But if it’s a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“You don’t tell a story only to yourself. There’s always someone else. Even when there is no one.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale quotes by Margaret Atwood

“Knowing was a temptation. What you don’t know won’t tempt you.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“All you have to do, I tell myself, is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn’t be that hard.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“You can’t help what you feel, but you can help how you behave.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“Live in the present, make the most of it, it’s all you’ve got.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“You can only be jealous of someone who has something you think you ought to have yourself.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, 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.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“I am not your justification for existence.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow; or rather, no shadow unless there is also light.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“I want everything back, the way it was. But there is no point to it, this wanting.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“The past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“Whatever is silenced will clamor to be heard, though silently.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don’t move. As long as I lie still. The difference between lie and lay. Lay is always passive.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“I tell, therefore you are.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before. ”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“If I thought this would never happen again I would die. But this is wrong, nobody dies from lack of sex. It’s lack of love we die from.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“When power is scarce, a little of it is tempting.”
-The Handmaid’s Tale quotes by Margaret Atwood