Handmaid’s Tale Quotes

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum – Don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Women will be punished for the sins of their husbands.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.

We lived in the gaps between the stories.

I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow; or rather, no shadow unless there is also light.

A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.

Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.

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

There’s more than one kind of freedom…Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it.

It’s amazing what you can get used to, as long as you keep pretending it’s normal.

A dead rat, even a dead rat, contains a quantity of life.

You can wet the rim of a glass and run your finger around the rim and it will make a sound. This is what I feel like: this sound of glass. I feel like the word shatter.

I want everything back, the way it was. But there is no point to it, this wanting.

She thinks about the woman she has been since she arrived here all those months ago…They have trained her to be : trained her, yes, they’ve trained her to be a doll, a well-behaved, docile little lotus blossom.

There was a war about women. It was called the Women’s War.

There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home.

Don’t let the bastards grind you down.

I am not your victim.

The ceremony is a display of the victory, and I must not forget that I was on the winning side.

I am not your enemy. I am just your average woman trying to survive in a world turned upside down.

I used to think men invented lines like that because they thought the words were important. Now I knew that they were simply distracting attention from the perpetrator.

The day-to-day is everything.

A world of nothing but silver linings would be monotonous.

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

There is more than one kind of freedom… Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it.

Desire is just another weapon they use against us.

We thought we had such problems. How were we to know we were happy?

For the ones who stand with us are as beautiful as bloody roses.

I want everything back, the way it was. But there is no point to it, this wanting.

We must be cautious about passing moral judgment upon the past.

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.

You can wet the rim of a glass and run your finger around the rim and it will make a sound. This is what I feel like: this sound of glass. I feel like the word shatter.

There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other’s cooking & say it was good.

If he wants to tyrannise over his fallen enemies I have no objection, but the rest of us want to get on with things.

She is a flag on a hilltop, showing what can still be done: we too can be saved.

I have bought peace with my body, my secret name for my cunt is ‘salvation’.

Was I happier then? No. I think I was sadder, if anything; sadder but also wiser.

I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.

Don’t let the bastards grind us down.

The ceremony is a display of the victory, and I should never forget that I was once on the winning side.

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.

What I need is perspective. The illusion of depth, created by a frame, the arrangement of shapes on a flat surface. Perspective is necessary. Otherwise there are only two dimensions.

The best way of keeping a secret is to pretend there isn’t one.

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.