Offred

"They used to be able to shut you up with a kiss."

"I'm hungry. They're always hungry."

"I've stopped taking my pills. I don't even know why."

"She knew I couldn't stay. She knew it was time."

"We're not supposed to know this."

"What I need is distance, or time, or both."

"I could do anything, within the bounds of what's allowed."

"She was teaching me the female version of war."

"I'm taking a chance, again."

"I wait. I am waiting for word."

"I like to think there's more to it than that."

"She was my sister, the only one I had."

"I'm not used to having choices."

"We sit in the front pew, we're supposed to have them."

"Don't make them unhappy, she says. It's the only power we have."

"I don't have a name. I have an assignment."

"She gave me her face. I didn't know what she was afraid of."

"I want to believe that nothing that important has been forgotten."

"We lived as usual, by our usual arrangements, in our usual state of siege and détente."

"I used to think I was sterile. Now I'm not sure I am."

"It's taken so much to come this far."

"She looked at me finally, right in the eye, and then away."

"Nolite te bastardes carborundorum"

"We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the gaps between the stories."

"Don't let the bastards grind you down."

"She doesn't know I've written this. She thinks I'm asleep. I'm not asleep."

"I want to be valued for what I can do, not what I am."

"The real problem is I don't know how to do what I want to do."

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

"There's no such thing as a return. The body is not a door."