Offred

"Knowing was power, but not knowing was a kind of power too."

"I stand in front of the store window and watch my reflection move."

"It's impossible for me to imagine how I will feel when I'm not doing this anymore."

"I could not tell what her face was like; she had a good body though."

"She doesn't talk much. Why should she? She's gone beyond words."

"Out, damned spot. Out I say."

"Nothing changes instantaneously. In a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it."

"I feel like a human being, for the first time in weeks."

"The ones we worked on, if we can use the word worked."

"I don't want to sound like a whore."

"A person is flesh and blood, and blood will tell."

"Let her write, scribble, scratch the walls in frustration."

"I wait. I am waiting. It's all I can do."

"Love is what I would miss, I think, if I were dead."

"I am not my own body."

"The key to a successful such union is the ability of the man to ignore the woman."

"It's a long time since I've been touched without violence."

"I console myself with the knowledge that this can't go on forever."

"Give me children, or else I die."

"Freedom is something that dies unless it's used."

"I need to know what I can touch."

"The night is mine, my own time, to do with as I will."

"The past is a dim lamp, its halo of light barely extending beyond its own flame."

"I remember my name. It's Offred."

"Hope is dangerous."

"I am not obliged to feel the same way about people who are not obliged to feel anything about me."

"Better never means better for everyone"

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

"We were the people who were not in the papers"

"The night is mine, my own time, to do with as I like, as long as I am quiet"