Offred

"Fear tastes like metal"

"I want to be valued, in the way that a sandwich gives me with my name on it"

"Nothing changes instantly"

"The Republic of Gilead, I said to myself"

"I dream of rain"

"Longing is a kind of torture"

"The trouble with the past is that it keeps intruding"

"I sit in the bitter air like a stone"

"We lived, as usual, by ignoring"

"I can't answer that question to myself"

"My name was Rosa, but I could never be called that by anyone else"

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

"I want to be valued, in the end."

"Ignorance is bliss, they say, and that's what they count on."

"Nothing changes instantaneously."

"We lived, as usual, by ignoring."

"I am not just an incubator."

"Context is all."

"I am not my body. My body is a tool."

"We are two-legged wombs."

"My name isn't Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now."

"I feel very old."

"Aunt Lydia says a woman is a vessel."

"This is not a regime that does things halfway."

"I wait. I don't know for what I am waiting for."

"A girl was a girl."

"This is a way of talking about things when you can't talk about them."

"I am alive. I live. I have a body. I can feel it, here, now."

"Knowledge is power, but I need my ignorance in order to survive."

"I am watching her face. I am searching for approval."