The Handmaid's Tale

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

"Better dead than a Handmaid."

"I'm not going to be like that. I'm not going to be a two-legged incubator."

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

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

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

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

"Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some."

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

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

"Nolite te bastardes carborundorum"

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

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

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

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

"It's easier than you'd think to substitute the symbol for the reality."

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

"This is the armpit of the earth."

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

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

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

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

"I'm not used to having choices."

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

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

"I wait. I am waiting for word."

"I'm taking a chance, again."

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

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

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