Handmaids Tale Quotes

• 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.

  Margaret Atwood

  Aunt, May, Ordinary

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.33, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Don't let the bastards grind you down.

  Margaret Atwood

  Graduation, Latin, Cheer Up

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.187, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Whatever is silenced will clamor to be heard, though silently.

  Margaret Atwood

  Irises, Clamor, Bleeding Heart

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.153, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I don't want to look at something that determines me so completely.

  Margaret Atwood

  Looks, Want, Determine

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.63, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Illegitimis non carborundum.
  Lat., Don't let the bastards grind you down.

  Joseph Stilwell

  Latin, Persistence, Grind

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

  Margaret Atwood

  Change, Mean, Handmaids

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.211, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Maybe the life I think I'm living is a paranoid delusion...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.

  Margaret Atwood

  Thinking, People, Way

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• There is more than one kind of freedom," said Aunt Lydia. "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.

  Margaret Atwood

  Freedom, Aunt, Anarchy

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.24, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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

  Margaret Atwood

  Ignorance, Handmaids

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.56, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• 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.

  Margaret Atwood

  Space, White, People

  FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Jan 20, 2015

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• That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before.

  Margaret Atwood

  "The Handmaid's Tale". Book by Margaret Atwood, 1985.

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• we lived in the gaps between the stories

  Margaret Atwood

  Stories, Gaps, Handmaids

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.57, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• We are a society dying, said Aunt Lydia, of too much choice.

  Margaret Atwood

  Aunt, Choices, Dying

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.25, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The way love feels is always only approximate. I would like to be without shame. I would like to be shameless. I would like to be ignorant. Then I would not know how ignorant I was.

  Margaret Atwood

  Ignorant, Way, Shame

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.263, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• We yearned for the future. How did we learn it, that talent for insatiability?

  Margaret Atwood

  Talent, Handmaids

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.13, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you, I believe you're there, I believe you into being.

  Margaret Atwood

  Believe, I Believe

  Margaret Atwood (2016). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.410, Random House

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• 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

  Margaret Atwood

  Betrayal, Evil, Doubt

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.193, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Every night when I go to bed I think, In the morning I will wake up in my own house and things will be back the way they were. It hasn’t happened this morning, either.

  Margaret Atwood

  Morning, Night, Thinking

  Margaret Atwood (2016). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.305, Random House

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• How furious she must be, now that she's been taken at her word.

  Margaret Atwood

  Taken, Handmaids, Furious

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.46, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest. Maybe none of this is about control. Maybe it isn't really about who can own whom, who can do what to whom and get away with it, even as far as death. Maybe it isn't about who can sit and who has to kneel or stand or lie down, legs spread open. Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing.

  Margaret Atwood

  Lying, Legs, Remember

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.135, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• A man is just a woman's strategy for making other women.

  Margaret Atwood

  Men, Strategy

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.121, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you, believe you're there, I believe you into being. Because I'm telling you this story I will your existence. I tell, therefore you are. So I will go on. So I will myself to go on.

  Margaret Atwood

  Believe, Stories, Goes On

  FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Nov 19, 2016

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• Waste not want not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want?

  Margaret Atwood

  Want, Waste, Handmaids

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.7, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I wait. I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born.

  Margaret Atwood

  Self, Waiting, Speech

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.66, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Don't let the bastards grind you down. I repeat this to myself but it conveys nothing. You might as well say, Don't let there be air; or Don't be. I suppose you could say that.

  Margaret Atwood

  Air, Might, Grind

  Margaret Atwood (2016). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.447, Random House

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