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Quotes from The Handmaid’s Tale — Margaret Atwood

born 1939 Canada

← All quotes by Margaret Atwood

20 quotes

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

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

Freedom, like everything else, is relative.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

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

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

The sitting room is subdued, symmetrical; it’s one of the shapes money takes when it freezes.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

A movie about the past is not the same as the past.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

You can think clearly only with your clothes on.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

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.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Nobody said when.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

You must cultivate poverty of spirit. Blessed are the meek. She didn’t go on to say anything about inheriting the earth.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

You might even provide a Heaven for them. We need You for that. Hell we can make for ourselves.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

Do not let the bastards grind you down.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

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.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

Now we come to forgiveness. Don’t worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. For instance: keep the others safe, if they are safe. Don’t let them suffer too much.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you, I 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.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

Tell, rather than write, because I have nothing to write with and writing is in any case forbidden. But if it’s a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don’t tell a story only to yourself. There’s always someone else.
Even when there is no one.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, is what he says. We thought we could do better.
Better? I say, in a small voice. How can he think this is better?
Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

He was not a monster, to her. Probably he had some endearing trait: he whistled, off key, in the shower, he had a yen for truffles, he called his dog Liebchen and made it sit up for little pieces of raw steak. How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

"Better never means better for everyone." The Handmaid's Tale (TV Series 2017)

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Margaret Atwood (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.