Chapter 5

• The street is almost like a museum, or a street in a model town constructed to show the way people used to live. As in those pictures [...], there are no children.'
• The Republic of Gilead, said Aunt Lydia, knows no bounds. Gilead is within you.
• some in striped dresses, red and blue and green and cheap and skimpy, that mark the women of the poorer men. Econowives, they're called.
• Sometimes there is a woman in all black, a widow. There used to be more of them, but they seem to be diminishing
• Women were not protected then.

  I remember the rules, rules that were never spelled out but every woman knew:
• There's 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 given freedom from. Don't underrate it.
• Some people call the habits, a good word for them. Habits are hard to break
• when they decided that even the names of places were too much temptation for us.
• They seemed to be able to choose. We seemed to be able to choose, then. We were a society dying, said Aunt Lydia, of too much choice.
• It will be something, a small achievement, to have made oranges happen.
• Just to catch sight of a face is an encouragement. If I could see Moira, just to see her, know she still exists.
• She is a magic presence to us, an object of envy and desire, we covet her. She's a flag on a hilltop showing us what can be done: we too can be saved.
• Now she is a carrier of life, she s closer to death
• we hush like schoolgirls.
• The pregnant woman's belly is like a huge fruit
• All flesh
• She never would, I'd say. She's too old.
• 'He'd say ...

  Not here not now, not where people are looking.'
• 'their very cheerful aggressive, and I can't help staring. It's been a long time since I've seen skirts that short on women'
• 'They wear lipstick, red,'
• 'We are fascinated but also repelled. They seem undressed. It's taken so little to change our minds, about things like this

  Then I think: I used to dress like that. That was freedom.'
• 'Never forget it. to be seen - to be seen - is to be - her voice trembled - penetrated. What you must be, girls, is impenetrable. She called us girls.
• 'that the women here have different customs, that to stare at them through the lens of a camera, is, for them, an experience of violation.'
• are you happy?"' ... '"Yes, we are very happy," I murmur. I have to say something. What else can i say?'
• I can imagine it, their curiosity: Are they happy? How can they be happy?