Handmaid’s Quotes

• "Two-legged womb"
• "I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued in ways that I am not."
• “I repeat my former name … reminds my self of what I once could do, how others saw me.”
• “I must forget about my secret name. My name is Offred now.”
• “I have trouble remembering what I used to look like. I have viable ovaries.”
• “I feel as if there’s not much left of me; they will slip through my arms, as if I’m made of smoke.”
• “Waste not want not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want?”
• “To be seen is to be penetrated. What you must be girls, is impenetrable.”
• “I don’t want to look at something that determines me so completely.”
• "I am a national resource."
• “Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before you knew it.”
• "Nobody dies from lack of sex. It's lack of love we die from."
• "The night is mine, my own time, to do with as I will, as long as I am quiet."
• "The commander is the head of the household. The house is what he holds."
• "Which is it worse for, her or me?"
• "I try not to think too much. Like other things now, thought must be rationed."
• "I would like to believe this is a story I'm telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it."
• "But maybe boredom is erotic, when women do it, for men."
• "A thing is valued, only if it is rare and hard to get."
• "You wanted a women's culture. Well, now there is one. It isn't what you meant, but it exists. Be thankful for small mercies."
• "You can think clearly only with your clothes on."
• "We're not each other's, anymore. Instead, I am his."
• "Humanity is so adaptable. Truly amazing what people can get used to as long as there are a few compensations." (Offred's mother)
• "And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light."
• "Ordinary is what you're used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary." (Aunt Lydia)
• "I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation or an implement for the accomplishment of my will ... Now the flesh arranges itself differently."
• "He is not a monster, to her ... How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all." (Talking about a woman who was a mistress of a Nazi death camp guard)
• "The problem wasn't only with the women. The main problem was with the men. There was nothing for them anymore ... Do they feel now? Yes, they do." (The Commander talking about the foundations of Gilead and how due to feminism, men had no purpose in life.)
• "The white wings too are prescribed issue; they keep us from seeing, but also from being seen."
• "They used to have dolls, for little girls, that would talk if you pulled a string at the back; I thought I was starting to sound like that, voice of a monotone, voice of a doll."
• "You should always try to imagine what they must be feeling. Of course they will resent you… Try to pity them. Forgive them, for they know not what they do." (Aunt Lydia talking about the Wives)
• "What I must present is a made thing, not something born."
• "For our purposes your feet and your hands are not essential."
• "There’s no longer any hand lotion or face cream, not for us. Such things are considered vanities. We are containers, it’s only the insides of our bodies that are important. [The Wives] don’t want us to look attractive. For them, things are bad enough as it is."
• "The fact is that I’m his mistress. Men at the top have always had mistresses, why should things be any different now?"
• "Better doesn't mean better for everyone. It always means worse, for some." (The Commander)
• Rita and Cora link to the theme of CLASS as they are obviously low in the hierarchy.