The Handmaid's Tale Quotes - Page 13 | Just Great DataBase

But all around the walls there are bookcases. They're filled with books. Books and books and books, right out in plain view, no locks, no boxes. No wonder we can't come in here. It's an oasis of the forbidden. I try not to stare.

at that time men and women tried each other on, casually, like suits, rejecting whatever did not fit.

The penalty for rape, as you know, is death. Deuteronomy 22:23–29. I

The egg is glowing now, as if it had an energy of its own. To look at the egg gives me intense pleasure.

The future is in your hands, she resumed. She held her own hands out to us, the ancient gesture that was both an offering and an invitation, to come forward, into an embrace, an acceptance.

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

But there was nothing in them. They were empty. It was our hands that were supposed to be full, of the future; which could be held but not seen.   I

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.

(...) cause after a request like that there's always a next time, wether you say yes or no.

Trust me, he says; which in itself has never been a talisman, carries no guarantee. But

Freedom to isn't the same as freedom from."-The Handmaids Tale

In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t

Just do your duty in silence. When in doubt, when flat on your back, you can look at the ceiling. Who knows what you may see, up there? Funeral wreaths and angels, constellations of dust, stellar or otherwise, the puzzles left by spiders. There's always something to occupy the inquiring mind. Is anything wrong, dear? the old joke went. No, why? You moved. Just don't move.   What

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

Dishtowels are the same as they always were. Sometimes these flashes of normality

pigeons, trained to peck a button that made a grain of corn appear. Three groups of them: the first got one grain per peck, the second one grain every other peck, the third was random. When the man in charge cut off the grain, the first group gave up quite soon, the second group a little later. The third group never gave up. They’d peck themselves to death, rather than quit.

No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn't do too badly by one another, we did as well as most.I wish she were here, so I could tell her I finally know this.

Their youth is touching, but I know I can't be deceived by it.

It’s those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge. So.

How I wasted them, those rooms, that freedom from being seen. Rented

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. I

When we think of the past it’s the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that. The

I will that women adorn themselves in modest apparel," he says, "with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; "But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection." Here he looks us over. "All," he repeats. "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. "For Adam was first formed, then Eve. "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. "Notwithstanding she shall be saved by childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety." Saved

What I need is perspective.(...)Otherwise you live in the moment. Which is not where I want to be.

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

But people will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning.

There is a silence. But sometimes it's as dangerous not to speak. "Yes, we are very happy," I murmur. I have to say something. What else can I say?

Podríamos convocar a Eurídice desde el mundo de los muertos, pero no podríamos lograr que respondiera; y cuando nos giramos para mirarla, la divisamos sólo un momento, antes de que se nos deslice de las manos y se desvanezca. Como todos los historiadores sabemos, el pasado es una gran tiniebla llena de resonancias. Desde ellas pueden llegarnos algunas voces; pero lo que nos dicen está imbuido de la oscuridad de la matriz de la cual salen. Y por mucho que lo intentemos, no siempre podemos descifrarlas e iluminarlas con la luz prístina de nuestro propio tiempo.

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. If they have to die, let it be fast. You might even provide a Heaven for them. We need You for that. Hell we can make for ourselves.

Old love; there's no other kind of love in this room now. When

Lembro-me de andar por galerias de arte, em meio a obras do século XIX: a obsessão que eles tinham por haréns. Dúzias de pinturas de haréns, mulheres gordas deitadas à toa em divãs, com turbantes na cabeça ou barretes de veludo, sendo abanadas com rabos de penas de pavão, um eunuco ao fundo montando guarda. Estudos de carne sedentária pintados por homens que nunca tinham estado lá. Aquelas pinturas deveriam ser eróticas e eu achava que eram, na época; mas vejo agora o que realmente retratavam. Eram pinturas que retratavam animação suspensa, retratavam espera, retratavam objetos que não estavam em uso. Eram pinturas que retratavam o tédio. Mas talvez o tédio seja erótico, quando mulheres o fazem, por homens.

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

Ich fühle mich wie Zuckerwatte: Zucker und Luft. Einmal fest drücken, und ich werde mich in einen kleinen gräßlichen feuchten Klumpen von weinendem Rosarot verwandeln.

We are being looked at, assessed, whispered about; we can feel it, like tiny ants running on our bare skins. Here

Nick is no longer with us. He may have gone down the back stairs, not wishing to be seen.

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. Greyness

They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time. Keep

But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.

Why interesting and important? Because women are interesting and important in real life. They are not an afterthought of nature, they are not secondary players in human destiny, and every society has always known that. Without women capable of giving birth, human populations will die out. That is why the mass rape and murder of women, girls, and children has long been a feature of genocidal wars, and of other campaigns meant to subdue and exploit a population.

How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all. What an available temptation. A big child, she would have said to herself. Her heart would have melted, she'd have smoothed the hair back from his forehead, kissed him on the ear, and not just to get something out of him either. The instinct to soothe, to make it better. There there, she'd say, as he woke from a nightmare. Things are so hard for you. All this she would have believed, because otherwise how could she kept on living? She was very ordinary, under that beauty. She believed in decency, she was nice to the Jewish maid, or nice enough, nicer than she needed to be.

notions we used to titillate ourselves with. It

Männer sind nur das strategische Mittel der Frauen, um weitere Frauen zu machen.

The crimes of others are a secret language among us. Through them we show ourselves what we might be capable of, after all.

The knock would come at the door; I’d open, with relief, desire. He was so momentary, so condensed. And yet there seemed no end to him. We would lie in those afternoon beds, afterwards, hands on each other, talking it over. Possible, impossible. What could be done? We thought we had such problems. How were we to know we were happy? But

He doesn’t mind this, I thought. He doesn’t mind it at all. Maybe he even likes it. We are not each other’s, anymore. Instead, I am his. Unworthy,

As I'm standing up I hear the black van. I hear it before I see it; blended with the twilight, it appears out of its own sound like a solidification, a clotting of the night. It turns into the driveway, stops. I can just make out the white eye, the two wings. The paint must be phosphorescent. Two men detach themselves from the shape of it, come up the front steps, ring the bell. I hear the bell toll, ding-dong, like the ghost of a cosmetics woman, down in the hall. Worse is coming, then. I've

It can't last forever. Others have thought such things, in bad times before this, and they were always right, they did get out one way or another, and it didn't last forever. Although for them it may have lasted all the forever they had.

I have a fork and a spoon, but never a knife. When there’s meat they cut it up for me ahead of time, as if I’m lacking manual skills or teeth. I have both, however. That’s why I’m not allowed a knife.

But if you happen to be a man, sometime in the future, and you've made it this far, please remember: you will never be subject to the temptation or feeling you must forgive, a man, as a woman. It's difficult to resist, believe me. 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

It's amazing what denial can do.