The Handmaid's Tale Quotes
Description of Moira
"...sitting on the edge of my bed, legs crossed, ankle on knee, in her purple overalls, one dangly earring, the gold fingernail she wore to be eccentric, a cigarette between her stubby yellow-ended fingers." (pg. 37)
Description of Econowives
"...some in the striped dresses, red and blue and green and cheap and skimpy, that mark the women of the poorer men...These women are not divided into functions. They have to do everything; if they can." (pg. 24)
Description of Serena Joy
"A little of her hair was showing, from under her veil. It was still blond. I thought then that maybe she bleached it, that hair dye was something else she could get through the black market, but I know now that it really is blond." (pg. 15)
Description of Ofglen
"A shape, red with white wings around the face, a shape like mine, a nondescript woman in red carrying a basket, comes along the brick sidewalk towards me." (pg. 19)
Rita
"All the same...She worked hard. That was a bad death." (pg. 21)
Cora
"Anyways, they're doing it for us all. If I hadn't of got my tubes tied, it could of been me, say I was ten years younger. It's not that bad. It's not what you'd call hard work." (pg. 10)
Serena Joy
"As for my husband...he's just that. My husband. I want that to be perfectly clear. Till death do us part. It's final." (pg. 16)
Rita
"Better her than me." (pg. 10)
Aunt Helena
"But whose fault was it?...Who led them on?...Why did God allow such a terrible thing to happen?" (pg. 72)
Offred
"Date rape. You're so trendy. It sounds like some kind of dessert. Date rape." (pg. 38)
Luke
"Do you know what it came from? Mayday?...It's French. From m'aidez." (pg. 44)
Cora
"Doing their job...Keeping us safe." (pg. 20)
Serena Joy
"Don't call me ma'am. You're not a Martha." (pg. 15)
Luke
"Fraternize means to behave like a brother." (pg. 11)
Rita
"Go to the Colonies...They have the choice."(pg. 10)
Description of Nick
"He has a French face, lean, whimsical, all planes and angles, with creases around the mouth where he smiles." (pg. 18)
Description of Nick
"He lives here, in the household, over the garage. Low status: he hasn't been issued a woman, not even one. He doesn't rate: some defect, lack of connections. But he acts as if he doesn't know this, or care. He's too casual, he's not servile enough. It may be stupidity, but I don't think so." (pg. 18)
Description of nurse
"He's six feet tall, about forty, a diagonal scar across his cheek..." (pg. 59)
Description of Nick
"He's wearing the uniform of the Guardians, but his cap is tilted at a jaunty angle and his sleeves are rolled to the elbow, showing his forearms, tanned but with a stipple of dark hairs. He has a cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth, which shows that he too has something he can trade on the black market." (pg. 17)
Description of Serena Joy
"Her eyebrows were plucked into thin arched lines, which gave her a permanent look of surprise, or outrage, or inquisitiveness, such as you might see on a startled child, but below them her eyelids were tired-looking. Not so her eyes, which were the flat hostile blue of a midsummer sky in bright sunlight, a blue that shuts you out. Her nose must once have been what was called cute but now was too small for her face. Her face was not fat but it was large. Two lines led downward from the corners of her mouth; between them was her chin, clenched like a fist." (pg. 15)
Description of Rita
"Her face might be kindly if she would smile. But the frown isn't personal; it's the red dress she disapproves of, and what it stands for. She thinks I may be catching, like a disease or any form of bad luck." (pg. 10)
Description of daughter
"Her light hair was pulled back tight behind her head. Holding her hand was a woman I didn't know. She was only as tall as the woman's elbow...She was wearing a dress I'd never seen, white and down to the ground." (pg. 39)
Description of Serena Joy
"Her lips were thin, held that way, with the small vertical lines around them you used to see in advertisements for lip cosmetics." (pg. 14)
Description of one young Guardian
"His face is long and mournful, like a sheep's, but with the large full eyes of a dog, spaniel not terrier. His skin is pale and looks unwholesomely tender, like the skin under a scab." (pg. 21)
Description of the Commander
"His hair is gray. Silver, you might call it if you were being kind." (pg. 57)
Doctor
"How are we getting along?...Nothing wrong with you. Any pain, honey?" (pg. 60)
Doctor
"How do you think?...The door's locked. No one will come in. They'll never know it isn't his." (pg. 60)
Cora
"I can think of worse...At least it was quick." (pg. 21)
Doctor
"I could help you...I could help you. I've helped others." (pg. 60)
Doctor
"I hate to see what they put you through." (pg. 61)
Serena Joy
"I want to see as little of you as possible...I expect you feel the same way about me." (pg. 15)
Description of Serena Joy
"I wasn't looking at her face, but at the part of her I could see with my head lowered: her blue waist, thickened, her left hand on the ivory head of her cane, the large diamonds on the ring finger, which must once have been fine and was still finely kept, the fingernail at the end of the knuckly finger filed to a gentle curving point. It was like an ironic smile, on that finger; like something mocking her." (pg. 14)
Ofglen
"I'd like to pass by the church." (pg. 30)
Aunt Lydia
"I'm doing my best. I'm trying to give you the best chance you can have...Don't think this is easy for me either" (pg. 55)
Aunt Lydia
"If you have a lot of things you get too attached to this material world and you forget about spiritual values. You must cultivate poverty of spirit. Blessed are the meek." (pg. 64)
Aunt Lydia
"In a bathroom, in a bathtub, you are vulnerable." (pg. 62)
Cora
"It was an accident." (pg. 20)
Janine
"It was my fault. It was my own fault. I led them on. I deserved the pain." (pg. 72)
Ofglen
"It's a beautiful May day." (pg. 43)
Description of Serena Joy
"It's no longer a flawless cut-paper profile, her face is sinking in upon itself..." (pg. 46)
Aunt Lydia
"It's not the husbands you have to watch out for, it's the Wives. You should always try to imagine what they must be feeling. Of course they will resent you. It is only natural. Try to feel for them...Try to pity them. Forgive them, for they know not what they do...You must realize that they are defeated women. They have been unable-...The future is in your hands." (pg. 46)
Serena Joy
"It's ones of the things we fought for." (pg. 16)
Offred
"It's too dangerous. No, I can't." (pg. 61)
Serena Joy
"Late as usual." (pg. 82)
Moira
"Let's go for a beer." (pg. 37)
Aunt Lydia
"Modesty is invisibility...Never forget it. To be seen-to be seen-is to be-...penetrated. What you must be, girls, is impenetrable." (pg. 28)
Doctor
"Most of those old guys can't make it anymore. Or they're sterile...Lots of women do it. You want a baby, don't you." (pg. 61)
Rita
"No such thing...Everything is meant." (pg. 21)
Aunt Lydia
"No worry about sunburn though. The spectacles women used to make of themselves. Oiling themselves like roast meat on a spit, and bare backs and shoulders, on the street, in public, and legs, not even stockings on them, no wonder those things used to happen...And not good for the complexion, not at all, wrinkle you up like a dried apple...In the park, lying on blankets, men and women together sometimes." (pg. 55)
Cora
"Nobody asking you...Anyways, what could you do, supposing?" (pg. 10)
Serena Joy
"Not so good or you either...You can sit down. I don't make a practice of it, but just this time." (pg. 15)
Rita
"Nothing safer than dead...She was minding her own business. No call to shoot her." (pg. 20)
Aunt Lydia
"Of course some of them will try...All flesh is weak...They can't help it. God made them that way but He did not make you that way. He made you different. It's up to you to set the boundaries. Later you will be thanked." (pg. 45)
Aunt Lydia
"Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary." (pg. 33)
Luke
"She could get one of those over her head...You know how kids like to play." (pg. 27)
Rita
"She didn't work out...What you don't know won't hurt you." (pg. 53)
Description of Serena Joy
"She doesn't always sit. Sometimes I can hear her pacing back and forth, a heavy step and then a light one, and the soft tap of her cane on the dusty-rose carpet." (pg. 9)
Description of Serena Joy
"She doesn't speak to me, unless she can't avoid it. I am a reproach to her; and a necessity." (pg. 13)
Description of Aunt Lydia
"She had a mole on her chin that went up and down while she talked." (pg. 18)
Description of Moira
"She still had her other clothes on, jeans and a blue sweatshirt - her hair was short, she'd defied fashion as usual - so I recognized her at once...There was a bruise on her left cheek, turning purple." (pg. 71)
Description of Serena Joy
"She was the lead soprano. She was ash blond, petite, with a snub nose and huge blue eyes which she'd turn upwards during hymns. She could smile and cry at the same time, one tear or two sliding gracefully down her cheek, as if on cue, as her voice lifted through its highest notes, tremulous, effortless." (pg. 16)
Description of Rita
"She's in her usual Martha's dress, which is dull green like a surgeon's gown of the time before. The dress is much like mine in shape, long and concealing, but with a bib apron over it and without the white wings and the veil. She puts on the veil to go outside, but nobody much cares who sees the face of a Martha. Her sleeves are rolled to the elbow, showing her brown arms." (pg. 9)
Description of Serena Joy
"She's in one of her best dresses, sky blue with embroidery in white along the edges of the veil: flowers and fretwork." (pg. 81)
Rita
"Tall, but bony. You should speak up. Ain't like you're common." (pg. 48)
Rita
"Tell them free, for the eggs. Not like last time. And a chicken, tell them, not a hen. Tell them who it's for and then they won't mess around." (pg. 11)
Offred
"Thanks piles. You're crazy. Where'd you get an idea like that." (pg. 56)
Aunt Lydia
"The Republic of Gilead...knows no bounds. Gilead is within you." (pg. 23)
Description of doctor
"The lower part of his face is covered by the white gauze mask, regulation. Two brown eyes, a nose, a head with brown hair on it." (pg. 60-61)
Ofglen
"The war is going well, I hear...They've defeated more of the rebels, since yesterday...Baptists. They had a stronghold in the Blue Hills. They smoked them out." (pg. 19-20)
Aunt Lydia
"There is more than one kinds of freedom...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." (pg. 24)
Aunt Lydia
"They also serve who only stand and wait...Not all of you will make t through. Some of you will fall on dry ground or thorns. Some of you are shallow-rooted...Think of yourself as seeds." (pg. 18)
Description of Japanese tourists
"They look around, bright-eyed, cocking their heads to one side like robins, their very cheerfulness aggressive...The skirts reach just below the knee and the legs come out from beneath them, nearly naked in their thin stockings, blatant, the high-heeled shoes with their straps attached to the feet like delicate instruments of torture...Their heads are uncovered and their hair too is exposed, in all its darkness and sexuality. They wear lipstick, red, outlining the damp cavities of their mouths, like scrawls on a washroom wall, of the time before." (pg. 28)
Description of Guardians
"They're used for routine policing and other menial functions, digging up the Commander's Wife's garden, for instance, and they're either stupid or older or disabled or very young, apart from the ones that are Eyes incognito." (pg. 20)
Offred
"They've got oranges at Milk and Honey. There are still some left...I could get some tomorrow, if you'd give me the tokens for them." (pg. 47)
Doctor
"Think about it. I've seen your chart. You don't have a lot of time left. But it's your life." (pg. 61)
Aunt Lydia
"Think of it as being in the army." (pg. 7)
Offred
"Third, ma'am." (pg. 15)
Moira
"This is a loony bin." (pg. 71)
Description of Ofglen
"This one is a little plumper than I am. Her eyes are brown...She walks demurely, head down, red-gloved hands clasped in front, with short little steps like a trained pig's, on its hind legs." (pg. 19)
Aunt Lydia
"Try to think of it from their point of view...It isn't easy for them." (pg. 14)
Offred
"We should go back." (pg. 43)
Aunt Lydia
"We were a society dying of too much choice." (pg. 25)
Cora
"Well, someone'll think twice before blowing up this house, anyways." (pg. 21)
Offred
"Who was the woman who stayed in that room? Before me?...The lively one...The one with freckles...I knew her before...I heard she was here." (pg. 53)
Cora
"With the Unwomen, and starve to death and Lord knows what all?...Catch you." (pg. 10)
Moira
"Working my way through college. I've got connections. Friends of my mother's. It's big in the suburbs, once they start getting age spots they figure they've got to beat the competition. The Pornomarts and what have you...You're never too young to learn. Come on, it'll be great. We'll all pee in our pants laughing." (pg. 56)
Offred
"Yes, we are very happy." (pg. 29)
Aunt Lydia
"You can always practice. Several sessions a day, fitted into your daily routine. Arms at the sides, knees bent, lift the pelvis, roll the backbone down. Tuck. Again. Breathe in to the count of five, hold, expel." (pg. 70)
Rita
"You can say that...I'd choose to have some time, before, like. To set things right." (pg. 21)
Moira
"You don't need to paint your face, it's only me. What's your paper on? I just did one on date rape." (pg. 38)
Aunt Lydia
"You have to get your vitamins and minerals. You must be a worthy vessel." (pg. 65)
Moira
"You should throw out some of this junk. I'm giving an underwhore party...You know, like Tupperware, only with underwear. Tarts' stuff. Lace crotches, snap garters. Bras that push your tits up." (pg. 56)
Doctor
"You're soft. It's time. Today or tomorrow would do it, why waste it? It'd only take a minute, honey." (pg. 61)
Serena Joy
I know you aren't stupid...I've read your file. As far as I'm concerned, this is like a business transaction. But if I get trouble, I'll give trouble back. You understand?" (pg. 15)
Rita
"Bath day." (pg. 48)
Nick
"Nice walk?" (pg. 45)
Rita
"Scrawny, but it'll have to do." (pg. 48)
Serena Joy
"So old what's-his-face didn't work out...Tough luck on him. This is your second, isn't it?" (pg. 14-15)
Serena Joy
"So, you're the new one." (pg. 13)
Aunt Lydia
"Some day, when times improve, no one will have to be an Econowife." (pg. 44)