The Handmaid's Tale
"The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood is set in a dystopian future where a theocratic regime has overthrown the United States government. Women are subjugated and stripped of their rights, with some forced into the role of Handmaids, whose sole purpose is to bear children for the ruling class. The story follows Offred, a Handmaid, as she navigates her oppressive reality and yearns for freedom and autonomy.
10 curated highlights from this book
Key Insights & Memorable Quotes
Below are the most impactful passages and quotes from The Handmaid's Tale, carefully selected to capture the essence of the book.
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.
Better never means better for everyone... It always means worse, for some.
Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.
Freedom, like everything else, is relative.
We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom.
A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, but just felt in the heart.
Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub, death is a slow experience.
You can’t help what you feel, but you can help how you behave.
When we think of the past it’s the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that.