Top 10 The Handmaid’s Tale Quotes (with page numbers)
1. “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. Don’t underrate it.” pg. 24, Chapter 5: The Handmaid’s Tale
2. “Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, 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. 34. Chapter 6: The Handmaid’s Tale
3. “We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.” pg. 56, Chapter 10: The Handmaid’s Tale
4. “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. We lived in the gaps between the stories.” pg. 57, Chapter 10: The Handmaid’s Tale
5. “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.” pg. 109, Chapter 19: The Handmaid’s Tale
6. “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.” pg. 134, Chapter 23: The Handmaid’s Tale
7. “How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all. What an available temptation.” pg. 146, Chapter 24: The Handmaid’s Tale
8. “It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army
declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time. Keep calm, they said on
television. Everything is under control.” pg. 174, Chapter 28: The Handmaid’s Tale
9. “Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some.” pg. 211, Chapter 32: The Handmaid’s Tale
10. “But people will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning. No use, that is. No plot.” pg. 215, Chapter 33: The Handmaid’s Tale
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