The Handmaid's Tale (The Handmaid’s Tale)

The official line was that there were no corrupt Angels, and certainly no fleeing Handmaids; for why would one renounce God’s kingdom to plunge into the flaming pit?

“How did you find that out?” I asked. “If the word is gone?” “In the Hildegard Library,” she said. “It’s only for us Aunts.” “What’s a library?” “It’s where they keep the books. There are rooms and rooms full of them.”

When I was twenty, Michele and the children already existed, even before I met him and they were born. They were my fate, even more than my calling. I had only to trust, to obey. If I think about it, that seems to me the cause of Mirella’s restlessness: the possibility of not obeying. That’s what has changed everything, between fathers and children

Some problems we share as women, some we do not. You fear your children will grow up to join the patriarchy and testify against you, we fear our children will be dragged from a car and shot down in the street, and you will turn your backs upon the reasons they are dying.