#readwise # The Handmaid's Tale  ## Metadata - Author: [[Margaret Atwood]] - Full Title: The Handmaid's Tale - Genres: [[Novels]], [[Fantasy]], [[Dystopia]], [[Classics]], [[Adult]], [[Literature]], [[Fiction]], [[Feminism]], [[Science Fiction]] - URL: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45864574-the-handmaid-s-tale ## Highlights - 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. ([Location 368](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003JFJHTS&location=368)) - They wore blouses with buttons down the front that suggested the possibilities of the word undone. These women could be undone; or not. They seemed to be able to choose. ([Location 375](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003JFJHTS&location=375)) - 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. ([Location 512](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003JFJHTS&location=512)) - The knife she uses is sharp and bright, and tempting. I would like to have a knife like that. ([Location 636](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003JFJHTS&location=636)) - There were postcards, too, with pictures of the hotel on them, and you could write on the postcards and send them to anyone you wanted. ([Location 692](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003JFJHTS&location=692)) - But this is wrong, nobody dies from lack of sex. It’s lack of love we die from. ([Location 1342](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003JFJHTS&location=1342)) - 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. ([Location 1784](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003JFJHTS&location=1784)) - Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some. ([Location 2807](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003JFJHTS&location=2807)) - Falling in love, I said. Falling into it, we all did then, one way or another. How could he have made such light of it? Sneered even. As if it was trivial for us, a frill, a whim. It was, on the contrary, heavy going. It was the central thing; it was the way you understood yourself; if it never happened to you, not ever, you would be like a mutant, a creature from outer space. ([Location 3006](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003JFJHTS&location=3006))