Quotes About Injustice

They wouldn't know mad when they saw it in any case, because a good portion of the women in the Asylum were no madder than the Queen of England. Many were sane enough when sober, as their madness came out of a bottle, which is a kind I knew very well. One of them was in there to get away from her husband, who beat her black and blue, he was the mad one but nobody would lock him up;

There were swings in one of the parks, but because of our skirts, which might be blown up by the wind and then looked into, we were not to think of taking such a liberty as a swing. Only boys could taste that freedom; only they could swoop and soar; only they could be airborne. I have still never been on a swing. It remains one of my wishes.

First the leaders and the led, then the tyrants and the slaves, then the massacres. That's how it's always gone.

Poetry deals with the core of human existence: life, death, renewal, change; as well as fairness and unfairness, injustice and sometimes justice. The world in all its variety.

Why should the other ones in this play get a second chance at life, but not him? Why's he have to suffer so much for being what he is? It's like he's, you know, black or Native or something. Five strikes against him from Day One. He never asked to get born.

How tedious is a tyranny in the throes of enactment.

Last week they shot a woman, right about here. She was a Martha. She was fumbling in her robe, for her pass, and they thought she was hunting for a bomb. They thought she was a man in disguise. There have been such incidents. Rita and Cora knew the woman. I heard them talking about it, in the kitchen. Doing their job, said Cora. Keeping us safe.

Be a good girl, she said. I hope you'll be a good sister to Laura. I know you try to be. I nodded. I didn't know what to say. I felt I was the victim of an injustice: why was it always me who was supposed to be a good sister to Laura, instead of the other way around? Surely my mother loved Laura more than she loved me.

Who controls the women and babies has been a keystone of every repressive regime on the planet.

But if you happen to be a man, sometime in the future, and you've made it this far, please remember: you will never be subject to the temptation or feeling you must forgive, a man, as a woman. It's difficult to resist, believe me. 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. Maybe

It is my opinion that they sometimes take what is intended for us, which would not surprise me in the least, as it is dog eat dog around here and they are the bigger dogs.

It's outrageous, one woman said, but without belief. What was it about this that made us feel we deserved it?   When

I could spell it, I say. Write it down. He hesitates at this novel idea. Possibly he doesn't remember I can. I've never held a pen or a pencil, in this room, not even to add up the scores. Women can't add, he once said, jokingly. When I asked him what he meant, he said, For them, one and one and one and one don't make four. What

There was a protest outside the Gilead Consulate in Toronto, but it wasn't well attended: Melanie and Neil weren't famous, and they weren't politicians. I didn't know whether to be sad or angry. Melanie and Neil being murdered made me angry, and so did remembering nice things they'd done when they were alive. But things that should have made me angry, such as why Gilead was being allowed to get away with it, only made me sad.

This was the story of the Concubine Cut into Twelve Pieces.

I stand there on the top step, frozen with hate. What I hate is not Grace or even Cordelia. I can't go as far as that. I hate Mrs. Smeath, because what I thought was a secret, something going on among girls, among children, is not one. It has been discussed before, and tolerated. Mrs. Smeath has known and approved. She has done nothing to stop it. She thinks it serves me right.

violated by bloodshed and gluttony and pride and disdain. Say their Names.

You think I didn't hate their pity, their forced kindness? And knowing that no matter what I did, how virtuous I was, or hardworking, I would never be beautiful. Not like her, the one who merely had to sit there to be adored. You wonder why I stabbed the blue eyes of my dolls with pins and pulled their hair out until they were bald? Life isn't fair. Why should I be?

The thing to remember is that there is nothing new about the society depicted in The Handmaid's Tale except the time and place. All of the things I have written about have been done before, more than once.

They were reducing us to animals—to penned-up animals—to our animal nature. They were rubbing our noses in that nature. We were to consider ourselves subhuman.

The saying It's not over 'til the fat lady sings is erroneous, because women who are fat are never listened to.

It was still with them, the century-old futility of trying to protect what was theirs while watching it being taken away. It clung to her people like a stain that couldn't be removed.

Thucydides said, "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

Oh, Rhett, why do there have to be wars? It would have been so much better for the Yankees to pay for the darkies—or even for us to give them the darkies free of charge than to have this happen." "It isn't the darkies, Scarlett. They're just the excuse. There'll always be wars because men love wars. Women don't, but men do—yea, passing the love of women.