Quotes about Control

Breasts were one thing: they were in front, where you could have some control over them. Then there were bums, which were behind, and out of sight, and thus more lawless. Apart from loosely gathered skirts, nothing much could be done about them.

Reign of terror, they used to say, but terror does not exactly reign. Instead it paralyzes. Hence the unnatural quiet.

You should never let your picture be in a magazine or newspaper if you can help it, as you never know what ends your face may be made to serve, by others, once it has got out of your control.

The Aunts had their methods, and their informants: no walls were solid for them, no doors locked.

Maybe all women should be robots, he thinks with a tinge of acid: the flesh-and-blood ones are out of control.

Any forced change of leadership is always followed by a move to crush the opposition. The opposition is led by the educated, so the educated are the first to be eliminated.

Everything that went on in your life was thought to be due to some positive or negative power emanating from inside your head.

the best and most cost-effective way to control women for reproductive and other purposes was through women themselves.

She's just jealous, people say, as if jealousy is something minor. But it's not, it's the worst, it's the worst feeling there is—incoherent and confused and shameful, and at the same time self-righteous and focused and hard as glass, like the view through a telescope. A feeling of total concentration, but total powerlessness. Which must be why it inspires so much murder: killing is the ultimate control.

While I read, the Commander sits and watches me doing it, without speaking but also without taking his eyes off me. This watching is a curiously sexual act, and I feel undressed while he does it.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans, as used to be said; though in present day, the idea of God laughing is next door to blasphemy. An ultra-serious fellow, God is now.

I wanted to ask why it had to be like this, but I already knew the answer: because it was God's plan. That was how the Aunts got out of everything