Mi nombre, más que llamarme, me recuerda mi nombre.

We want you to take from us. We want you, at first, to steal from us, because you can’t steal. You will take what we give you and you will put it in your own voice and that’s how you will find your voice. And that’s how you begin. And then one day someone will steal from you.

wanted me to have a name nobody would forget.

My name, far more than it names me, reminds me of my name.

When there's anything to steal, I steal

Everybody sees me as a solitary entity but I long to be important to somebody It's a love of fairy tales that drives this guilty wish To walk serenely in front of family to collect my kiss and though this notion is as flawed as any I have learned I'd like to think that like the others, it's something I deserve

My name isn't Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it's forbidden. I tell myself it doesn't matter, your name is like your telephone number, useful only to others; but what I tell myself is wrong, it does matter. I keep the knowledge of this name like something hidden, some treasure I'll come back to dig up, one day. I think of this name as buried. This name has an aura around it, like an amulet, some charm that's survived from an unimaginably distant past. I lie in my single bed at night, with my eyes closed, and the name floats there behind my eyes, not quite within reach, shining in the dark.

If I can't be famous, I want at least to be infamous.

I want to be something so much worthier than the doll in the doll's house.

Why didn’t you dare it before? he asked harshly.
When I hadn’t a job? When I was starving? When I was just as I am now, as a man, as an artist, the same Martin Eden? That’s the question. I’ve been asking myself for many a day. My brain is the same old brain. And what is puzzling me is why they want me now. Surely they don’t want me for myself, for myself the same olf self they did not want. They must want me for something else, for something that is outside of me, for something that is not I. Shall I tell you what that something is? It is for the recognition I have recieved. That recognition is not I. Then again for the money I have earned and am earnin. But money is not I. And is it for the recognition and money, that you now want me?

I just want to do something that matters. Or be something that matters. I just want to matter.

Let them see that their words can cut you, and you'll never be free of the mockery. If they want to give you a name, take it, make it you own. Then they can't hurt you with it anymore.

She thinks my name is Freddie, you know, but of course it ain't. I
always tell these people some name like that, because if they got onto
your right name they might use it sometime. Understand?

I dream of being held. Of being touched. Of being desired again. Of being recognized. Of not having to worry about what other people might one day think of this, might already be thinking.