Justice & Law Quote by Margaret Atwood

Atwood’s line lands like a friendly warning that turns out to be a threat. “Never pray for justice” isn’t anti-morality; it’s anti-naivete. The sting is in the second clause: “because you might get some.” Justice, in Atwood’s fictional universe, is rarely the clean, courtroom kind. It’s the kind that arrives with an invoice, a body count, or a regime change that simply reallocates cruelty. The joke is dark because the premise is familiar: people ask for “justice” the way they ask for “closure,” as if it’s a soothing product. Atwood reminds you it’s a mechanism.

The subtext is that justice is not synonymous with mercy, safety, or personal vindication. It’s impersonal, procedural, and often retroactive: it punishes, redistributes, and exposes. If you’ve benefited from a crooked system, justice doesn’t just correct others; it comes for you, too. That’s why the line reads like a dare to anyone who wants punishment without consequences, accountability without self-scrutiny.

Contextually, Atwood’s work is steeped in how institutions weaponize “justice” to launder power: courts, theocracies, social norms, even revolutions. The phrase “pray” matters; it’s a jab at the wishful belief that moral order will descend from above rather than be wrestled into being. She’s not saying don’t demand justice. She’s saying: be careful what you sanctify, because real justice is rarely comforting, and it doesn’t pick sides just because you’re the one asking.