N.K. Jemisin

Quotes

• “The younger man stepped away from the table and came toward me, his whole posture radiating menace. Every Darre woman is...”
• “It is the lies he's telling her - as he has been, Nassun understands suddenly, her whole life - that really break her he...”
• “I definitely haven’t been in the best place while working on this book, but I can say this much: Where there is pain in ...”
• “It was very bad if the council had resorted to recruiting men. By tradition men were our last line of defence, their phy...”
• “All that stuff about Father Earth, it's just stories to explain what's wrong with the world. Like those weird cults that...”
• “He was dead again when I got home that day. His corpse was in the kitchen, near the counter, where it appeared he'd been...”
• “So there was love, once. More than love. And now there is more than hate. Mortals have no words for what we gods feel. G...”
• “There is such a thing as too much loss. Too much has been taken from you both - taken and taken and taken, until there's...”
• “So here is why I write what I do: We all have futures. We all have pasts. We all have stories. And we all, every single ...”
• “Denying what you are didn't keep people from knowing what you are.""And flaunting it isn't what saved you."Ykka takes a ...”
• “This means, in a way, that true light is dependent on the presence of other lights. Take the others away and darkness re...”
• “It is blasphemy to separate oneself from the earth and look down on it like a god. It is more than blasphemy; it is dang...”
• “Her eyes are shockingly black - shocking not because black eyes are particularly rare, but because she's wearing smoky g...”
• “Jija killed his own son for what a completely different person did, long before that son's birth. This, more than anythi...”
• “In a child's eyes, a mother is a goddess. She can be glorious or terrible, benevolent or filled with wrath, but she comm...”
• “Myths tell us what those like us have done, can do, should do. Without myths to lead the way, we hesitate to leap forwar...”
• “The way of the world isn't the strong devouring the weak, but the weak deceiving and poisoning and whispering in the ear...”
• “She has seen him fight his own brutal nature, and the Earth itself, in order to be the parent she needs. He has helped h...”
• “But love like that doesn't just disappear, does it? No matter how powerful the hate, there is always a little love left,...”
• “You're very lucky... Friends are precious, powerful things - hard to earn, harder still to keep. You should thank this o...”
• “They live forever. But many of them are even more lonely and miserable than we are. Why do you think they bother with us...”
• “The priest's lesson: beware the Nightlord, for his pleasure is a mortal's doom. My grandmother's lesson: beware love, es...”
• “If the first words out of your mouth are to cry ‘political correctness!’, … chances are very, very high that you are in ...”
• “In the future, as in the present, as in the past, black people will build many new worlds.This is true. I will make it s...”
• “...and when I lift my head to scream out my fury, a million stars turn black and die. No one can see them, but they are ...”
• “Because that is how one survives eternity,” I say, “or even a few years. Friends. Family. Moving with them. Moving forwa...”
• “Did you know that writing stories down kills them?Of course it does, words aren't meant to be stiff, unchanging things.”
• “Rising from the dead? Glowing at sunrise? What did that make him, the god of cheerful mornings and macabre surprises?”
• “We worship Him not because He is the best of our gods, but because He is, or was, the greatest killer among them.”
• “Once upon a time there was aOnce upon a time there was aOnce upon a time there was aStop this. It's undignified.”
• “Fear of a bully, fear of a volcano; the power within you does not distinguish. It does not recognize degree.”
• “Only learning oneself better, and understanding one’s place in the world, made the touch of another mundane.”
• “If the gods do decide to wipe us out, is it such a bad thing? Maybe we've earned a little annihilation.”
• “You have seen so much purposeless suffering that at least being killed for a reason can be borne?”
• “For all those that have to fight for the respect that everyone else is given without question.”
• “But when I got angry, my nerves sought an outlet, and my mouth didn't always guard the gates.”
• “Inevitable is not the same as immediate, Sieh--and love does not mandate forgiveness.”
• “It was said that the gods favored fools because they were entertaining to watch.”
• “True peace required the presence of justice, not just the absence of conflict.”
• “He has come to seduce the god of seduction, and oh, has he come prepared.”
• “Funny thing, employment. If you keep doing it, you keep getting paid.”
• “Everyone _shouldn't_ have a say in whose life is worth fighting for.”
• “How can we prepare for the future if we won’t acknowledge the past?”
• “Love betrayed has an entirely different sound from hatred outright.”
• “How terrible to be a god of change and endure grief unending.”
• “Being useful to others is not the same thing as being equal.”
• “Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind.”
• “The body fades. A leader who would last relies on more.”
• “Who misses what they have never, ever even imagined?”
• “Determination could easily become obsession.”