N.K. Jemisin > Quotes

“In a child's eyes, a mother is a goddess. She can be glorious or terrible, benevolent or filled with wrath, but she commands love either way. I am convinced that this is the greatest power in the universe.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

“For all those that have to fight for the respect that everyone else is given without question.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“We can never be gods, after all--but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

“Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“I think,” Hoa says slowly, “that if you love someone, you don’t get to choose how they love you back.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“Tell them they can be great someday, like us. Tell them they belong among us, no matter how we treat them. Tell them they must earn the respect which everyone else receives by default. Tell them there is a standard for acceptance; that standard is simply perfection. Kill those who scoff at those contradictions, and tell the rest that the dead deserved annihilation for their weakness and doubt. Then they'll break themselves trying for what they'll never achieve”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“But there are none so frightened, or so strange in their fear, as conquerors. They conjure phantoms endlessly, terrified that their victims will someday do back what was done to them—even if, in truth, their victims couldn’t care less about such pettiness and have moved on. Conquerors live in dread of the day when they are shown to be, not superior, but simply lucky.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“But for a society buit on exploitation, there is no greater threat than having no one left to oppress.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“Being useful to others is not the same thing as being equal.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate

“They’re afraid because we exist, she says. There’s nothing we did to provoke their fear, other than exist. There’s nothing we can do to earn their approval, except stop existing – so we can either die like they want, or laugh at their cowardice and go on with our lives.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“But love like that doesn't just disappear, does it? No matter how powerful the hate, there is always a little love left, underneath.
Yes. Horrible, isn't it?”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

“Well, some worlds are built on a fault line of pain, held up by nightmares. Don’t lament when those worlds fall. Rage that they were built doomed in the first place.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“When we say “the world has ended,” it’s usually a lie, because the planet is just fine. But this is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. For the last time.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“Let's start with the end of the world, why don't we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“We aren't human."

"Yes. We. Are." His voice turns fierce. "I don't give a shit what the something-somethingth council of big important farts decreed, or how the geomests classify things, or any of that. That we're not human is just the lie they tell themselves so they don't have to feel bad about how they treat us.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“How can we prepare for the future if we won’t acknowledge the past?”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“After all, a person is herself, and others. Relationships chisel the final shape of one's being. I am me, and you.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“To those who’ve survived: Breathe. That’s it. Once more. Good. You’re good. Even if you’re not, you’re alive. That is a victory.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“True peace required the presence of justice, not just the absence of conflict.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Killing Moon

“This is why she hates Alabaster: not because he is more powerful, not even because he is crazy, but because he refuses to allow her any of the polite fictions and unspoken truths that have kept her comfortable, and safe, for years.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“And once upon a time I wondered: Is writing epic fantasy not somehow a betrayal? Did I not somehow do a disservice to my own reality by paying so much attention to the power fantasies of disenchanted white men?

But. Epic fantasy is not merely what Tolkien made it.

This genre is rooted in the epic — and the truth is that there are plenty of epics out there which feature people like me. Sundiata’s badass mother. Dihya, warrior queen of the Amazighs. The Rain Queens. The Mino Warriors. Hatshepsut’s reign. Everything Harriet Tubman ever did. And more, so much more, just within the African components of my heritage. I haven’t even begun to explore the non-African stuff. So given all these myths, all these examinations of the possible… how can I not imagine more? How can I not envision an epic set somewhere other than medieval England, about someone other than an awkward white boy? How can I not use every building-block of my history and heritage and imagination when I make shit up?

And how dare I disrespect that history, profane all my ancestors’ suffering and struggles, by giving up the freedom to imagine that they’ve won for me.”
― N.K. Jemisin

“It is blasphemy to separate oneself from the earth and look down on it like a god. It is more than blasphemy; it is dangerous. We can never be gods, after all - but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

“There's truth even in tainted knowledge, if one reads carefully.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

“But if you stay, no part of this comm gets to decide that any part of this comm is expendable. No voting on who gets to be people.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate

“Who misses what they have never, ever even imagined?”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“People who say change is impossible are usually pretty happy with things just as they are.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The City We Became

“The way of the world isn’t the strong devouring the weak, but the weak deceiving and poisoning and whispering in the ears of the strong until they become weak, too.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate

“There is an art to smiling in a way that others will believe. It is always important to include the eyes; otherwise, people will know you hate them.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“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 nothing left but hope, and you've given that up because it hurts too much. Until you would rather die, or kill, or avoid attachments altogether, than lose one more thing.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate

“Fortunately, where reason failed, blind panic served well enough.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms