N. K. Jemisin Quotes

When things are bad, change is good, right? Change means things will get better.

Would’ve been nice if we could’ve all had normal, of course, but not enough people wanted to share. So now we all burn.

I will not beg your forgiveness, she said. Only her voice betrayed her fear; it was not its usual strong, clear tone. I did what I felt was right.
Of course you did, I said. It was the wise thing to do.

What happened when people who’d once possessed absolute power suddenly lost it?

I was beginning to understand, a little. “Is that why you’re a usurer?”
Madding chuckled. “I prefer the term investor. And my rates are perfectly fair, thank you.”
“Drug dealer, then.”
“I prefer the term independent apothecary—”

Unreasoning optimism is a fundamental element of childishness.

It is surprising how refreshing this feels. Being judged by what you do, and not what you are.

I’d come down sick. (I had. It was called adolescence, an evil, evil disease.)

All energy is the same, through its different states and names. Movement creates heat which is also light that waves like sound which tightens or loosens the atomic bonds of crystal as they hum with strong and weak forces. In mirroring resonance with all of this is magic, the radiant emission of life and death.

Nassun gasps. “That’s horrible!
I don’t bother to explain that just because something is horrible does not make it any less true.

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall; Death is the Fifth, and master of all.

When people questioned this, the priests simply said, The world has changed. We must change with it.
You can imagine how well that went over.

Those with power would always find some way to exert it over those who didn’t.

This is the year in which I get to smile at all of those naysayers – every single mediocre insecure wannabe who fixes their mouth to suggest that I do not belong on this stage, that people like me cannot possibly have earned such an honour, that when they win it it’s meritocracy but when we win it it’s ‘identity politics’ –… I get to smile at those people, and lift a massive, shining, rocket-shaped middle finger in their direction.

Peace is meaningless without freedom.