Ann Leckie Quotes & Sayings

If you can't access it, all the resources in the universe won't do you any good. — Ann Leckie

I think I made my first short fiction sale in 2005. I had been writing unsuccessfully before that. — Ann Leckie

You are so civilized. So polite. So brave coming here alone when you know no one here would dare to touch you. So easy to be all those things, when all the power is on your side. — Ann Leckie

Ships have feelings. — Ann Leckie

Let every act be just, and proper, and beneficial. — Ann Leckie

Security is here to protect citizens. You can't do that if you insist on seeing any of them as adversaries. — Ann Leckie

No Justice of Toren medic would give One Esk a body with a voice like Breq's. Not unless she wanted to seriously annoy the Esk lieutenants. — Ann Leckie

Children are all sorts of people, aren't they, and I suppose if I knew more I'd find some I like and some I don't, just like everyone else. — Ann Leckie

The flower of justice is peace, — Ann Leckie

What, after all, was the point of civilisation if not the well-being of citizens? — Ann Leckie

From a child I was taught to forgive and forget, but it's difficult to forget these things, the loss of parents, of children and grandchildren. — Ann Leckie

Libraries are a tremendous and valuable resource, and I'm note sure it's possible to have too many of them. — Ann Leckie

I've been wanting to compliment you on that', I said to her, in Delsig. 'It was nicely done. Do you compose it that moment, or had you thought about it before? — Ann Leckie

And what is civilization, to you, but us being properly grateful to be murdered and raped and stolen from? — Ann Leckie

It's so easy, isn't it, to decide the people you're fighting aren't really human. Or maybe you have to do it, to be able to kill them. — Ann Leckie

Pain is a warning," said Anaander Mianaai. "What would happen if you removed all discomfort from your life? No," Mianaai continued, ignoring Seivarden's obvious distress at her words, "I value that moral indignation. I encourage it. — Ann Leckie

Now that's something different! I'm not bored of buckets yet! — Ann Leckie

The 'indistinguishable from magic' thing is highly dependent on where a viewer is looking from and not something intrinsic to any particular sort of tech. — Ann Leckie

You can kill me, you mean. You can destroy my sense of self and replace it with one you approve of. — Ann Leckie

One day, I discovered that a couple of people had written 'fanfic' - stories of their own based on my characters. Just the thought of people thinking that hard and deeply about something I've written is incredible. — Ann Leckie

Water will wear away stone, but it won't cook supper. Everything has its own strengths. Said with enough irony, it could also imply that since the gods surely had a purpose for everyone the person in question must be good for something, but the speaker couldn't fathom what it might be. — Ann Leckie

Singing together is something human beings just do, and there are hundreds of years worth of just European vocal music available to read and hear. — Ann Leckie

Writing books can be very individual - one might strike you as helpful that someone else found useless, or that you might not have appreciated at some other time in your life. — Ann Leckie

Information is power. Information is security. Plans made with imperfect information are fatally flawed, will fail or succeed on the toss of a coin. — Ann Leckie

It's always for show, Citizen. It is entirely possible to grieve with no outward sign. These things are meant to let others know about it. — Ann Leckie

If there was anything any Radchaai considered essential for civilised life, it was tea. — Ann Leckie

In the end it's only ever been one step, and then the next. — Ann Leckie

It had been, for both of our lives. Frantic action, then months or even years waiting for something to happen. — Ann Leckie

When one is the agent of order and civilisation in the universe, one doesn't stoop to negotiate. Especially with nonhumans. — Ann Leckie

I'm not going to pretend that I never fantasized about winning the Hugo. Or the Nebula, for that matter. I just never thought it was an actual real possibility. — Ann Leckie

When I need to get away from my desk, I tend to take walks or go places. I also like to bead - working with beads to make jewellery. — Ann Leckie

People often think they would have made the noblest choice, but when they find themselves actually in such a situation, they discover matters aren't quite so simple. — Ann Leckie

'Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell' by Susanna Clarke is a big, thick book. About a thousand pages in paperback. I've heard several people say the size alone intimidated them. — Ann Leckie

The smallest, most seemingly insignificant event is part of an intricate whole and to understand why one particular mote of dust falls in one particular path, and lands in one particular location, is to understand the will of Amaat. There is no such thing as "just a coincidence." Nothing happens by chance, but only according to the mind of God. — Ann Leckie

The problem is knowing when what you are about to do will make a difference. I'm not only speaking of the small actions that, cumulatively, over time, or in great numbers, alter the course of events in ways too chaotic or subtle to trace ... if everyone were to consider all the possible consequences of all one's possible choices, no one would move a millimetre, or even dare to breathe for fear of the ultimate results. — Ann Leckie

In that case," I said, "go fuck yourself." Which she could actually, literally do, in fact. — Ann Leckie

Governor Giarod was fairly good at not panicking visibly, but, I had discovered, not good at actually not panicking. — Ann Leckie

It's a common part of the narrative of the history of Christianity that it was 'real' religion that involved real spirituality and real faith, and that's why it's completely superseded the more pagan polytheistic practices. — Ann Leckie

You and your ship will immediately familiarize yourselves with the guidelines for dealing with citizen civilians. And you will follow them. — Ann Leckie

Weren't many forms of large-scale protest realistically available to most citizens, but one of them was standing in line when you didn't actually need to. — Ann Leckie

I didn't ever imagine, except in the most idle, obviously wish-fulfillment, ego-gratification fantasies, that anything I wrote would ever win awards, let alone so many. — Ann Leckie

Now, I personally enjoy a really good footnote. — Ann Leckie

After about fourth grade, I do remember borrowing my mother's old portable Olivetti and typing stories out on the back of photocopies of journal articles. — Ann Leckie

Working for several years as a waitress, you learn really quickly a couple of default scripts, so you know exactly what the interaction is going to be when the person sits down at the table. — Ann Leckie

If you're going to do something that crazy, save it for when it'll make a difference, Lieutenant Skaaiat had said, and I had agreed. I still agree.
The problem is knowing when what you are about to do will make a difference. — Ann Leckie

When I'm writing, I don't really have much other guide than, 'As a reader, how would I respond to this?' — Ann Leckie

It was a proverb. Or half of one. Water will wear away stone, but it won't cook supper. Everything has its own strengths. — Ann Leckie

I knew and cared nothing about the will of the gods. I only knew that I would land where I myself had been cast, wherever that would be. — Ann Leckie

I can't see potato chips being popular where there's not land to grow potatoes in or where frying in lots of oil isn't easy or convenient. — Ann Leckie

Choose my aim, take one step and then the next. It had never been anything else. — Ann Leckie

I will share one of them with you now: most people don't want trouble, but frightened people are liable to do very dangerous things. — Ann Leckie

If you're going to make a desperate, hopeless act of defiance you should make it a good one. — Ann Leckie

Odd people, as I said, and I owe them a great deal, though they would be offended and distressed to think anyone owed them anything. — Ann Leckie

I do think that narrative is very important - I think that we use narrative to organize the world around us, and so it does matter a lot what kinds of narratives we have in our inventories and which ones are reinforced so often and so strongly that we habitually reach for them without thinking. — Ann Leckie

If anyone who speaks up to criticise something obviously evil is punished merely for speaking, civilisation will be in a bad way. — Ann Leckie

We are all of us only human. We can only forgive so much. — Ann Leckie

Without feelings insignificant decisions become excruciating attempts to compare endless arrays of inconsequential things. It's just easier to handle those with emotions. — Ann Leckie

Good necessitates evil and the two sides of that disk are not always clearly marked. — Ann Leckie

For my part," I replied, "I find forgiveness overrated. There are times and places when it's appropriate. But not when the demand that you forgive is used to keep you in your place. — Ann Leckie

You write alone, but you write hoping that there will be readers who will connect with what you write, and it's so wonderful and amazing - I can't even tell you - when that actually happens. — Ann Leckie

Fuck, you are an ancillary! — Ann Leckie

Unity, I thought, implies the possibility of disunity. Beginnings imply and require endings. — Ann Leckie

In the nineteen years since then, I had learned eleven languages and 713 songs. I had found ways to conceal what I was - even, I was fairly sure, from the Lord of the Radch herself. I had worked as a cook, a janitor, a pilot. I had settled on a plan of action. I had joined a religious order, and made a great deal of money. In all that time I only killed a dozen people. — Ann Leckie

How comforting,' I replied, my voice and my expression steadily serious, 'to think that in these difficult times God is still concerned with the details of the housing assignments. I myself have no time to discuss them just now. — Ann Leckie

And it's so easy to just go along. So easy not to see what's happening. And the longer you don't see it, the harder it becomes to see it, because then you have to admit that you ignored it all that time. — Ann Leckie

I've been a fan of Jack Vance since before I was in high school. — Ann Leckie

It's easy to say that if you were there you would have refused, that you would rather die than participate in the slaughter, but it all looks very different when it's real, when the moment comes to choose. — Ann Leckie

Any attempt to list the ten best science fiction novels is doomed to failure. — Ann Leckie

We sit here arguing, we can hardly agree on anything, and then you go straight to my heart like that. We must be family. — Ann Leckie

If that's what you're willing to do for someone you hate, what would you do for someone you love? — Ann Leckie

We have a saying, where I come from: Power requires neither permission nor forgiveness. — Ann Leckie

Occasionally, I hear grumbles about everything being a series or a trilogy, but apart from the question of them maybe selling more books, I think that there's a real problem in trying to introduce a new world or a new concept while also getting your reader to pay close attention to your characters and themes. — Ann Leckie

When I first started writing, I did mostly short fiction, and I'd work on a short story and get near to being done and have no idea what I'd work on next, and then I'd panic. — Ann Leckie

Didn't Notai ships usually have long names? Like Ineluctable Ascendancy of Mind Unfolding or The Finite Contains the Infinite Contains the Finite? Both of those ship names were fictional, characters in more or less famous melodramatic entertainments. — Ann Leckie

Just how good of a citizen does one have to be" I asked, "in order to have water, air, and medical help? — Ann Leckie

The ability to live for five hundred years would be an incredible gift. But I greatly fear it would be a gift only for the wealthy - one that might greatly widen the gap between those with access and those without. — Ann Leckie

I love science fiction, and one of the things I love about it is that it's so very different. You can read stuff that's just fast-paced adventure, and the characters are cardboard, but who cares, because they're heroes, and we love it. And you can read stuff that's really deep character, and everything in between. — Ann Leckie

I'd say my biggest influences are writers like Andre Norton and, particularly when it comes to the Radch, C.J. Cherryh. — Ann Leckie

The '70s was a decade that was crammed with prominent women science fiction writers, and a lot of women made their debut in that decade or really came to prominence. — Ann Leckie

People don't riot for no reason. — Ann Leckie

The point is, there is no point. Choose your own! — Ann Leckie

No real endings, no final perfect happiness, no irredeemable despair. Meetings, yes, breakfasts and suppers. — Ann Leckie

Good, good. Always remember, Fleet Captain - internal organs belong inside your body. And blood belongs inside your veins. — Ann Leckie

You are very uncomfortable company, Fleet Captain', observed Station Administrator Celar, her voice bitter and sharp. 'Do you do this sort of thing everywhere you go ?'
'Lately it seems so', I admitted. — Ann Leckie

Science fiction in particular is often assumed to be about the future, or about some abstract technological or philosophical idea, or just about 'adventure,' but writers can't build worlds out of nothing. We use bits and pieces of the real world to assemble our fictional ones. — Ann Leckie

I tend to edit some as I go - partly because one of the reasons I don't outline much is that I don't know what the next scene will be until I've actually written the previous scene. — Ann Leckie

You never knelt to get anywhere. You are where you are because you're fucking capable, and willing to risk everything to do right, and I'll never be half what you are even if I tried my whole life, and I was walking around thinking I was better than you, even half dead and no use to anyone, because my family is old, because I was born better. — Ann Leckie

The natural environment of humans - space stations, ships, constructed habitats. — Ann Leckie

This struck me as something of a double bind. Speak and your possession of an opinion was plain, clear to anyone. Refrain from speaking and still this was proof of an opinion. If Captain Rubran were to say, Truly, I have no opinion on the matter, would that merely be another proof she had one? — Ann Leckie

The lessons of slushing and editing build up over time, and you're not necessarily thinking about them while you're working, but they're in the back of your mind, probably influencing your choices. — Ann Leckie

Good necessitates evil. — Ann Leckie

I greatly fear', Citizen Fosyf said before I could answer, 'that the fleet captain's interests are musical rather than spiritual. She's only interested if there's singing — Ann Leckie

If you've got power and money and connections, some differences won't change anything. Or if you're resigned to dying in the near future, which I gather is your position at the moment. It's the people without the money and the power, who desperately want to live, for those people small things aren't small at all. What you call no difference is life and death to them. — Ann Leckie

I would like to point out that as soon as Lieutenant Ekalu let you know that actually, your intended compliment was offensive to her, you immediately stopped trying to be nice. — Ann Leckie

Or is anyone's identity a matter of fragments held together by convenient or useful narrative, that in ordinary circumstances never reveals itself as a fiction? Or is it really a fiction? — Ann Leckie

Strange, how equally important, just different always seemed to translate into some "equally important" roles being more worthy of respect and reward than others. — Ann Leckie

There is always more after the ending. Always the next morning, and the next. Always changes, losses and gains. Always one step after the other. Until the one true ending that none of us can escape. But even that ending is only a small one, larges as it looms for us. There is still the next morning for everyone else. For the vast majority of the rest of the universe that ending might as well not ever have happened. Every ending is an arbitrary one. Everything ending is from another angle, not really an ending. — Ann Leckie

Amaat conceived of light, and conceiving of light also necessarily conceived of not-light, and light and darkness sprang forth. This was the first Emanation, EtrepaBo; Light/Darkness. The other three, implied and necessitated by that first, are EskVar (Beginning/Ending), IssaInu (Movement/Stillness), and VahnItr (Existence/Nonexistence). These four Emanations variously split and recombined to create the universe. Everything that is, emanates from Amaat. — Ann Leckie

I've been thinking about it, since you said it," said Seivarden. No, said Mercy of Kalr. "And I've concluded that I don't want to be a captain. But I find I like the thought that I could be. — Ann Leckie

Get some rest. Kalr will bring supper to your quarters. Things will seem better after you've eaten and slept." "Really?" she asked. Bitter and challenging. "Well, not necessarily," I admitted. "But it's easier to deal with things when you've had some rest and some breakfast. — Ann Leckie