Kij Johnson Quotes & Sayings

That's not a goal," Kit said.
"Why? Because it's not yours? Which is better, Kit Meinem of Atyar? A single great victory, or a thousand small ones? — Kij Johnson

Love is curiosity sometimes. Concentrated wondering about the other one. — Kij Johnson

Waiting required a future to wait for: a falsehood. I know now that there is only now. I remember things that happened months (or what is years?) ago: old -worn-out nows. The future happens, but it is always shaped from a series of nows. — Kij Johnson

I can write about it if I am careful, if I keep it far enough away. — Kij Johnson

I feel strangely free at such times. To behave properly is to be always courteous, always clever, and subtle and elegant. But now, when I am so alone, I do not have to be any of these things.
For this moment, I am wholly myself, unshaped by the needs of others, by their dreams or expectations or sensibilities.
But I am also lonely. With no one to shape me, who stands here, watching the moon, or the stars, or the clouds? — Kij Johnson

If {Death} comes for you?" he said. "Would you be so sanguine then?"
She laughed and the pensiveness was gone. "No indeed. I will curse the stars and go down fighting. But it will still have been a wonderful thing, to cross the mist. — Kij Johnson

Because if something does go wrong, you'll need what you're feeling to matter, to someone somewhere, anyway. — Kij Johnson

There would be sadness and nightmares. And there would be lovemaking and the holding close of children and friends and dogs
affirmations of life in the cold wet night. — Kij Johnson

He says there are millions of stars, Raba. Millions. — Kij Johnson

Does Carthage even have forests? Did Virgil know for sure or was it just convenient for his story? Virgil was a professional liar. This would not be the only place where he pruned the truth until it was as artificial as an espaliered pear tree against a wall, forced into an expedient shape and bearing the demanded fruit. — Kij Johnson

There was for everything a possibility, an invisible pattern that could be made manifest given work and the right materials. — Kij Johnson

The soul often hangs in a balance of some sort. Tonight do I lie down in the high fields with Dirk Tanner or not? At the fair, do I buy ribbons or wine? For the new ferry's headboard, do I use camphor or pearwood? Small things. A kiss, a ribbon, a grain that coaxes the knife this way or that. They are not, Kit Meinem of Atyar. Our souls wait for our answer because any answer changes us. This is why I wait to decide what I feel about your bridge. I'm waiting until I know how I will be changed."
"You never know how things will change you," Kit said.
"If you don't, you have not waited to find out. — Kij Johnson

We cannot protect people from the lessons we ourselves have learned. — Kij Johnson

Cats have a sort of game they play when they meet. A player alternates between watching the strange cat and ignoring her, grooming or examining everything around herself - a dead leaf, a cloud - with complete absorption. It is almost accidental how the two cats approach, a sidelong step and then the sitting again. This often ends in a flurry of spitting and slashing claws, too fast to see clearly, and then one or the other (or both) of the cats leap out of range. The game can have one exchange or many - and is not so different from the first meetings of women. — Kij Johnson

The constant talking didn't bother her, for cats use their voices to say 'here I am, where are you?' and this seemed to be the primary intention of most human conversation. — Kij Johnson

in the end she had not wanted a life spent treading water in his story. She still did not - and yet she regarded herself in the glass a little ruefully. To have that choice removed by time and age was painful. — Kij Johnson

Some people change the world. And some people change the people who change the world, and that's you. — Kij Johnson

Ferrys die, but there is always a Ferry to cross the mist. Bridges and ferryfolk, they are not so different, Kit. — Kij Johnson

Happiness is the pleasantest of emotions; because of this, it is the most dangerous. Having once felt happiness, one will do anything to maintain it, and losing it, one will grieve. — Kij Johnson

This is the gift of humanity: that it is claimed by the self. None of us ... are human unless and until we claim it for ourselves. But nothing can stop that claiming - not the eight million gods nor the spirits nor ghosts. Nothing but ourselves, anyway.
And our lives become the poems we were born to tell. — Kij Johnson

These cables will fail eventually, these stones will fall - but not the dream of crossing the mist, the dream of connection. Now that we know it can happen, it will always be here. — Kij Johnson

Adventures are what happens when an event is flawed, a mark of imperfection. — Kij Johnson

Everyone wanted to tell their stories and to know where they fit in their own fudoki. She was not that different. — Kij Johnson

Aeneas comes to her court a suppliant, impoverished and momentarily timid. He is a good-looking man. If anything, his scars emphasize that. The aura of his divine failure wraps around him like a cloak. Dido feels the tender contempt of the strong for the unlucky, but this is mixed with something else, a hunger that worms through her bones and leaves them hollow, to be filled with fire. — Kij Johnson

Never mind,' she said, 'I don't see the point of a God.'
'And I don't see much point in a cat.' the Kami replied. — Kij Johnson

Love and memory and thought and dream ~
My favorite poems have never been written in words. — Kij Johnson

We ascribe meanings because it is our nature to do so..We can no more see a thing without searching for a meaning than we can see a snag in a robe without pulling on the loose thread. — Kij Johnson

All those losses, but this one at least he could prevent. "When the time comes," he said: "When you sail. I will come with you. — Kij Johnson