Jemisin Quotes & Sayings

Necessity is the only law, says stonelore. "Not — N.K. Jemisin

Men who served anyone could be trusted by no one. — N.K. Jemisin

Embrace love while you have it, priest - from whichever direction it comes, proper or improper, for however long it lasts. Because it always, always comes to an end. — N.K. Jemisin

Desperation makes for poor stealth. — N.K. Jemisin

The body fades. A leader who would last relies on more. — N.K. Jemisin

The Cloud Roads has wildly original worldbuilding, diverse and engaging characters, and a thrilling adventure plot. It's that rarest of fantasies: fresh and surprising, with a story that doesn't go where ten thousand others have gone before. I can't wait for my next chance to visit the Three Worlds! — N.K. Jemisin

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

Neither myths nor mysteries can hold a candle to the most infinitesimal spark of hope. — N.K. Jemisin

We must be polite, Syen," he says. He's still smiling, but he's furious; she can tell because he's flashing too many teeth. "We're only orogenes, after all. And this is a member of the Stillness's most esteemed use-caste. We are merely here to wield powers greater than she can comprehend in order to save her region's economy, while she - " He waggles a finger at the woman, not even trying to hide his sarcasm. "She is a pedantic minor bureaucrat. But I'm sure she's a very important pedantic minor bureaucrat. — N.K. Jemisin

Any woman can face the world alone, but why should we have to? — N.K. Jemisin

We worship Him not because He is the best of our gods, but because He is, or was, the greatest killer among them. — N.K. Jemisin

It is the lies he's telling her - as he has been, Nassun understands suddenly, her whole life - that really break her heart. He's said that he loves her, after all, but that obviously isn't true. He cannot love an orogene, and that is what she is. He cannot be an orogene's father, and that is why he constantly demands she be something other than what she is. — N.K. Jemisin

Determination could easily become obsession. — N.K. Jemisin

Who misses what they have never, ever even imagined? — N.K. Jemisin

I'm tired of being what everyone else has made me," I said. "I want to be myself." "Don't be a child." I looked up, startled and angry, though of course there was nothing to see. "What?" "You are what your creators and experiences have made you, like every other being in this universe. Accept that and be done; I'm tired of your whining. — N.K. Jemisin

Everyone _shouldn't_ have a say in whose life is worth fighting for. — N.K. Jemisin

Evil was the most contagious of diseases, so virulent that no herb, surgery, or dream-humor could cure it. One's sense of what was normal, acceptable, became distorted by proximity to wrongness; entire nations had succumbed this way, first to decadence, then collapse. — N.K. Jemisin

There is nothing foolish about hope. — N.K. Jemisin

That Castrima has lasted this far, a comm of stills who have repeatedly failed to lynch the roggas openly living among them, is miraculous. Even if "hasn't yet committed genocidal slaughter" is a low bar to hop, other communities haven't even managed that much. You'll give credit where it's due. It — N.K. Jemisin

If she hurts him because she loves him, is that still hurt? If she hurts him a lot now so that he will hurt less later, does that make her a terrible person? [...]
Is that not how love should work? — N.K. Jemisin

(It is surprising how refreshing this feels. Being judged by what you do, and not what you are.) Lately — N.K. Jemisin

It's not your status as an orogene that bothers them. It's that you haven't yet proven yourself.

(It is surprising how refreshing this feels. Being judged by what you do, and not what you are.) — N.K. Jemisin

It's hard out here for a fantasy writer, after all; there's all these 'rules' I'm supposed to follow, or the Fantasy Police might come and make me do hard labor in the Cold Iron Mines. — N.K. Jemisin

Someday, you must tell me what it's like there. Why all who come out of that place seem so very competent... and so very afraid. — N.K. Jemisin

A commandment," the man says, spreading his arms, "is set in stone." Imagine that his face aches from smiling. He's been smiling for hours: teeth clenched, lips drawn back, eyes crinkled so the crow's feet show. 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 — N.K. Jemisin

This is magic we're talking about. It's supposed to go places science can't, defy logic, wink at technology, fill us all with the sensawunda that comes of gazing upon a fictional world and seeing something truly different from our own. — N.K. Jemisin

No, I'm telling this wrong. 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

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

For all those that have to fight for the respect that everyone else is given without question. — N.K. Jemisin

You're right," he says. "I've been crazy for years. If you stay with me for long, you will be, too. If you see enough of this, and understand enough of what it all means." He lets out a long sigh. — N.K. Jemisin

The children of the Fulcrum are all different: different ages, different colors, different shapes. Some speak Sanze-mat with different accents, having originated from different parts of the world. One girl has sharp teeth because it is her race's custom to file them; another boy has no penis, though he stuffs a sock into his underwear after every shower; another girl has rarely had regular meals and wolfs down every one like she's still starving. (The instructors keep finding food hidden in and around her bed. They make her eat it, all of it, in front of them, even if it makes her sick.) One cannot reasonably expect sameness out of so much difference, and it makes no sense for Damaya to be judged by the behavior of children who share nothing save the curse of orogeny with her. — N.K. Jemisin

You have seen so much purposeless suffering that at least being killed for a reason can be borne? — N.K. Jemisin

Funny thing, employment. If you keep doing it, you keep getting paid. — N.K. Jemisin

Honor in safety, survival under threat. Better a living coward than a dead hero. — N.K. Jemisin

Actual Victorian mores and politics were a reaction to a specific series of historical events, technological and scientific developments, and ethical trends in which the commodification of people was de rigueur. — N.K. Jemisin

As a black woman, I have no particular interest in maintaining the status quo. Why would I? The status quo is harmful; the status quo is significantly racist and sexist and a whole bunch of other things that I think need to change. — N.K. Jemisin

This means, in a way, that true light is dependent on the presence of other lights. Take the others away and darkness results. Yet the reverse is not true: take away darkness and there is only more darkness. Darkness can exist by itself. Light cannot. — N.K. Jemisin

Because I think I saw you, yesterday morning when I woke up. I think my eyes worked again, just for a moment, and you were the light I saw. — N.K. Jemisin

You've never really trusted him, though you don't understand why. Something about the fact that he's hidden all his life - which is hypocritical as hell after your ten years in Tirimo. — N.K. Jemisin

But when I got angry, my nerves sought an outlet, and my mouth didn't always guard the gates. — N.K. Jemisin

The way I see it, a stranger feels like a stranger; a friend feels like a friend. Simple. — N.K. Jemisin

You are what your creators and experiences have made you, like every other being in this universe. Accept that and be done; I tire of your whining. — N.K. Jemisin

So there was love, once. More than love. And now there is more than hate. Mortals have no words for what we gods feel. Gods have no words for such things. But love like that doesn't just disappear, does it? No matter how powerful the hate, there is always love left, underneath. Horrible, isn't it? — N.K. Jemisin

This understanding floats on the surface of Jija's mind for the rest of the day after Renthree leaves. The truth is beneath the surface, a Leviathan waiting to uncurl, but the waters of his thoughts are placid for now. Denial is powerful. — N.K. Jemisin

You pretended to hate him because you were a coward. But you eventually loved him, and he is a part of you now, because you have since grown brave. — N.K. Jemisin

Listen, listen, listen well. There was an age before the Seasons, when life and Earth, its father, thrived alike. (Life had a mother, too. Something terrible happened to Her.) — N.K. Jemisin

Rising from the dead? Glowing at sunrise? What did that make him, the god of cheerful mornings and macabre surprises? — N.K. Jemisin

It's not hate that you're seeing. Hate requires emotion. What this woman has simply done is realize that you are a rogga, and decide that you aren't a person, just like that. — N.K. Jemisin

The Nightlord cannot be controlled, child. He can only be unleashed. And you asked him not to kill. — N.K. Jemisin

There is no greater warrior than a mother protecting her child. — N.K. Jemisin

Love betrayed has an entirely different sound from hatred outright. — N.K. Jemisin

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 chopping vegetables when the urge to stab himself through the wrist had struck. I slipped on the blood coming in, which annoyed me because that meant it was all over the kitchen floor. — N.K. Jemisin

Once upon a time there was a
Once upon a time there was a
Once upon a time there was a
Stop this. It's undignified. — N.K. Jemisin

magic redistribution. — N.K. Jemisin

With epic fantasy, there is a tendency for it to be quintessentially conservative in that its job is to restore what is perceived to be out of whack. — N.K. Jemisin

Myths tell us what those like us have done, can do, should do. Without myths to lead the way, we hesitate to leap forward. Listen to the wrong myths, and we might even go back a few steps. — N.K. Jemisin

Eyes whose color I would never be able to fully describe, even if I someday learn the words. The best I can do is compare it to things I do know: the heavy thickness of red gold, the smell of brass on a hot day, desire and pride. — N.K. Jemisin

Nothing to do but follow your crazy, — N.K. Jemisin

Do you try to pick up all the mortal girls you almost kill?"
"Just the ones who don't scream and run," he said. And then he startled me further by touching my face, just under one eye. I tensed just a little, as I always did when someone noticed my eyes. Bracing myself for the if only.
But there was no revulsion in his gaze and nothing but fascination in his touch. "And the ones with pretty eyes," he added. — N.K. Jemisin

It was very bad if the council had resorted to recruiting men. By tradition men were our last line of defence, their physical strength bent towards the single and most important task of protecting our homes and children. This meant the council had decided that our only defence was to defeat the enemy, period. Anything else meant the end of Darre. — N.K. Jemisin

Choose how your nature shapes you. Embrace it. Find the strength in it. — N.K. Jemisin

Necessity is the only law, — N.K. Jemisin

Earth's flaming farts, it worked! — N.K. Jemisin

Denying what you are didn't keep people from knowing what you are."

"And flaunting it isn't what saved you."

Ykka takes a deep breath. The muscles in her jaw flex, relax. "And that would be why I asked you do this, Cutter. But let's move on."

So it goes on. — N.K. Jemisin

(This is not a digression.) — N.K. Jemisin

Four are the tributaries of the great river. Four are the harvests from floodseason to dust. Four are the great treasures: timbalin, myrrh, lapis, and jungissa. Four bands of color mark the face of the Dreaming Moon. Red for blood. White for seed. Yellow for ichor. Black for bile. — N.K. Jemisin

J. R. R. Tolkien, the near-universally-hailed father of modern epic fantasy, crafted his magnum opus The Lord of the Rings to explore the forces of creation as he saw them: God and country, race and class, journeying to war and returning home. I've heard it said that he was trying to create some kind of original British mythology using the structure of other cultures' myths, and maybe that was true. I don't know. What I see, when I read his work, is a man trying desperately to dream.
Dreaming is impossible without myths. If we don't have enough myths of our own, we'll latch onto those of others - even if those myths make us believe terrible or false things about ourselves. Tolkien understood this, I think because it's human nature. Call it the superego, call it common sense, call it pragmatism, call it learned helplessness, but the mind craves boundaries. Depending on the myths we believe in, those boundaries can be magnificently vast, or crushingly tight. — N.K. Jemisin

[...] the kind of healer who knows that sometimes one must inflict terrible agony - rebreak a bone, carve off a limb, kill the weak - in order to make the whole stronger. — N.K. Jemisin

Peace is meaningless without freedom. — N.K. Jemisin

I remembered Nahadoth's lips on my throat and fought to suppress a shudder, only half succeeding. Death as a consequence of lying with a god wasn't something I had considered, but it did not surprise me. A mortal man's strength had its limits. He spent himself and slept. He could be a good lover, but even his best skills were only guesswork - for every caress that sent a woman's head into the clouds, he might try ten that brought her back to earth. — N.K. Jemisin

But perhaps that was just the way of power: no such thing as too much. — N.K. Jemisin

They ask to touch her hair and she asks to touch theirs back. This makes them all realize how strange and silly a request that is, and they giggle and become instant friends without a head petted between them. — N.K. Jemisin

Immortality gets very, very boring. You'd be surprised at how interesting the small mundanities of life can seem after a few millennia. — N.K. Jemisin

True peace required the presence of justice, not just the absence of conflict. — N.K. Jemisin

He has come to seduce the god of seduction, and oh, has he come prepared. — N.K. Jemisin

Calling something exotic emphasizes its distance from the reader. We don't refer to things as exotic if we think of them as ordinary. We call something exotic if it's so different that we see no way to emulate it or understand how it came to be. We call someone exotic if we aren't especially interested in viewing them as people - just as objects representing their culture. — N.K. Jemisin

His fingers spread and twitch as he feels several reverberating points on the map of his awareness: his fellow slaves. He cannot free them, not in the practical sense. He's tried before and failed. He can, however, make their suffering serve a cause greater than one city's hubris, and one empire's fear. — N.K. Jemisin

All that stuff about Father Earth, it's just stories to explain what's wrong with the world. Like those weird cults that crop up from time to time. I heard of one that asks an old man in the sky to keep them alive every time they go to sleep. People need to believe there's more to the world than there is. — N.K. Jemisin

Sieh was a horrible father and a wretched friend and a barely competent employee, completely unworthy of being missed or mourned. — N.K. Jemisin

After all, a person is herself, and others. Relationships chisel the final shape of one's being. — N.K. Jemisin

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

Complaining about nothing doesn't seem like coping to you, but okay. — N.K. Jemisin

And in that sliver of time, I felt the power around me coalesce, malice-hard and sharp as crystal.
That this analogy occurred to me should have been a warning. — N.K. Jemisin

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

It's so reasonable that you don't know why you didn't even consider it. Well, you know why. Ykka might be an orogene like you, but you spent too many years being thwarted and betrayed by other orogenes at the Fulcrum; you know better than to trust her just because she's Your People. You should give her a chance because she's Your People, though. "Fine, — N.K. Jemisin

I think most fiction focuses on uncomfortable settings because that's interesting. — N.K. Jemisin

But Schaffa is a grown-up, and grown-ups need their sleep; that's what her father always said whenever she or Chaga did something that woke him up. — N.K. Jemisin

The opposite of liking is not disliking, after all. The opposite of liking is apathy. — N.K. Jemisin

But it is one thing to resolve to die, quite another to actually carry out that resolve in the midst of dying. Something — N.K. Jemisin

When the reasoning mind is forced to confront the impossible again and again, it has no choice but to adapt. So — N.K. Jemisin

Love is no inoculation against murder. — N.K. Jemisin

True dreamers are both geniuses and madmen. Most lands can tolerate only a few, and those die young. — N.K. Jemisin

It was simply that I knew, or had known, precisely why he did not love all his children equally. Differentiation, variation, appreciation of the unique: this was part of what he was. His children were not the same, so his feelings toward each were not the same. He loved us all, but differently. And because he did this, because he did not pretend that love was fair or equal, mortals could mate for an afternoon or for the rest of their lives. Mothers could tell their twins or triplets apart. Children could have crushes and outgrow them; elders could remain devoted to their spouses long after beauty had gone. The mortal heart was fickle. Naha made it so. And because of this, they were free to love as they wished, and not solely by the dictates of instinct or power or tradition. — N.K. Jemisin

Fortunately, where reason failed, blind panic served well enough. — N.K. Jemisin

It's human nature that we come in our own flavours, and it doesn't make any sense to write a monochromatic or monocultural story unless you're doing something extremely small - a locked room-style story. — N.K. Jemisin

There is no logic to grief. — N.K. Jemisin

It is not safe to hate the Arameri. Instead we hate their weapons, because weapons do not care. — N.K. Jemisin

It is important to give just the right instructions. He thinks in loopholes. — N.K. Jemisin

Loneliness is a darkness of the soul — N.K. Jemisin

We can never be gods, after all
but we can become something less than human with frightening ease. — N.K. Jemisin