N. K. Jemisin Quotes

27 Sourced Quotes

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

N. K. Jemisin
The shadows of Ina-Karekh are the place where nightmares dwell, but not their source. Never forget: the shadowlands are not elsewhere. We create them. They are within.

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

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
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
If the gods do decide to wipe us out, is it such a bad thing? Maybe we've earned a little annihilation.

N. K. Jemisin
They live forever. But many of them are even more lonely and miserable than we are. Why do you think they bother with us? We teach them life's value.

N. K. Jemisin
And when I lift my head to scream out my fury, a million stars turn black and die. No one can see them, but they are my tears.

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

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

N. K. Jemisin
I am not as I once was. They have done this to me, broken me open and torn out my heart. I do not know who I am anymore. I must try to remember.

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

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
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
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
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
Any woman can face the world alone, but why should we have to?

N. K. Jemisin
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.

N. K. Jemisin
But love like that doesn't just disappear, does it? No matter how powerful the hate, there's always a little love left, underneath.
Yes. Horrible, isn't it?

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

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
There's truth even in tainted knowledge, if one reads carefully.

N. K. Jemisin
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
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
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
It is important to appreciate beauty, even when it is evil.

N. K. Jemisin