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N. K. Jemisin
75 quotes
“(Book that...everyone should read:) One of the many books by queer and POC authors that are under challenge by conservatives, via your local library. If they’re no longer available at your library because the conservatives got there first, join your local Library Board and fight to reinstate them. Reading–and the freedom to speak truth to power–is part of a framework of equity and justice that is under attack in a way not seen for a generation. Fight for all books. Or else.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: interview (2022)
“We were all exposed to nothing but white dude fiction, occasionally young white women fiction, and if that’s how you’ve grown up, then that is what is normal.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On how she once perceived fiction in “NK Jemisin: 'It’s easier to get a book set in black Africa published if you're white'” in The Guardian (2020 May 2)
“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.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On overcoming adversity, from her speech after winning Hugo in 2016, quoted in “NK Jemisin: 'It’s easier to get a book set in black Africa published if you're white'” in The Guardian (2020 May 2)
“My job is to help the world..That is what an artist's job is—to the degree that we can. That is nothing more than holding up a mirror and saying, 'You're beautiful, baby.' Or holding up a mirror and saying, 'Look at the shit that you're doing to yourself. Maybe you should stop.' It is an artist's job to speak truth to power.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the artist's role, in "N.K. Jemisin Is Trying to Keep the World From Ending" in Gentlemen's Quarterly (2018 Nov 28)
“There is no greater warrior than a mother protecting her child.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But perhaps that was just the way of power: no such thing as too much.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is important to appreciate beauty, even when it is evil.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no logic to grief.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It’s all right to need help. All of us have things we can’t do alone.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love betrayed has an entirely different sound from hatred outright.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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—”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Very quickly I fell in with others like me—newcomers, dreamers, young people drawn to the city in spite of its dangers because sometimes, for some of us, tedium and familiarity feel worse than risking your life.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There’s not such thing as magic that does no harm.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They follow the creed of the Bright: that which disturbs the order of society must be eliminated, regardless of whether it caused the disturbance.” She rolled her eyes. “You’d think they’d get tired of parroting Itempas and start thinking for themselves after two thousand years.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I knew as well as anyone that the priests taught what they wanted us to know, not necessarily what was true. And sometimes even when they told the truth, they got it wrong.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What happened when people who’d once possessed absolute power suddenly lost it?”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But though I repeated my plea, and waited on my knees for nearly an hour, there was no answer.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I understand that mutual dissatisfaction is a factor in their collaboration. I imagine it isn’t a far step from mutual goals to mutual respect, and from there to love.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can’t lose faith you never had to begin with.” “Ah. So you never believed in the Bright at all?” “Of course I believed. Even now I believe, in principle. But when I was sixteen, I saw the hypocrisy in all the things the priests had taught me. It’s all very well to say the world values reason and compassion and justice, but if nothing in reality reflects those words, they’re meaningless.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Good intentions are pointless without the will to implement them.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I...regret...what I did. It was wrong. Very wrong. But regret is meaningless.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I keep hoping you’ll tell me. You’re the god, after all. If I prayed to you for guidance, and you decided to answer, what would you tell me?” “I wouldn’t answer.” “Because you don’t care? Or because you wouldn’t know what to say?” More silence.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I knew what it was at last—the visible manifestation of my will. My power, inherited from my god ancestors and distilled through generations of humanity, given shape and energy and potential. That was all magic was, really, in the end. Possibility. With it I could create anything, provided I believed.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Otherwise it was quiet—that eerie, not-quite-comforting quiet one finds in small towns before dawn.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had never been able to truly hate anyone who’d suffered, no matter what evils they’d done in the aftermath.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, isn’t that what fathers do?” He had no idea what fathers did. “Love you, even if you don’t love them? Miss you when you go away?”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When things are bad, change is good, right? Change means things will get better.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Unconditional love: childhood’s greatest magic.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was no point in making myself suffer unnecessarily. As a mortal, there would be pain enough in my life, whether I sought it out or not.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sky’s forecourt had been designed by my late sister, Kurue, who had understood two key elements of the mortal psyche: they hate being reminded of their own insignificance, yet they simultaneously and instinctively expect their leaders to be overwhelmingly dominant.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a massive palace, each spire of which could house a village; its chambers contain dozens of entertainments. All of these become tedious to the point of torment after two thousand years. Hells, after twenty.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That was the way of things, after all. Children had to grow up. They did not always become what others wanted.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’d come down sick. (I had. It was called adolescence, an evil, evil disease.)”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It takes great strength to compromise, Shahar. More than it does to threaten and destroy, since you must fight your own pride as well as the enemy.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The child in her wanted to do as she pleased, cling to impossible hopes. The woman in her wanted to make sound decisions, succeed even if it meant sacrifice. The woman would win; that was inevitable. But the child would not go quietly.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well. Adolescence is all about making mistakes.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think you’re just so gods-damned certain of your own importance that you haven’t figured it out. So let me make this clear: I don’t care about you. You’re irrelevant. It’s a waste of my energy even to hate you!”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Unreasoning optimism is a fundamental element of childishness.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was the oldest of tricks, to sow dissension between groups that had common interests. Good for deflecting attention from greater mischief, too.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Funny thing, employment. If you keep doing it, you keep getting paid.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Magic is merely communication, after all. Communication, and conduits.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If they will not love me, fear is an acceptable substitute.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This was what I’d asked her to give me. I had no right to complain just because it wasn’t what I wanted to hear.”
N. K. Jemisin (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source