M.L. Wang > Quotes

“Wholeness, she had learned, was not the absence of pain but the ability to hold it.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“Listen, son… when I was your age, I had to face truths that seemed to break the world. That’s what happens when you come into contact with people who aren’t quite like you. You learn over time that the world isn’t broken. It’s just… got more pieces to it than you thought. They all fit together, just maybe not the way you pictured when you were young.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“It’s much easier to tell yourself you’re a good person than it is to actually be one.”
― M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven

“A decade later, a fifteen-year-old Hiroshi would become known as the youngest swordsman ever to master the Whispering Blade. What the world would never know, was that he was the second youngest.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“The question isn’t: How do I stop feeling this way? That’s stupid. I can’t. The question is: What can I do with this feeling?”
― M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven

“Truth over delusion. Growth over comfort.”
― M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven

“What are you?” Takeru whispered.
Something bigger than myself , she realized. “I’m Matsuda Misaki,” she said with pride and honesty she never attached to those words before. “I’m your wife.”
And she attacked him.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“So many parents will try to kill everything brilliant about a girl in the name of giving her a good life, a safe life, a chance at happiness.”
― M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven

“But if I learned one thing from Firebird, it’s that a person’s tragedy doesn’t define them or cancel all the good in their life.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“I’ve never needed a sword to protect you—to raise you the way your father wanted. Caring for my family meant putting away the fighter, so I did.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“The worthwhile run is never the short one. You know we’re not running from oblivion, Thomil. We’re running toward hope.”
― M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven

“Because good people can turn desperate when the horrors are upon them—especially people whose culture of plenty has left them with no systems to cope with scarcity or cataclysm. Good people will turn monstrous when it’s down to their survival or someone else’s.” “This”
― M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven

“In refusing to be a stepping stone, she had made herself a boot.”
― M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven

“This... you are my story... and I was so selfish, so tied to that shadow that I missed it. And my son, I— I’m so sorry it took me this long to understand. I’m sorry—” the words caught in her throat, choking her, until pain shot through her chest, forcing her to let them out. “I never loved you the way I should have.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“I’m starting to understand how ridiculous it is to demand civility when the world is so disgustingly uncivil.”
― M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven

“A life of dangerous adventures might seem worth it now, when you are young and seemingly invincible, but one day, you will have children, and you will not want that life for them.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“Stay,” she said softly and tugged him in until their bodies leaned together. “Stay and watch the sun set with me.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“listening never made any man dumber, but it’s made a lot of people smarter.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“What sort of a man closed his eyes to the world and called it clarity?”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“But unencumbered by the tight kimono or the childish cowardice that had bound her for years, she had become a new creature, more fluid and boundless than a girl but more solid than a shadow—a woman of lightning sinew and roaring blood.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“I will not turn my gaze," Sciona snarled the end of the prayer for him, "though Light burn me. For Light will show the Truth of the world, and all Truth in the world is of Feryn the Father."

"Behold!" She held her arms wide before the archmages. "God's work!”
― M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven

“It doesn’t matter how big, or strong, or pretty you are in magic. It doesn’t matter how much people like you. With my fingers on the keys of a spellograph, if I can just think hard enough, I’m the most powerful person in the world. That’s a feeling a woman just isn’t going to get anywhere else.”
― M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven

“You know, arrogance never made a woman more attractive.'
'When I care how attractive you find me, I'll let you know.”
― M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven

“The Whispering Blade met Misaki’s obsidian sheath and sheared through it. Her eyes went wide, and she smiled—Gods in the Deep, she smiled —a raw, open smile, and it was the most beautiful thing in all the Duna.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“Be cold, be hard, and don’t give them an inch, you understand? No matter what they say of you.”
― M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven

“Brilliant men - even moderately intelligent men - in this city get showered with opportunities to succeed. Brilliant women have to fight for those opportunities, and, when we get them, we have to defend them tooth and nail, or they'll be snatched away.”
― M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven

“Most strong things are rigid. If you are water, you can shift to fit any mold and freeze yourself strong. You can be strong in any shape. You can be anything.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“You might have twenty years with him. You might only have two. If you waste that time, if you miss it, then when it ends, you’re going to feel like the biggest idiot who ever lived.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“The brightest meadows grew from dead things.”
― M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven

“Thomil said that a woman was weighed at the gates of Heaven by her actions and their impact. Well, Sciona was going to leave an impact. Whatever happened next, whether it led to Hell or Heaven, she was going to have a hand in directing it. Sick or sound, good or evil, she was still Sciona Freynan. And Sciona Freynan didn’t slow down. Sciona Freynan would be remembered.”
― M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven