Shannon Chakraborty > Quotes

“After all, we build our homes upon the ruins of lost cities and sail our ships over the drowned palaces of forgotten kings.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“Men find it easier to believe they have been swindled by a witch than outwitted by a woman” (115).”
― Shannon Chakraborty

“Men find it easier to believe they have been swindled by a witch than outwitted by a woman.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“Both my grandfather and father had impressed upon me from an early age that we shared the sea with countless other peoples; if God had not meant for such diversity, he would have made us all alike.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“Ah yes, a certain degree of rebelliousness is expected from youth. It is why we have stories of treasure-seeking princesses and warrior women that end with the occasional happiness. But they are expected to end—with the boy, the prince, the sailor, the adventurer. The man that will take her maidenhood, grant her children, make her a wife. The man who defines her. He may continue his epic—he may indeed take new wives and make new children!—but women’s stories are expected to dissolve into a fog of domesticity . . . if they’re told at all.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“I have traveled widely enough that I take everything written about 'foreigners' with doubt and know better than to judge a community by their worst individuals.”
― Shannon Chakraborty

“For the greatest crime of the poor in the eyes of the wealthy has always been to strike back. To fail to suffer in silence and instead disrupt their lives and their fantasies of a compassionate society that coincidentally set them on top. To say no.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“I have not survived this long by confusing courage with foolishness. People may call my kind sea rats, but let me tell you ,rats know when to fucking run.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“he said he hoped you had deep pockets.” “How fortunate that I do.” And whether that meant it held coins, my fist, or a knife, I’d yet to decide.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“It is not always easy to do the right thing, Amina al-Sirafi. More often than not, it is a lonely, thankless ordeal. That does not mean it is not worth doing.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“He who dares does while he who fears fails,”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“I have traveled widely enough that I take everything written about “foreigners” with doubt and know better than to judge a community by their worst individuals.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“Now, listen . . . I’m not an easy woman to shock. I’m a sinner very much relying on the “Most Merciful” aspect of my Lord.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“Our stories always want to make villains larger than life. They should be snarling or scarred, hunchbacked or otherwise marred in a way society doesn’t like. It makes them easier to demonize. But life is not nearly so simple,”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“People have this idea of mothers, that we are soft and gentle and sweet. As though the moment my daughter was laid on my breast, the phrase I would do anything did not take on a depth I could have never understood before.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“For this scribe has read a great many of these accounts and taken away another lesson: that to be a woman is to have your story misremembered. Discarded. Twisted. In courtyard tales, women are the adulterous wives whose treachery begins a husband’s descent into murderous madness or the long-suffering mothers who give birth to proper heroes. Biographers polish away the jagged edges of capable, ruthless queens so they may be remembered as saints, and geographers warn believing men away from such and such a place with scandalous tales of lewd local females who cavort in the sea and ravish foreign interlopers. Women are the forgotten spouses and unnamed daughters. Wet nurses and handmaidens; thieves and harlots. Witches. A titillating anecdote to tell your friends back home or a warning.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“I tumbled wildly through the air. The ground was so far away I could see the entire island: the misty stone mountains and verdant jungle surrounded by white sand and teal ocean. I was higher than a flock of birds, higher than a human had any right being. And it would have been extraordinary and beautiful had I, you might recall, not been falling to my very imminent and no doubt painful death. I did scream now, quite loudly.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“People do not take to the seas if the land offers better, and the kind of men lured to a life of smuggling and raiding are not gentle.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“Now, I have kissed many men. More men than I have married (though less in recent years due to the return to the path of righteousness and the realization that very few are worth it).”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“For while the pious claim money doesn't buy happiness, I can attest from personal experiance that poverty buys nothing.”
― Shannon Chakraborty

“Those of us who make the sea our home carry libraries in our head, a fact I have tried to impress upon many a land-dwelling intellectual. The scholars who travel the world to study could learn just as much if they would speak to the sailors, porters, and caravan hands who ferry them and their books to such faraway lands.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“Ah, yes. Majed speaks frequently of how you 'healed' him when you first met." Dalila rolled her eyes. "It was hardly the worst of my poisons. There are some physicians who believe it beneficial to vomit blood every now and then. It balances the humors.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“Considering al-Dabaran is the manzil of strife, ill will, spirits of discord, and revenge, I am not certain how that favored her. Then again it is apparently an excellent time of the year to purchase cattle and dig ditches, so who I am to question the accumulated wisdom of centuries of scholars?”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“He bristled. “I don’t need my wife’s permission.” Dalila clucked her tongue. “I bet it was her suggestion.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“ground until the tip of his sword staff turned into a snake’s head and reached back to snap at my hands. And people ask me why I don’t like magic.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“women’s stories are expected to dissolve into a fog of domesticity … if they’re told at all.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“God just provides an awfully tempting cover, does He not?”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“I see,” I said, trying to hide the trembling in my voice. Apparently it was not enough to be outnumbered by vicious mercenaries. I had to be outnumbered by supernaturally empowered vicious mercenaries.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“(the excellent thing about living along an ocean of a hundred different kingdoms is being able to commit crimes in one and flee very quickly to another),”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“OH? I don't need to dwell on the details? What, is this not an 'integral part of the historical record' or whatever such nonsense you like to natter about? YOU'RE blushing? How do you think I felt being stared at by the glass eyes of a dozen long-dead creatures and surrounded by stone pen*ses all day?”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi