R. F. Kuang > Quotes

“An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.”
― R. F. Kuang

“Uttered in that drawing room, the most quintessentially English of space, it didn't feel like it belonged. It felt made-up. And it scared him, sometimes, how often his memory would lapse, how the syllables he'd grown up around could suddenly sound so unfamiliar.”
― R. F. Kuang

“Magick, the most mysterious and capricious of disciplines, admired for its power, derided for its frivolity, is in brief the act of telling lies about the world.”
― R. F. Kuang

“That's just what translation is, I think. That's all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they're trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”
― R. F. Kuang

“These trade networks were carved in stone. Nothing was pushing this arrangement off its course; there were too many private interests, too much money at stake. They could see where it was going, but the people who had the power to do anything about it had been placed in positions where they would profit, and the people who suffered most had no power at all.”
― R. F. Kuang

“And he wondered at the contradiction: that he despised them, that he knew that they could be up to no good, and that he still wanted to be respected by then enough to be included in their ranks.”
― R. F. Kuang

“This was what the balance of power looked like now. People like her waved a hand and millions were crushed within the confines of some elemental disaster, flung off the chessboard of the world like irrelevant pieces. People like her- shamans, all of them- were like children stomping around over entire cities as if they were mud castles, glass houses, fungible entities that could be targeted and demolished.”
― R. F. Kuang

“You had to assemble enough proof to convince yourself the world could be another way, and as long as you could trick yourself, then you could trick the world.”
― R. F. Kuang

“You know very well what a heap is. You know it when you see it. It is like porn.”
― R. F. Kuang

“The Warlords like to claim that the Keju makes Nikan a meritocracy, but the system is designed to keep the poor and illiterate in their place. You're offending them with your very presence.”
― R. F. Kuang

“She’s the only divine thing he’s ever believed in. The only creature in this vast, cruel land who could kill him. And sometimes, in his loveliest dreams, he imagines she does.”
― R. F. Kuang

“Dying was easy. Living was so much harder—that was the most important lesson Altan had ever taught her.”
― R. F. Kuang

“War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who remains.”
― R. F. Kuang

“Let them think of us as dirt, Rin thought. She was dirt. Her army was dirt. But dirt was common, ubiquitous, patient, and necessary. The soil gave life to the country. And the earth always reclaimed what it was owed.”
― R. F. Kuang

“She wanted to be alive and mortal and eternally temporary with him, and that was why she cried. [i love that this isn't in any sort of romantic context]”
― R. F. Kuang

“Reading lets us live in someone else’s shoes. Literature builds bridges; it makes our world larger, not smaller.”
― R. F. Kuang

“I know some authors who have been able to jump from scandal to scandal with their reputations perfectly intact. Mostly white. Mostly male. Isaac Asimov was a serial sexual harasser; so was Harlan Ellison. David Foster Wallace abused, harassed, and stalked Mary Karr. They are still hailed as geniuses.”

Yellowface
R. F. Kuang”
― R. F. Kuang

“Violence shows them how much we're willing to give up,' said Griffin. 'Violence is the only language they understand, because their system of extraction is inherently violent. Violence shocks the system. And the system cannot survive the shock. You have no idea what you're capable of, truly. You can't imagine how the world might shift unless you pull the trigger.' Griffin pointed at the middle of the birch. 'Pull the trigger, kid.”
― R. F. Kuang

“Ramy gave him a long look. ‘The British, Birdie. Keep up.”
― R. F. Kuang

“Rin struggled for words. She could think of no questions that were not inane. Are you all right? Of course Venka was not all right. How did you survive? By having the body of a woman.”
― R. F. Kuang

“If he tripped, half the shop owners on the street would help him up, hoping for a handsome tip. If his pocket were cut, he'd go home and get another purse. Kitay could afford to be victimized by the city because he had room to fail.”
― R. F. Kuang

“No- they couldn't just do this to her. They might think they could sweep her away like rubbish, but she didn't have to lie down and take it. She had come from nothing. She wasn't going back to nothing.”
― R. F. Kuang

“She couldn't stand those screeching activists who believed the only politically just thing was to become a lesbian. Burning bras, trashing dolls, the constant invocation of the scary word *discrimination* - it was all so embarrassing, it felt less like a revolution than a tantrum. It seemed the best way to prove women were not inferior was just to not be inferior.”
― R. F. Kuang

“This is how we win the South,she thought as her surroundings dissolved into a blurry wave of heat. Not with our blades, but with our bodies.”
― R. F. Kuang

“I've killed millions of you before, she thought. This is routine now. This is nothing.”
― R. F. Kuang

“Because Rin and Kitay were bonded in a way that he could never understand, and there was no world where Rin died and Kitay remained alive.”
― R. F. Kuang

“Don't ghosts just want to be remembered?”
― R. F. Kuang

“you're lost, brother. You're a ship adrift, searching for familiar shores. I understand what it is you want. I sought it too. But there is no homeland. It's gone.”
― R. F. Kuang

“violence is the only language they understand, because their system of extraction is inherently violent”
― R. F. Kuang

“Deep down, I’ve always suspected Athena likes my company precisely because I can’t rival her. I understand her world, but I’m not a threat, and her achievements are so far out of my reach that she doesn’t feel bad squealing to my face about her wins. Don’t we all want a friend who won’t ever challenge our superiority, because they already know it’s a lost cause? Don’t we all need someone we can treat as a punching bag?”

Yellowface
R. F. Kuang”
― R. F. Kuang