Kay Kenyon > Quotes

“The student asks: If my redstone necklace had every view of every veil that ever brightened, would I be wise? The master answers: If I had a thousand pieces of a priceless vase, would I be rich?”
― Kay Kenyon, City Without End

“We must love all of creation, not only what is common. A god may have the head of an elephant, after all.”
― Kay Kenyon, A Thousand Perfect Things

“She shrugged. "Ownership is a fragile concept.”
― Kay Kenyon, City Without End

“The worst kind of poison for despots: truth.”
― Kay Kenyon, City Without End

“Tori gazed out on the calm Ancific Ocean across which, incredibly, she would be taking a coach.”
― Kay Kenyon, A Thousand Perfect Things

“3,117 people had lost their lives in the flood. And the king had missed breakfast”
― Kay Kenyon, A Thousand Perfect Things

“It was always easy to think that happiness and wisdom lay in the shadows, in places that have never yet been seen.”
― Kay Kenyon, A Thousand Perfect Things

“Every man wishes to be king." Her hair snapped about her, buzzing.”
― Kay Kenyon, A Thousand Perfect Things

“The awful, ironic, glorious fix for the writing doldrums is to write the next page.”
― Kay Kenyon

“He had always thought that death was black nothingness, but he had not counted on being awake for it.”
― Kay Kenyon, A Thousand Perfect Things

“He didn't know which he preferred: the Red, with its fatalistic and pious acceptance of all futures, or the Misery, acknowledging that the more you attracted notice, the worse God dealt with you.”
― Kay Kenyon, City Without End

“I love storytelling when the writing spins through me like photons on their way to lighting the world.”
― Kay Kenyon

“A novel in progress doesn't have a clear, forward process. It’s messy, like a beloved, balky child.”
― Kay Kenyon

“Like a lot of people, she thought love solved everything: just smear it over the problem, and it'll all work out. Then they had the arrogance to pity you if you saw things more rationally.”
― Kay Kenyon, Bright of the Sky

“The writer’s special talent is to empathize with people and imagine their lives. We know them as we write them.”
― Kay Kenyon

“May the dragon you find be well fed.”
― Kay Kenyon, Bright of the Sky

“Even when I’m writing about shape shifters and magical lands, I’m looking into my own heart.”
― Kay Kenyon

“As they passed the bandstand, they saw a few words chalked onto the back wall that they hadn’t noticed before: GET RID OF IMBECILES. Alice snorted, and shook her head. “I’ll tell the constable. We’ll soon have it gone.” Seeing the scrawled words darkened Kim’s thoughts. It was a poison. A slow drip of a concoction—part hate, part fear—and one that could sicken Uxley. And the enmity could spread. It was spreading, she feared. Words on a bandstand in a park. She worried what it could become.”
― Kay Kenyon, At the Table of Wolves