G. Willow Wilson > Quotes

“A story is a story, and one may glean from it what one likes. Good sense need not enter into it.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“All translations are made up" opined Vikram, "Languages are different for a reason. You can't move ideas between them without losing something”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“There's this ayah from the Quran that my dad always quotes when he sees something bad on TV. A fire or a flood or a bombing. "Whoever kills one person, it is as if he has killed all of mankind... And whoever saves one person, it is as if he has saved all of mankind." When I was a little kid, that always made me feel better. Because no matter how bad things get there are always people who rush in to help. And according to my dad they are blessed.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal

“I have had much experience with the unclean and uncivilized in the recent past. Shall I tell you what I discovered? I am not the state of my feet. I am not the dirt on my hands or the hygiene of my private parts. If I were these things, I would not have been at liberty to pray at any time since my arrest. But I did pray, because I am not these things. In the end, I am not even myself. I am a string of bones speaking the word God.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“Be careful with this one" said Dina, bending down to greet the cat. "All cats are half jinn, but I think she's three quarters.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“A hero is just somebody who tries to do the right thing even when it's hard.
There are more of us than you think.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Ms. Marvel, Vol. 2: Generation Why

“Look at all the Eastern writers who've written great Western literature. Kazuo Ishiguro. You'd never guess that The Remains of the Day or Never Let Me Go were written by a Japanese guy. But I can't think of anyone who's ever done the reverse-- any Westerner who's written great Eastern literature. Well, maybe if we count Lawrence Durrell - does the Alexandria Quartet qualify as Eastern literature?"
"There is a very simple test," said Vikram. "Is it about bored, tired people having sex?"
"Yes," said the convert, surprised.
"Then it's western.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“Wonder and awe have gone out of your religions. You are prepared to accept the irrational, but not the transcendent.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“Good is not a thing you are. It's a thing you do.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Ms. Marvel (2014-2015) #5

“If man's capacity for the fantastic took up as much of his imagination as his capacity for cruelty, the worlds, seen and unseen, might be very different.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“Conscience. Conscience is the ultimate measure of a man.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“Dear child, some stories have no morals. Sometimes darkness and madness are simply that.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“Good is not a thing you are. It's a thing you do.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal

“What are you thinking?” she asked. “I’m thinking that you are all good things in one place,” he said.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“...God bless the man who first taught the world how to cure olives. He and the man who invented cheese are two unsung pillars of civilization."

"They were probably women," muttered Fatima, fanning her face with the sleeve of her robe. "If they were men, we would remember their names.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“to do the right thing you must sometimes defend people who don't understand you, or who fear you, or who are angry at you. There are times when you have to operate purely on faith and continue to trust human decency even when it is no longer visible.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman's Journey to Love and Islam

“Metaphors are dangerous. Calling something by a false name changes it, and metaphor is just a fancy way of calling something by a false name.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“When have I ever suggested you burn them? I am allowed to have opinions, aren’t I? And I don’t hate them—I don’t give a fig about them. The only reason I cared is because you were so comfortable belittling me for believing things you only read about. I was afraid you’d turn into one of those literary types who say books can change the world when they’re feeling good about themselves and it’s only a book when anybody challenges them. It wasn’t about the books themselves—it was about hypocrisy. You can speak casually about burning the Alf Yeom for the same reason you’d be horrified if I suggested burning The Satanic Verses—because you have reactions, not convictions.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“Superstition is thriving. Pedantry is thriving. Sectarianism is thriving. Belief is dying out. To most of your people the jinn are paranoid fantasies who run around causing epilepsy and mental illness. Find me someone to whom the hidden folk are simply real, as described in the Books. You’ll be searching a long time. Wonder and awe have gone out of your religions. You are prepared to accept the irrational, but not the transcendent. And that, cousin, is why I can’t help you.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“My dear sir,” said the sheikh. “God likes catching His servants unprepared. The boy has set down what is obviously the first plate of food he has seen in a long while in order to thank his Creator. There are few acts of piety more honest than that.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“How dense and literal it is. I thought it had a much more sophisticated brain."
"Your mother is dense," Alif said wearily.
"My mother was an errant crest of sea foam. But that is neither here nor there.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“Dear child, some stories have no morals. Sometimes darkness and madness are simply that."

"How terrible," said Farukhuaz.

"Do you think so? I find it reassuring. It saves me from having to divine meaning in every sorrow that comes my way.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“All translations are made up," opined Vikram, "Languages are different for a reason. You can't move ideas between them without losing something. The Arabs are the only ones who've figured this out. They have the sense to call non-Arabic versions of the Criterion interpretations, not translations.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“Love the life you have been given. And be humbled by it. It is not to be despised.”
― G. Willow Wilson

“It’s a strange feeling, praying into your hands, filling the air between them with words. We think of divinity as something infinitely big, but it is also infinitely small — the condensation of your breath on your palms, the ridges in your fingertips, the warm space between your shoulder and the shoulder next to you.”
― G. Willow Wilson

“Kamala: You're WOLVERINE! My Wolverine-and-Storm-in-space fanfic was the third-most upvoted story on Freaking Awesome last month!
Logan: Oh my God.
Kamala: I had you guys fighting this giant alien blob that farts wormholes!
Logan: Sounds great, kid.
[pause]
Logan: Wait--so what was the MOST upvoted story?
Kamala: Umm...Cyclops and Emma Frost's romantic vacation in Paris?
Logan: This is the worst day of my life.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Ms. Marvel, Vol. 2: Generation Why

“Yes, you were taught to waste your anger. It’s convenient for girls to be angry about nothing. Girls who are angry about something are dangerous. If you want to live, you must learn to use your anger for your own benefit, not the benefit of those who would turn it against you.--Vikram”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“There was always something yet unseen. The ground itself was daily renewed, kicked up and muddled by passing travelers, such that it was impossible to repeat the same journey twice. Alif thought of all the times he had left the duplex in Baqara District bent on some mundane errand: the courtyard gate closing behind him with a rattle, rattling again when he returned the same way; to him, ordinary and frustrating, to the world, a process full of tiny variations, all existing, as Sheikh Bilal had said, simultaneously and without contradiction. He had been given eternity in modest increments, and had thought nothing of it.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“Culture belongs to the imagination; to judge it rationally is to misunderstand its function.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman's Journey to Love and Islam

“They will wake up one morning and realize their civilization has been pulled out from under them, inch by inch, dollar by dollar, just as ours was. They will know what it is to have been asleep for the most important century of their history.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen