Gen > Gen's Quotes

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

“I have become something wonderful, she thought. I have become something terrible. Was she now a goddess or a monster? Perhaps neither. Perhaps both.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“We aren’t here to be sophisticated. We’re here to fuck people up.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“You humans always think you’re destined for things, for tragedy or for greatness. Destiny is a myth. Destiny is the only myth. The gods choose nothing. You chose.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“It’s easy to be brave. Harder to know when not to fight.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“If you're focused only on your enemy's weapon, you'll always be on the defensive. Look past the weapon to your target. Focus on what you want to kill.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Stories are a way to preserve one's self. To be remembered. And to forget.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“If nothing lasted and the world did not exist, all that meant was that reality was not fixed. The illusion she lived in was fluid and mutable, and could be easily altered by someone willing to rewrite the script of reality.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“But eventually, you'll have to ask yourself precisely what you're fighting for. And you'll have to find a reason to live past vengeance.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“You will die thinking I have abandoned you all. But I do not hesitate to say that I value the lives of my people far more than I have ever valued you.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“You don't fix hurts by pretending they never happened. You treat them like infected wounds. You dig deep with a burning knife and gouge out the rotten flesh and then, maybe, you have a chance to heal.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Burning God

“Ruin me, ruin us, and I’ll let you.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Burning God

“They say nothing lasts forever but they're just scared it will last longer than they can love it.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“You once told me that the human eye is god's loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn't even know there's another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“I miss you more than I remember you.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“He loves me, he loves me not, we are taught to say, as we tear the flower from its flowerness. To arrive at love, then, is to arrive through obliteration. Eviscerate me, we mean to say, and I'll tell you the truth.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“To love something, then, is to name it after something so worthless it might be left untouched—and alive.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Do you remember the happiest day of your life? What about the saddest? Do you ever wonder if sadness and happiness can be combined, to make a deep purple feeling, not good, not bad, but remarkable simply because you didn't have to live on one side or the other?”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Perhaps all humans are lonely. At least potentially.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun

“They fought as though the most important thing was to damage each other as much as possible.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun

“I would not love, unless I was loved first and loved the most. I would be nothing at all, if I could not be first.”
― June Hur, The Red Palace

“Some dreams, I'd learned, were meant to fade away. And to let go of them didn't mean to let go of myself, but to release the life I'd imagined I wanted. The loss had grieved me at first, but in its fading away-slowly, very slowly-a new dream had bloomed.”
― June Hur, The Red Palace

“Why do I act like this, agreeing when I really disagree, letting people force me to do things I don't want to do?”
― Haruki Murakami, The Strange Library

“The tricky thing about mazes is that you don't know if you've chosen the right path until the very end. If it turns out you were wrong, it's usually too late to go back and start again. That's the problem with mazes.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Strange Library

“Frankly, it’s only natural that men remain unaware unless they encounter special circumstances as I have, because men are not the main players in childbirth and childcare.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“The world wants our uterus to be drug-free. Like sacred grounds in a virgin forest.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“Many people don’t want to accept the evident fact that all difficulties in life—stagnant economy, high cost of living, adverse labor environment and so on—affect both men and women equally.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982