Yenna > Yenna's Quotes

“Lady Fortune, you play foul.”
― Chloe Gong, Foul Lady Fortune

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

“Fire and water looked so lovely together. It was a pity they destroyed each other by nature.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“Between us, we have the fire and the water. I'm quite sure that together, we can take on the wind.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“Life and death, they're equal to this cosmos. We enter the material world and we go away again, reincarnated into something better.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“Theirs was a bond forged from necessity, hurt, and a shared, intimate understanding of hell.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Burning God

“They can't say her name in his presence. He's never made this a rule. But for some reason, none of them dare.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Drowning Faith

“Nothing lasts,'" said Nezha, at the same time that Kitay said, "'The world doesn't exist.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“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

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

“Children ceased to be children when you put a sword in their hands. When you taught them to fight a war, then you armed them and put them on the front lines, they were not children anymore. They were soldiers.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“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, Babel

“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, The Drowning Faith

“They were monsters!" Rin shrieked. "They were not human!"

"Have you ever considered" he said slowly "that that was exactly what they thought of us?”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“Take what you want. I’ll hate you for it. But I’ll love you forever. I can’t help but love you.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Burning God

“English did not just borrow words from other languages; it was stuffed to the brim with foreign influences, a Frankenstein vernacular. And Robin found it incredible, how this country, whose citizens prided themselves so much on being better than the rest of the world, could not make it through an afternoon tea without borrowed goods.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Oh, but history moved in such vicious circles.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Burning God

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

“This is how colonialism works. It convinces us that the fallout from resistance is entirely our fault, that the immoral choice is resistance itself rather than the circumstances that demanded it.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“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

“I don't love you. And I can kill anything.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“You can’t do this for me,” he said. “I won’t let you.”
“It’s not for you. It’s not a favor. It’s the cruelest thing I could do.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Burning God

“She was a goddess. She was a monster. She‘d nearly destroyed this country. And then she‘d given it one last, gasping chance to live.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Burning God

“Nice comes from the Latin word for “stupid”,’ said Griffin. ‘We do not want to be nice.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“But what is the opposite of fidelity?' asked Professor Playfair. He was approaching the end of his dialitic; now he needed only to draw it to a close with a punch. 'Betrayal. Translation means doing violence upon the original, it means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So, where does that leave us? How can we conclude except by acknowledging that an act of translation is always an act of betrayal?”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Be selfish," he whispered. "Be brave.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“She terrifies him, and he loves her so much it hurts.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Drowning Faith