Kira Edgar > Kira's Quotes

“The idea of freedom is inspiring. But what does it mean? If you are free in a political sense but have no food, what's that? The freedom to starve?”
― Angela Y. Davis

“Life is a series of slamming doors. We make irrevocable decisions every day. A twelve-second delay, a slip of the tongue, and suddenly your life is on a new road.”
― Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time

“I let her leave without saying goodbye and sat in the pool of silence that followed the crash of the front door slamming shut. This was one of my first lessons in how you make the future: moment by moment, you seal the doors of possibility behind you.”
― Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time

“I know how much you've longed for your future to lean down and cup your face, to whisper 'don't worry, it gets better'. The truth is, it wont get better if you keep making the same mistakes. It can get better, but you must allow yourself to imagine a world in which you are better.”
― Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time

“I don’t mean to sound pessimistic. I only do because I can see how wrong my choices were. Don’t do it like this. Don’t enter believing yourself a node in a grand undertaking, that your past and your trauma will define your future, that individuals don’t matter. The most radical thing I ever did was love him, and I wasn’t even the first person in this story to do that. But you can get it right, if you try. You will have hope, and you have been forgiven. Forgiveness, which takes you back to the person you were and lets you reset them. Hope, which exists in a future in which you are new. Forgiveness and hope are miracles. They let you change your life. They are time-travel.”
― Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time

“You misunderstand how history works,” she said. “ History is not a series of cause and effects which may be changed… It is a narrative agreement about what has happened and what is happening.”

“History id what we need to happen. You talk about changing history, but you’re trying to change the future.”
― Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time

“You can’t trauma-proof life, and you can’t hurt-proof your relationships. You have to accept you will cause harm to yourself and others. But you can also fuck up, really badly, and not learn anything from it except that you fucked up. It’s the same with oppression. You don’t gain any special knowledge from being marginalized. But you do gain something from stepping outside your hurt and examining the scaffolding of your oppression.”
― Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time

“Everything that has ever been could have been prevented, and none of it was. The only thing you can mend is the future.”
― Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time

“What is a ‘feminist killjoy’?” “Er—” “Have they a base? Mayhap a uniform? If not, I will design it. Ah, you laugh! But would we not look well in thigh boots and tabards broidered with FEMINIST KILLJOY? It sends a sturdy message.”
― Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time

“An underrated symptom of inherited trauma is how socially awkward it is to live with.”
― Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time

“This is how you change history. As far as you know—or as far as the you that is me knows—the time-door is broken. You may never receive this document, which tells you what you will become if you follow this version of yourself. But if this falls into your hands, then I want you to know how it happens, step by step, so that you can change it. I exist at the beginning and end of this account, which is a kind of time-travel, but I hope you’ll find a way to contain me. I know how much you’ve longed for your future to lean down and cup your face, to whisper “Don’t worry, it gets better.” The truth is, it won’t get better if you keep making the same mistakes. It can get better, but you must allow yourself to imagine a world in which you are better. I don’t mean to sound pessimistic. I only do because I can see how wrong my choices were. Don’t do it like this. Don’t enter believing yourself a node in a grand undertaking, that your past and your trauma will define your future, that individuals don’t matter. The most radical thing I ever did was love him, and I wasn’t even the first person in this story to do that. But you can get it right, if you try. You will have hope, and you have been forgiven. Forgiveness, which takes you back to the person you were and lets you reset them. Hope, which exists in a future in which you are new. Forgiveness and hope are miracles. They let you change your life. They are time-travel.”
― Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time

“If you are surprised that, so soon after a secret agent tried to kill me, I was wondering whether the man with whom I’d had sex liked liked me, remember that being in love is a form of blunt-force trauma. I was concussed with love for him. I bent my head to the cudgel.”
― Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time