Kait > Kait's Quotes

“Why is Ebonics broken English but English is not broken German? Why is Ebonics a dialect of English if English is not a dialect of Latin? The idea that Black languages outside Africa are broken is as culturally racist as the idea that languages inside Europe are fixed.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

“What he didn't say was that you don't get cold-resistant because your jackets suck, you just stop complaining about it after a while, because complaining doesn't make you any warmer.”
― Stephen Graham Jones, The Only Good Indians

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Anyway, if you stop tellin' people it's all sorted out afer they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive. ”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“All my life,” she said, “I have been told ‘go’ and ‘come.’ I am told how I will live, and I am told how I must die. I must be a man’s servant and a mare for his pleasure, or I must hide myself behind walls and surrender my flesh to a cold, silent god. I would walk into the jaws of hell itself, if it were a path of my own choosing. I would rather die tomorrow in the forest than live a hundred years of the life appointed me. Please. Please let me help you.”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale

“Nothing changes, Vasya. Things are, or they are not. Magic is forgetting that something ever was other than as you willed it.”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale

“Faith's what allows people to feel certain about things that they can never know for sure. And that's an important idea to get across, however much the Bible fluffs it.”
― Jasper Kent, Twelve

“It's always for humanity, isn't it? But tell me, Maksim, what makes French humanity more important than Russian humanity? Or British more important than Austrian? We can’t fight for the whole of humanity, because humanity has no other enemies but other humans.”
― Jasper Kent, Twelve

“Whether a dream is a nightmare is a question not of content, but of mood.”
― Jasper Kent, Twelve

“For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“These are the kind of wrong thoughts people have who are spending too much time alone. They start unpacking vast cosmic bullshit from gum wrappers, and then they chew it up, blow a bubble, ride that bubble up into some even stupider place.”
― Stephen Graham Jones, The Only Good Indians

“In the old days, the boy's mom would have gotten a name for what she did: Shoots the Car Twice or Four Holes in the Glass or Doesn't Ever Learn or Can't Stop Fighting.”
― Stephen Graham Jones, Ledfeather

“A sea roared inside her and made demands, but she waded it, she bobbed up, took a breath, and opened her eyes to the cold winter morning. Then she rose because the day was there, the world was there, and she wanted to be part of it.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Beautiful Ones

“Empathy is fossilized in our bones.”
― Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, Even As We Breathe

“There are some nights, some days, you just pray it will rain. Not because the crops need it or the wells are dangerously low. Sometimes you just need the clouds to burst and release the pressure building around you.”
― Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, Even As We Breathe

“The opposite of racist isn't 'not racist.' It is 'anti-racist.' What's the difference? One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an anti-racist. One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an anti-racist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an anti-racist. There is no in-between safe space of 'not racist.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

“Yeah, I'll just code a patch to stop feeling anxiety, wow, why didn't I think of that earlier. (That was sarcasm, I have too much organic neural tissue for that to work.) (Of course I've already tried it.)”
― Martha Wells, System Collapse

“Did I understand how it processed its emotions? No. But I don’t understand how I process my emotions, either.”
― Martha Wells, System Collapse

“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

“Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“And even if the laws had allowed it, he would never take that away from her: the chance to save herself.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A ​Court of Silver Flames

“You’re an arrogant bastard.”
“And you’re a haughty witch. We’re evenly matched.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A ​Court of Silver Flames

“Night poured over the desert. It came suddenly, in purple. In the clear air, the stars drilled down out of the sky, reminding any thoughtful watcher that it is in the deserts and high places that religions are generated. When men see nothing but bottomless infinity over their heads they have always had a driving and desperate urge to find someone to put in the way.”
― Terry Pratchett , Jingo

“It was much better to imagine men in some smokey room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn't then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told the children bed time stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was Us, then what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“Look, sir, I know Angua. She's not the useless type. She doesn't stand there and scream helplessly. She makes other people do that.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“Sometimes I dream that we could deal with the big crimes, that we could make a law for countries and not just for people,”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo