Chiku > Chiku's Quotes

“Well, fuck the heavenly order of things. If getting married to a gross old man was her preordained role on this earth, then Rin was determined to rewrite it.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“Angry mothers raise daughters fierce enough to fight wolves.”
― Nghi Vo, The Empress of Salt and Fortune

“You will never remember the great if you do not remember the small.”
― Nghi Vo, The Empress of Salt and Fortune

“The abbey at Singing Hills would say that if a record cannot be perfect, it should at least be present. Better for it to exist than for it to be perfect and only in your mind.”
― Nghi Vo, The Empress of Salt and Fortune

“She had a foreigner’s beauty, like a language we do not know how to read.”
― Nghi Vo, The Empress of Salt and Fortune

“Let him kill himself,” I said finally. “As long as he is dead, that is all that matters to me.” That’s something I think peasants understand better than nobles. For them, the way down matters, whether you are skewered by a dozen guardsmen or thrown in a silk sack to drown or allowed to remove your robe and walk down to the shores of the lake before you gut yourself. Peasants understand that dead is dead.”
― Nghi Vo, The Empress of Salt and Fortune

“Strange how some trash survives, but precious things are lost, isn’t it?”
― Nghi Vo, The Empress of Salt and Fortune

“Angry mothers raise daughters fierce enough to fight wolves. I am not worried for her in the least.”
― Nghi Vo, The Empress of Salt and Fortune

“Being close to her was like being warmed by a bonfire, and I had been cold for a long time.”
― Nghi Vo, The Empress of Salt and Fortune

“Those who bear children hold the keys to life and death, and their ill wishes are to be feared.”
― Nghi Vo, The Empress of Salt and Fortune

“I know very well, though, that In-yo never hated Kao-fan. She may have pitied her, or been angry with her, or simply found her irritating or foolish or unfashionable. Hate, however, was reserved for equals, and as far as In-yo was concerned, she had no equals in all the empire.”
― Nghi Vo, The Empress of Salt and Fortune

“In-yo would say that the war was won by silenced and nameless women, and it would be hard to argue with her.”
― Nghi Vo, The Empress of Salt and Fortune

“... He was unimportant, the least of In-yo's spies and couriers, but—"
Almost Brilliant fluttered her wings in the dying light. "I understand. I will remember Sukai for you, and so will my children and their children as well.”
― Nghi Vo, The Empress of Salt and Fortune

“Yes, is the obvious answer. I do hate you. I hate everything about you. I hate you so much that whenever I’m around you, I can barely think straight. I can barely even breathe.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“I’d rather be the villain who lives to the end than the hero who winds up dead”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“Descartes was wrong, you know, when he said, 'To live well, you must live unseen.' To live well, you must learn to see yourself first. Do you understand what I'm saying?”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“And everything about this moment is so lovely and so fragile in its loveliness that I’m almost afraid to hold it. Afraid that the spell will break.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“It's nothing like the way they describe it in the movies, like all the stars aligning and fireworks exploding across an ink-black sky. It feels both quieter and bigger than that, as simple as coming home and as dizzying and all-encompassing as the wind rushing in around us. It feels like a thousand banished and buried moments have been building up to this - to us alone and untethered and weak with wanting - and maybe they have.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“I think about why I’m doing this. I think about why I want—no, need, always need—the money. More money. I think about how ironic it is, that in order to become the person I’d like to be, I might have to do the last thing others would expect of me. I think about guilt and karma and survival and how being good doesn’t ever promise you anything in this world—only power does that.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“Is it really too much to ask? For people like me to want a bit of that light for ourselves?”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“And while it's important to know how to fight your way to the top... It's always nice when there are others to help lift us up, don't you think?”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“I want to get good grades. Graduate. Get a job in whichever field my strengths lie."
His brows furrow, like he doesn't quite believe me. "Not what you're passionate about?" he asks delicately.
I lift my chin. "I'm passionate about being good at things." There's a defensive edge in my voice, and Mr. Chen must hear it. He drops the subject.
"Well, all right then. I suppose I should let you go to lunch..."
"Thanks, Mr. Chen."
But as I turn to leave, he adds, very quietly, "You're still a kid, you know."
I falter. "what?"
His eyes are kind, almost sad when he looks at me. "Even if it doesn't feel that way now, you're still only a kid." He shakes his head. "you're too young to be this hardened by the world. You should be free to dream. To hope.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“Dimly, I remember myself thinking not too long ago that we could never kiss. Something about stubbornness. Something about discipline. I remember thinking a month ago about how much I hated him, how I couldn't bear to even be in the same room as him.

Now I can't bear the few inches of distance between us.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“Why? Was it—was it bad?" The words tumble out of my lips before I can stop them, like water gushing from a broken dam. I hate that this is always my first instinct: self-doubt, anxiety, the nagging feeling that I did something wrong.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“It makes me almost dizzy, thinking about the stark differences in realities, what will be and what could've been.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“If I'm not swimming as hard as I can, feet thrashing at the waves, I'm drowning.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“This, I suppose, is one of those unexpected side effects of kissing that no one ever warned me about: after you kiss someone once, the possibilities of kissing them again are endless.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“The neglected ones, the unlucky ones, the ones who want more than they've been give. The ones who have to crawl and scrape and fight their way up from the very bottom, who have to game a system designed for them to lose. Always the first to be punished and blamed when things go wrong. Always the last to e seen, to be saved.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“The possibility of you is better than the reality of anyone else.”
― Ana Huang, Twisted Hate

“You’re it for me. Whether it’s today, tomorrow, a year, or decades from now, that’ll never change.”
― Ana Huang, Twisted Hate