Karishma > Karishma 's Quotes

“Nobody knows anything at all. We have no idea what is happening. We are all bewildered. Someone may say that they understand something, to ourselves or to others, but they are wrong, or guessing, or making it up.”
― Lemony Snicket, Poison for Breakfast

“Isn't that a total waste of time if you already know that the bad guys lose in the end?”
― Torii Nagomu

“If you were to write a story with me in the lead role, it would certainly be... a tragedy”
― Sui Ishida, Tokyo Ghoul, Tome 1

“We have to die to get their pity,’ said Victoire. ‘We have to die for them to find us noble. Our deaths are thus great acts of rebellion, a wretched lament that highlights their inhumanity. Our deaths become their battle cry. But I don’t want to die, Robin.’ Her throat hitched. ‘I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be their Imoinda, their Oroonoko.*
I don’t want to be their tragic, lovely lacquer figure. I want to live.”
― RF Kuang

“It came from the woods. Most strange things do.”
― Emily Carroll, Through the Woods

“Oh, but you must travel through those woods again and again... said a shadow at the window... and you must be lucky to avoid the wolf every time...

But the wolf... the wolf only needs enough luck to find you once.”
― Emily Carroll, Through the Woods

“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

“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

“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

“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

“How strange,’ said Ramy. ‘To love the stuff and the language, but to hate the country.’

‘Not as odd as you’d think,’ said Victoire. ‘There are people, after all, and then there are things.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“You have such a great fear of freedom, brother. It's shackling you. You've identified so hard with the colonizer, you think any threat to them is a threat to you. When are you going to realize you can't be one of them?”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“A woman knows her own
truth. It’s a gift she is born with that, like so much else, is quickly stolen by
the world. By priests with their talk of sin and wickedness and shame, by
men who learned long ago how best to use women for their own pleasure
and advantage. Instead of speaking from their hearts, their souls, women are
told to heed their father, their husband, their God. Instead of choosing their
own path, they are told to obey. Even so, their souls always know the truth.
Always. Do not be afraid to give yours voice.”
― Kell Woods, Upon a Starlit Tide

“Which is more intricate?” he mused. “The designs of men, trying to reach gods, or that of gods, trying to reach men?” My hammer collided with a chunk of granite. “What is either to the intricacies of women, who reach both?”
― Rachel Gillig, The Knight and the Moth

“When you do the right thing for the wrong reason, no one praises you. When you do the wrong thing for the right reason, everyone does, even though what is right and wrong depends entirely on the story you’re living in. And no one says they need recognition or praise or love, but we all hunger for it. We all want to be special.”
― Rachel Gillig, The Knight and the Moth

“To the child in each of us, yearning to be special. Take my hand, you strange little creature, and together we shall walk beyond the wall.”
― Rachel Gillig, The Knight and the Moth

“If he does well, it will be called dedication. If he doesn’t it will be lunacy.”
― Wilkie Martin, Inspector Hobbes and the Bones

“My story will be over soon. But it’s not something to be sad about. As we count up the memories from one journey, we head off on another. Remembering those who went ahead. Remembering those who will follow after. And someday, we will meet all those people again, out beyond the horizon.”
― Hiro Arikawa, The Travelling Cat Chronicles

“If you have to consider what’s going to happen after you die, life becomes doubly troublesome.”
― Hiro Arikawa, The Travelling Cat Chronicles

“We live together, but I am not Noriko's cat.
Forever and ever I am your cat, Satoru. That's why I can't become Noriko's.”
― Hiro Arikawa, Nana Du Ký

“There are thousands of gods that open thousands of doors to anyone who knocks. It’s about deciding which doors you want to open.”
― Kylie Lee Baker, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng

“There’s no such thing as a hungry ghost, not in Cora’s life, because someone that deeply and irrevocably gone can never come back.”
― Kylie Lee Baker, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House