Julia

“And what will you do if I’m not well, in the end?” Priya asked. “Nothing,” Sima said. “I could do nothing. But I’d still want to know. That’s what friends want.”
― Tasha Suri, The Jasmine Throne

“The most common one, Imperial Glyphbook Standard, the one which was distributed Empire-wide—and beyond the official borders of Teixcalaan—to teach barbarians and children to read. It had all the useful words, after all: “to hide,” and “to betray,” and so very many interlocking words for “civilization.”
― Arkady Martine, A Memory Called Empire

“Not everyone’s as angelic as Poppy you know.” Rosalyn’s confidence and ironic tone were back in force. “Evil lesbians exist too.” Poppy slumped behind the aisle, head in hands. Rosalyn’s reaction couldn’t be much worse. “Don’t be daft,” Dai said, his tone sharper. “Of course there aren’t evil lesbians.”
― Clare Ashton, Poppy Jenkins

“I’ve always believed, like all rational people, that my selves are separate. That they—we—exist independently. But sometimes when life is too still, when I lie in bed in the quiet, I can feel it all happening. Not just my selves collapsing, but time collapsing, because past and future are other selves just as surely as those on different worlds. My mother is dying right now, and I feel it. But she also recovered, woke up, got clean, and I feel that too. I feel that somewhere I am not alone. And I feel that sometime, soon or not long ago, I will accomplish something great.”
― Micaiah Johnson, The Space Between Worlds