Lani N

“You saw what those thousands of people did in front of my father. All the fanfare, all the ceremony—the charade, the theater—I can’t stand it. I loathe to think of people pretending they mourn me when they do not, or praising me when they detest me, or remembering me as kind when I was wicked. I cannot bear the thought of anyone offering to go echo-step with me when they do not mean it.' His voice wavered with real emotion, real fear. 'Wei—if I die tomorrow, I beg of you, don’t let them make a spectacle of me in my death. I wish to die quietly, just as I am.”
― Shen Tao, The Poet Empress

“I want to live,’ she repeated, ‘and live, and thrive, and survive them. I want a future. I don’t think death is a reprieve. I think it’s – it’s just the end. It forecloses everything – a future where I might be happy, and free. And it’s not about being brave. It’s about wanting another chance. Even if all I did was run away, even if I never lifted a finger to help anyone else as long as I lived – at least I would get to be happy. At least the world might be all right, just for a day, just for me. Is that selfish?”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“I've gone hungry too many times not to recognize a starving man when he kneels in the dirt before me.”
― Alix E. Harrow, Starling House

“Power did not lie in the tip of a pen. Power did not work against its own interests. Power could only be brought to heel by acts of defiance it could not ignore. With brute, unflinching force. With violence.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel