Saskia

“And he looked at her with open eyes, the bone of his heavy brow a bastion above, the flesh of his face wealthy below, and in those eyes she glimpsed an imperium, a mechanism of rule building itself from the work of so many million hands. Remorseless not out of cruelty or hate but because it was too vast and too set on its destiny to care for the small tragedies of its growth.”
― Seth Dickinson, The Traitor Baru Cormorant

“Empire planted that killing tree on Kyprananoke, where the rebels dashed children dead against the trunk.
The only answer to empire is to move the tree.
It is not justice. But there is no such thing as justice. Only the measureless and asymbolic truth. Who prospers. Who suffers. Who lives in glory. Who dies in chains.”
― Seth Dickinson, The Tyrant Baru Cormorant

“Men are said to desire women, Severian. Why do they despise the women they obtain?”
― Gene Wolfe, The Shadow of the Torturer