Reading into the Void

“But there are none so frightened, or so strange in their fear, as conquerors. They conjure phantoms endlessly, terrified that their victims will someday do back what was done to them—even if, in truth, their victims couldn’t care less about such pettiness and have moved on. Conquerors live in dread of the day when they are shown to be, not superior, but simply lucky.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“She kept looking at Gideon with the screwed-up eyes of someone who had been handed an egg for safekeeping and was surrounded by egg-hunting snakes.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth

“If the gods do decide to wipe us out, is it such a bad thing? Maybe we've earned a little annihilation.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Broken Kingdoms

“By day the cities were cement-colored smudges against the land, indistinguishable from the gray-green of suburbs and countryside, but at night, humanity shouted its existence at the stars.”
― Temi Oh, Do You Dream of Terra-Two?