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N. K. Jemisin Quotes

Nora K. Jemisin is an American science fiction and fantasy writer and a psychologist. Her fiction explores a wide variety of themes, including cultural conflict and oppression. She has won several awards for her work, including the Locus Award. As of her August 2018 win, the three books of her Broken Earth series have made her the only author to have won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in three consecutive years.

In 2009 and 2010, Jemisin's short story "Non-Zero Probabilities" was a finalist for the Nebula and Hugo Best Short Story Awards, respectively. Her debut novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, the first volume in her Inheritance Trilogy, was nominated for the 2010 Nebula Award, and short-listed for the James Tiptree Jr. Award. In 2011, it was nominated for the Hugo Award, World Fantasy Award, and Locus Award, winning the 2011 Locus Award for Best First Novel. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms also won the Sense of Gender Awards in 2011. It was followed by two further novels in the same trilogy – The Broken Kingdoms in 2010 and The Kingdom of Gods in 2011.

In 2016, Jemisin's novel The Fifth Season won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, making her the first African-American writer to win a Hugo award in that category. Its sequels, The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky, won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2017 and 2018, respectively. Wikipedia  

✵ 19. September 1972
N. K. Jemisin photo

Works

The Broken Kingdoms
The Broken Kingdoms
N. K. Jemisin
The Kingdom of Gods
The Kingdom of Gods
N. K. Jemisin
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
The Obelisk Gate
The Obelisk Gate
N. K. Jemisin
The Stone Sky
The Stone Sky
N. K. Jemisin
N. K. Jemisin: 54   quotes 1   like

Famous N. K. Jemisin Quotes

“When we say that “the world has ended,” remember—it is usually a lie. The planet is just fine.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Stone Sky

Prologue “me, when I was I” (p. 2)
The Stone Sky (2017)

“So, there was a girl.
What I’ve guessed, and what the history books imply, is that she was unlucky enough to have been sired by a cruel man. He beat both wife and daughter and abused them in other ways. Bright Itempas is called, among other things, the god of justice. Perhaps that was why He responded when she came into His temple, her heart full of unchildlike rage.
“I want him to die,” she said (or so I imagine). “Please Great Lord, make him die.”
You know the truth now about Itempas. He is a god of warmth and light, which we think of as pleasant, gentle things. I once thought of Him that way, too. But warmth uncooled burns; light undimmed can hurt even my blind eyes. I should have realized. We should all have realized. He was never what we wanted Him to be.
So when the girl begged the Bright Lord to murder her father, He said, “Kill him yourself.” And He gifted her with a knife perfectly suited to her small, weak child’s hands.
She took the knife home and used it that very night. The next day, she came back to the Bright Lord, her hands and soul stained red, happy for the first time in her short life. “I will love you forever,” she declared. And He, for a rare once, found Himself impressed by mortal will.
Or so I imagine.
The child was mad, of course. Later events proved this. But it makes sense to me that this madness, not mere religious devotion, would appeal most to the Bright Lord. Her love was unconditional, her purpose undiluted by such paltry considerations as conscience or doubt. It seems like Him, I think, to value that kind of purity of purpose—even though, like warmth and light, too much love is never a good thing.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 11 “Possession” (watercolor) (pp. 202-203)

“Very quickly I fell in with others like me—newcomers, dreamers, young people drawn to the city in spite of its dangers because sometimes, for some of us, tedium and familiarity feel worse than risking your life.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 4 “Frustration” (watercolor) (p. 71)

“It’s all right to need help. All of us have things we can’t do alone.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), p. 1; repeated twice more in the book

“It is blasphemy to separate oneself from the earth and look down on it like a god. It is more than blasphemy, it is dangerous. We can never be gods, after all—but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Source: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), Chapter 7 (p. 74)

““They follow the creed of the Bright: that which disturbs the order of society must be eliminated, regardless of whether it caused the disturbance.” She rolled her eyes. “You’d think they’d get tired of parroting Itempas and start thinking for themselves after two thousand years.””

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 5 “Family” (charcoal study) (p. 105)

N. K. Jemisin Quotes about love

“But love like that doesn’t just disappear, does it? No matter how powerful the hate, there’s always a little love left, underneath.
Yes. Horrible, isn’t it?”

N. K. Jemisin book The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Source: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), Chapter 12 (p. 144)

“I understand that mutual dissatisfaction is a factor in their collaboration. I imagine it isn’t a far step from mutual goals to mutual respect, and from there to love.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 9 “Seduction” (charcoal) (p. 185)

“Love betrayed has an entirely different sound from hatred outright.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 3 “Gods and Corpses” (oil on canvas) (p. 58)

“If they will not love me, fear is an acceptable substitute.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 13 (p. 331)

“Unconditional love: childhood’s greatest magic.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 1 (p. 35)

N. K. Jemisin: Trending quotes

“There is no logic to grief.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Source: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), Chapter 21 (p. 282)

“Immortality gets very, very boring. You'd be surprised at how interesting the small mundanities of life can seem after a few millennia.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Source: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), Chapter 9 (p. 103)

Life

““I will not beg your forgiveness,” she said. Only her voice betrayed her fear; it was not its usual strong, clear tone. “I did what I felt was right.”
“Of course you did,” I said. “It was the wise thing to do.””

N. K. Jemisin book The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Source: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), Chapter 29 (p. 394)

Fear , Forgiveness , Strong

N. K. Jemisin Quotes

“I keep hoping you’ll tell me. You’re the god, after all. If I prayed to you for guidance, and you decided to answer, what would you tell me?”
“I wouldn’t answer.”
“Because you don’t care? Or because you wouldn’t know what to say?”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

More silence.
Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 17 “A Golden Chain” (engraving on metal plate) (p. 311)

God , Hope , Silence

“When people questioned this, the priests simply said, The world has changed. We must change with it.
You can imagine how well that went over.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 4 “Frustration” (watercolor) (p. 60)

People , World , Imagination , Question

“But perhaps that was just the way of power: no such thing as too much.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Source: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), Chapter 6 (p. 61)

Way

“There’s not such thing as magic that does no harm.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 4 “Frustration” (watercolor) (p. 93)

“It is important to appreciate beauty, even when it is evil.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Source: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), Chapter 7 (p. 75)

Beauty , Evil

““I'm tired of being what everyone else has made me,” I said. “I want to be myself.”
“Don’t be a child.”
I looked up, startled and angry, though of course there was nothing to see. “What?”
“You are what your creators and experiences have made you, like every other being in this universe. Accept that and be done; I’m tired of your whining.””

N. K. Jemisin book The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Source: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), Chapter 22 (p. 299)

Universe

“Good intentions are pointless without the will to implement them.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 16 “From the Depths to the Heights” (watercolor) (p. 281)

“I knew what it was at last—the visible manifestation of my will. My power, inherited from my god ancestors and distilled through generations of humanity, given shape and energy and potential. That was all magic was, really, in the end. Possibility. With it I could create anything, provided I believed.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 19 “The Demons’ War” (charcoal and chalk on black paper) (p. 349)

God

“What happened when people who’d once possessed absolute power suddenly lost it?”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 8 “Light Reveals” (encaustic on canvas) (p. 170)

People

“They live forever, but many of them are even more lonely and miserable than we are. Why do you think they bother with us? We teach them life’s value.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 17 “A Golden Chain” (engraving on metal plate) (p. 309)

Life , Thinking

“There is no greater warrior than a mother protecting her child.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Source: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), Chapter 4 (p. 36)

“I was beginning to understand, a little. “Is that why you’re a usurer?”
Madding chuckled. “I prefer the term investor. And my rates are perfectly fair, thank you.”
“Drug dealer, then.”
“I prefer the term independent apothecary—””

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 4 “Frustration” (watercolor) (p. 68)

Understanding , Madness

“I had never been able to truly hate anyone who’d suffered, no matter what evils they’d done in the aftermath.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 21 “Still Life” (oil on canvas) (p. 378)

Hate , Suffering , Evil

““You can’t lose faith you never had to begin with.”
“Ah. So you never believed in the Bright at all?”
“Of course I believed. Even now I believe, in principle. But when I was sixteen, I saw the hypocrisy in all the things the priests had taught me. It’s all very well to say the world values reason and compassion and justice, but if nothing in reality reflects those words, they’re meaningless.””

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 9 “Seduction” (charcoal) (p. 189)

World , Faith , Justice , Reality

“Otherwise it was quiet—that eerie, not-quite-comforting quiet one finds in small towns before dawn.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 20 “Life” (oil study) (p. 364)

“I knew as well as anyone that the priests taught what they wanted us to know, not necessarily what was true. And sometimes even when they told the truth, they got it wrong.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 5 “Family” (charcoal study) (p. 120)

Truth

“But though I repeated my plea, and waited on my knees for nearly an hour, there was no answer.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 9 “Seduction” (charcoal) (p. 181)

Waiting

“I…regret…what I did. It was wrong. Very wrong. But regret is meaningless.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 16 “From the Depths to the Heights” (watercolor) (p. 283)

“They follow the creed of the Bright: that which disturbs the order of society must be eliminated, regardless of whether it caused the disturbance.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

She rolled her eyes. “You’d think they’d get tired of parroting Itempas and start thinking for themselves after two thousand years.”
Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 5 “Family” (charcoal study) (p. 105)

“Mother always said that if one must do something unpleasant, one should do it wholeheartedly and not waste effort on regret.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 23 (p. 563)

Effort

“Peace is meaningless without freedom.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 20 (p. 514)

Peace , Freedom

“Those with power would always find some way to exert it over those who didn’t.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 19 (p. 494)

Way

“Fear was like poison to mortals; it killed their rationality.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 16 (p. 407)

Fear

“This was what I’d asked her to give me. I had no right to complain just because it wasn’t what I wanted to hear.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 14 (p. 347)

“Magic is merely communication, after all.
Communication, and conduits.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 13 (p. 325)

Communication

“Funny thing, employment. If you keep doing it, you keep getting paid.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 12 (p. 308)

“It was the oldest of tricks, to sow dissension between groups that had common interests. Good for deflecting attention from greater mischief, too.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 12 (p. 301)

“Unreasoning optimism is a fundamental element of childishness.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 10 (p. 237)

Optimism

“The child in her wanted to do as she pleased, cling to impossible hopes. The woman in her wanted to make sound decisions, succeed even if it meant sacrifice. The woman would win; that was inevitable. But the child would not go quietly.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 7 (p. 173)

Making love , Hope , Decision

“There was no point in making myself suffer unnecessarily. As a mortal, there would be pain enough in my life, whether I sought it out or not.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 5 (p. 119)

Pain , Life , Making love , Suffering

“That was the way of things, after all. Children had to grow up. They did not always become what others wanted.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 7 (p. 166)

Way , Children

“When things are bad, change is good, right? Change means things will get better.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 1 (p. 19)

Bad luck , Change

“We were all exposed to nothing but white dude fiction, occasionally young white women fiction, and if that’s how you’ve grown up, then that is what is normal.”

N. K. Jemisin

Interviews
Source: On how she once perceived fiction in “NK Jemisin: 'It’s easier to get a book set in black Africa published if you're white'” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/02/nk-jemisin-its-easier-to-get-a-book-set-in-black-africa-published-if-youre-white in The Guardian (2020 May 2)

Women

“Honor in safety, survival under threat. Necessity is the only law.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Stone Sky

Source: The Stone Sky (2017), Chapter 9 “the desert, briefly, and you” (p. 231)

Law

“Would’ve been nice if we could’ve all had normal, of course, but not enough people wanted to share. So now we all burn.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Stone Sky

Source: The Stone Sky (2017), Chapter 7 “you’re planning ahead” (p. 170)

People

“You’re abbreviating heavily, not lying. That’s what you tell yourself.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Obelisk Gate

Source: The Obelisk Gate (2016), Chapter 16 “you meet an old friend, again” (p. 293)

Lying

“Put people in a cage and they will devote themselves to escaping it, not cooperating with those who caged them.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Obelisk Gate

Source: The Obelisk Gate (2016), Chapter 15 “Nassun, in rejection” (p. 270)

People

“It is surprising how refreshing this feels. Being judged by what you do, and not what you are.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Obelisk Gate

Source: The Obelisk Gate (2016), Chapter 8 “you've been warned” (p. 127)

Feeling

“The Leadership legends have the air of a myth concocted to justify their place in society.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Obelisk Gate

Source: The Obelisk Gate (2016), Chapter 6 “you commit to the cause” (p. 91)

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