City of Stairs

“Life is full of beautiful dangers, dangerous beauties," says Sigrud. He stares into the sky, and the white sunlight glints off his many scars. "They wound us in ways we cannot see: an injury ripples out, like a stone dropped in water, touching moments years into the future.”

“Just because you won the War doesn't mean you can do whatever you like!' says Yaroslav. 'And just because we lost it doesn't mean you can strip us of everything we value!”

“Time renders all people and all things silent. And gods, it seems, are no exception.”

“Time renders all people and all things silent. And gods, it seems, are no exception.”

“[She] had never realized until that moment what books meant, the possibility they presented: you could protect them forever, store them up like engineers store water, endless resources of time and knowledge snared in ink, tied down to paper, layered on shelves… Moments made physical, untouchable, perfect, like preserving a dead hornet in crystal, one drop of venom forever hanging from its stinger.”

“The Divine may have created many hells, but I think they pale beside what men create for themselves.”

“If we were only meant for labor, why give us minds, why give us desires? Why can we not be as cattle in the field, or chickens in their coops? … If we are but a possession of the children of the gods, why do the gods allow us to grieve? The gods are cruel not because they make us work. They are cruel because they allow us to hope.”

“Whole countries disappeared. Streets turned to chasms. Temples turned to ash. Stars vanished… In short, a whole way of life—and the history and knowledge of it—died in the blink of an eye.”

“The city knows. It remembers. Its past is written in its bones, though the past now speaks in silences.”

“In Bulikov, every piece of history feels lined with razors, and the closer I try and look at it, the more I wound myself.”

“Columns pierce the gray sky again and again, stabbing it, slashing it. It bleeds soft rain that makes the crumbling building faces glisten and sweat.”

“Your job is to make sure that the past never happens again, that we never see such poverty and powerlessness again. Corruption and inequality are useful things: if they benefit us, we must own them fully.”

“Scars are windows to bitterness—it is best to leave them untouched.”

“The world is a coward… It does not change before your face; it waits until your back is turned, and pounces…”

“Look at them! They’re praying to pain, to punishment! They think that hate is holy, that every part of being human is wrong.”

“Humans are strange. They value punishment because they think it means their actions are important—that they are important. You don’t get punished for doing something unimportant, after all.”

“Namely, I am ashamed that I was asked to be ashamed, that it was expected of me… I am sorrowful that I happened to be born into a world where being disgusted with yourself was what you were supposed to be. I am sorrowful that my fellow countrymen fell that being human is something to repress, something ugly, something nasty.”

“You blessed us as Your people, and we rejoiced, and were happy. But we found those who were not Your people, and they would not become Your people, and they were willful and ignorant of You. They would not open their ears to Your songs, or lay Your words upon their tongues. So we dashed them upon the rocks and threw down their houses and shed their blood and scattered them to the winds, and we were right to do so. For we are Your people. We carry Your blessings. We are Yours, and so we are right. Is this not what You said?”

“Life is full of beautiful dangers, dangerous beauties… The wound us in ways we cannot see: an injury ripples out, like a stone dropped into water, touching moments years into the future.