iris ᵕ̈ ia > iris ᵕ̈'s Quotes

“When man begins to think that he is responsible for writing the script of the world, he forgets the forces that dream up our reality.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who remains.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“I have become something wonderful, she thought. I have become something terrible. Was she now a goddess or a monster? Perhaps neither. Perhaps both.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“Fire and water looked so lovely together. It was a pity they destroyed each other by nature.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“Between us, we have the fire and the water. I'm quite sure that together, we can take on the wind.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“If nothing lasted and the world did not exist, all that meant was that reality was not fixed. The illusion she lived in was fluid and mutable, and could be easily altered by someone willing to rewrite the script of reality.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“This was not a world of men. It was a world of gods, a time of great powers. It was the era of divinity walking in man, of wind and water and fire. And in warfare, she who held the power asymmetry was the inevitable victor.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“Life and death, they're equal to this cosmos. We enter the material world and we go away again, reincarnated into something better.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“Nothing lasts,'" said Nezha, at the same time that Kitay said, "'The world doesn't exist.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“Oh, but history moved in such vicious circles.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Burning God

“She recognized the way he was looking at her. It was how she’d once looked at Altan. It was the way she’d seen Daji look at Riga—that look of wretched, desperate, and reproachful loyalty. It said, Do it. Take what you want, it said. I’ll hate you for it. But I’ll love you forever. I can’t help but love you. Ruin me, ruin us, and I’ll let you.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Burning God

“Hate was its own kind of fire and if you had nothing else, it kept you warm.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Burning God

“This is how colonialism works. It convinces us that the fallout from resistance is entirely our fault, that the immoral choice is resistance itself rather than the circumstances that demanded it.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“She's the only divine thing he's ever believed in. The only creature in this vast, cruel land who could kill him. And sometimes, in his loveliest dreams, he imagines she does.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Burning God

“That's just what translation is, I think. That's all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they're trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“English did not just borrow words from other languages; it was stuffed to the brim with foreign influences, a Frankenstein vernacular. And Robin found it incredible, how this country, whose citizens prided themselves so much on being better than the rest of the world, could not make it through an afternoon tea without borrowed goods.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Words tell stories. Specifically, the history of those words - how they came into use, and how their meaning morphed into what they mean today - tell us just as much about a people, if not more, than any other kind of historical artefact.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“A lie was not a lie if it was never uttered; questions that were never asked did not need answers. They would both remain perfectly content to linger in the liminal, endless space between truth and denial.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Translation means doing violence upon the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So then where does that leave us? How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is then necessarily always an act of betrayal?”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“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

“Don’t try to speak,” Nezha murmurs, because it’ll kill him if she does. Because his resolve is only so strong, and if she utters another word then he’ll be lost.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Drowning Faith

“All these years trying to find a way to kill himself, and here’s someone who might actually finish the job. And somehow, paradoxically, this is the most he’s ever wanted to be alive. This is the first time in an eternity that he doesn’t feel like he’s drowning”
― R.F. Kuang, The Drowning Faith

“She…hoped. And hope was dangerous. Hope was the most vicious evil of them all, the thing that had managed to thrive in Pandora’s box among misery, and disease, and sadness—and what could endure alongside others with such teeth if it didn’t have ghastly claws of its own?”
― Chloe Gong, These Violent Delights

“You destroy me and then you kiss me. You give me a reason to hat you and then you give me a reason to love you. Is this a lie or the truth? Is the a ploy or your heart reaching for me?”
― Chloe Gong, These Violent Delights

“In this life and the next, for however long our souls remain, mine will always find yours.”
― Chloe Gong, Our Violent Ends

“There will be hatred. There will be war. The country will fight itself to pieces. It will starve its people, ravage its land, poison its breath. Shanghai will fall and break and cry. But alongside everything, there has to be love - eternal, undying, enduring. Burn through vengeance and terror and warfare. Burn through everything that fuels the human heart and Sears it red, burn through everything that covers the outside with hard muscle and tough sinew. Cut down deep and grab what beats beneath, and it is love that will survive after everything else has perished.”
― Chloe Gong, Our Violent Ends

“They had always been two mirrored souls, the only ones who understood the other in a city that wanted to consume them whole, and now they were joined, mightier when together.”
― Chloe Gong, Our Violent Ends

“You can't ask me not to love you by keeping me at arm's length. I'll love you anyway.”
― Chloe Gong, Foul Lady Fortune

“You wanted daffodils at your wedding, and suddenly I wanted to be the one beside you at the altar watching you hold them. I wanted it to be real. I wanted it all to be real.”
― Chloe Gong, Foul Lady Fortune

“A city reborn is a city traumatized.
It remembers its past, every second that it took to get to this point. It sees the former version of itself and knows that it has changed, its boots no longer fitting, its hats no longer comfortable. The streets trace how they used to sprawl. No matter how it is paved over and reorganized, memories and echoes do not fade away that easily.”
― Chloe Gong, Foul Lady Fortune