Sister Snake Quotes

“Su is so used to the privacy of her feelings she is unsure about sharing them, even with her sister. Having someone bear witness to your pain is risky: it takes the experience out of your hands, makes things real in a way you cannot unmake. Alone, you're free to rearrange the pieces till they sit right in your head.”
― Amanda Lee Koe, Sister Snake

“The glorious imprecision of language, the impossible endeavour of saying what you mean to another. She sees, with benevolent distance, how hopeless and winsome it is to be in this skin. How human it is to attempt a futile expression of your innermost secrets to another by vibrating strings in your throat to make an avalanche of sentences. To laugh, to sing, to cry out loud. How we all wish so badly to be heard.”
― Amanda Lee Koe, Sister Snake

“Family is a Greek tragedy. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them. Can’t let them in, can’t cut them out. It’s real nice, until it sucks.”
― Amanda Lee Koe, Sister Snake

“To be without language, without distraction, with someone you love. Language has given them ways of hiding from each other... The currency of spoken language forces everything to be too precise, yet not enough.”
― Amanda Lee Koe, Sister Snake

“Emerald wanted to remember the cruelty of humans. But she was younger back then. She did not know there was no need to memorise the atrocity of authority. It was bound to rear its head--sometimes more violently, sometimes more quietly--over and over again across time's arrow.”
― Amanda Lee Koe, Sister Snake

“Why do you think him being fair to you is so nice?” Emerald challenges her. “Being fair to you is what you deserve.”
What I deserve? Tik has never felt entitled to think that.
“You’re not asking for anything more than anyone else,” Emerald points out. “But you shouldn’t settle for anything less either.”
“Mr. Ong needs to think for the whole country,” Tik says.
Emerald looks at her. “Aren’t you part of this country too?”
― Amanda Lee Koe, Sister Snake

“Liberal Americans have a penchant for magnifying authoritarian quirks without taking a good hard look at the gutted state of populist democracy in their own backyard.”
― Amanda Lee Koe, Sister Snake

“The bells and whistles of consumption save them from having to really connect. They can while away hours engaged in some form of opulent activity, seemingly together, yet without exactly being with each other.”
― Amanda Lee Koe, Sister Snake

“... Su has relied on haute couture as a soft armor against a hard world that isn't made for her, a world she is worried will call her bluff. Fashion helps to ground her in her own body. It makes her feel perceivable.”
― Amanda Lee Koe, Sister Snake

“One seed turns bone to flesh, or beast to human,” the voice went on tauntingly. “Two seeds give everlasting youth. Three seeds for karmic enlightenment. And four seeds, a deity’s ascension.”
― Amanda Lee Koe, Sister Snake