Katabasis Quotes

“She took one glance and instantly her thinking mind shut down, as it always did when confronted with a lot of numbers. “You need to explain that to me like I’m five.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“Do it or you'll die, Alice snapped. Move, Murdoch. Don't think, just do it.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“Mathematicians hated magicians.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“Loss of identity was a terrifying prospect.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“It was in the world of living where they met their tragic ends.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“All the ghost stories were wrong; hauntings were so rarely malicious. The dead only wanted to feel included.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“Human minds were fallible, but hers less than most, and hers was now the only mind she could trust.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“Blasted magicians,” hissed the Shade. “No respect.” The pain to her ribs was terrible, but Alice was too excited to mind. “How do you know we’re magicians?” “Chalk all over your hands,” said the Shade. “Chalk on your kneecaps. What else are you, cokeheads?”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“I wish I were the night, so that I might watch your sleep with a thousand eyes.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“The night sky shouldn't be so dark," Peter had told her. "If the universe is endless, then starlight should fill all the empty spaces. Light doesn't stop until it hits a surface - so why the dark spaces? From where we stand on Earth, all we should see is light."
"Maybe the universe isn't limitless, then," Alice had said.
"Or the universe is expanding," Peter had said. "And the stars are too young, and all that distant light is still stretching to reach us. And until it does, the night lies dark.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“She loved when he just rambled, effortlessly profound, without an ounce of self-consciousness. She loved seeing how he processed the world; hearing his messiest, unformed thoughts.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“How unfair this was, she thought. As if she had never seen him asleep. As if she had not curled in next to him many times, their breathing deep in matching rhythm, both of them murmuring about stars and numbers until their conjectures bled over into dreams. It used to be so easy. Yet here they were, negotiating space like strangers.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“Alice double-checked his inscriptions and realized to her dismay that his work was perfect. She would have preferred he’d made an error that left him limbless.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“Hell is a writers’ market.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“Anyhow, tired to the point of collapse was a default state. The expectation was simply that, through some combination of strong coffee and Lembas Bread, one pushed through until all deadlines were met and one could collapse into an indefinite coma without consequence. Alice had spent most of graduate school in this state, and it was not so bad.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“Wickedness felt better when you had a coconspirator; otherwise it was just you and your conscience.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY DEFINES VALIDITY AS ..." and "SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME, MANKIND HAS BEEN TROUBLED BY THE PROBLEM OF RATIONALITY.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“They go for your stomach first, she heard David Attenborough say. Not the artery, they don’t kill you right away; they want you fresh, unspoiled; they’ll eat you slow, you’ll feel every bite—”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“In all the stories, sojourners in Hell rarely perished there. It was in the world of the living where they met their tragic ends.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“If the world could be fluid for you once, how many more times could you make it dance according to your whimsy?”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“And over there—creative writing students.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“Wouldn’t that be nice, Alice thought. A cheese toastie here, at the end of the world.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“There was nothing enchanted about Lembas Bread;”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis