Dawn of the Firebird Quotes

“But a small begrudging part of me acknowledges the sense. Sajamistan inks arbitrary lines upon a map, allocates their sovereignty and names it for themselves. Borders are spaces, they are barriers on maps. People do not know they live in cages, yet each day, by pen and paper, they choose them willingly.”
― Sarah Mughal Rana, Dawn of the Firebird

“These enemies are not evil, but drunk on the illusion of free will. They think Akashun is freeing their lives, which ironically chains them more to him. Still, I don’t blame them. Sometimes pain is easier to swallow when you fool yourself into thinking the other side deserves it more.”
― Sarah Mughal Rana, Dawn of the Firebird

“This girl, raised by death and scarred by memories, at sixteen years, understood a concept I have spent my life running in circles to grasp: family is not the blood running through your clan or the gnarled roots twisting from beneath a tree in archaic tradition, a cage to be rebuilt generation after generation. It’s the people worth every breath, every labour and every act of love to create a home.”
― Sarah Mughal Rana, Dawn of the Firebird

“It’s said that in my religion–whose mercy I’m unworthy of–that the ones who don’t accept the consequences of faith will try to exploit its benefits for worldly gain, and that is the measure of a corrupt person, while Believers readily accept consequences in this life, so in the hereafter, they reap the light stretching toward them.”
― Sarah Mughal Rana, Dawn of the Firebird

“What people forget when they worship their history is that, as beautiful as the idea of a revolution is, all revolutions begin and end with war. All revolution is war. War is what we fight.”
― Sarah Mughal Rana, Dawn of the Firebird

“think about the girl I became. She was willing to kill for her emperor because she’d been taught to look at her opponents and glimpse only empty monsters. She had followed orders. She’d had purpose. She unabashedly liked her purpose. She was one amongst an empire of many. She was me. I’m terrified that I liked it.”
― Sarah Mughal Rana, Dawn of the Firebird

“Business is where war begins, and business is where it ends.’ Farzaneh grins.”
― Sarah Mughal Rana, Dawn of the Firebird

“Purpose soothes the threat of grief.”
― Sarah Mughal Rana, Dawn of the Firebird

“Perhaps, but someone told me–someone who I no longer recall, but whose folktales have stayed with me, even as I fight against them; I think, in this moment, I am grateful I have them–she said there is comfort that the sky in its magical symmetry is shared by all, even home. The sky gilds the same sunrise, sunset and moon. The same constellations peeking slantwise against the black.”
― Sarah Mughal Rana, Dawn of the Firebird

“And of course, children are children through their dreams. Children only become monsters when all the dreams fade away.”
― Sarah Mughal Rana, Dawn of the Firebird

“The din of shouting shawl-makers pierces the market; they display glistening coins embroidered on tunics, printed from shuttles of wooden blocks.”
― Sarah Mughal Rana, Dawn of the Firebird

“It is the winners of history who justify wars, who put ink to paper, scribing lies, who shift blame for strife from one empire to the next.”
― Sarah Mughal Rana, Dawn of the Firebird

“But I cannot say such a thing to the students, for it would ruin their dreams. And of course, children are children through their dreams. Children only become monsters when all the dreams fade away.”
― Sarah Mughal Rana, Dawn of the Firebird