The Bird King Quotes

“...God bless the man who first taught the world how to cure olives. He and the man who invented cheese are two unsung pillars of civilization."

"They were probably women," muttered Fatima, fanning her face with the sleeve of her robe. "If they were men, we would remember their names.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“Yes, you were taught to waste your anger. It’s convenient for girls to be angry about nothing. Girls who are angry about something are dangerous. If you want to live, you must learn to use your anger for your own benefit, not the benefit of those who would turn it against you.--Vikram”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“Nothing is so frightening or evil that it doesn’t come from the same thing that made the stars.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“There is so a real poem," said Fatima, annoyed. "The real Conference of the Birds was written by someone, by a real person. He had certain intentions. I want to know what they are. He wrote the poem for a reason, and the reason matters."

"Does it?" Vikram stretched his toes, revealing a row of claws as black as obsidian. "Once a story leaves the hand of its author, it belongs to the reader. And the reader may see any number of things, conflicting things, contradictory things. The author goes silent. If what he intended matter so very much, there would be no need for inquisitions, schisms and wars. But he is silent, silent. The author of the poem is silent, the author of the world is silent. We are left with no intentions but our own.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“The people who want to burn you alive will find a reason to do it, whether you pretend to agree with them or not.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“She could not envision a God who demanded such particularity of belief, whose mercy and forgiveness were confined to such a precise segment of humankind.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“Some ideas are so beautiful that even evil people believe in them.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“It’s an awful thing, you know, to be tolerated—everyone needs you, nobody wants you.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“Fear can make anything real," said Vikram. "The black-cloaks are afraid you're a sorcerer. If they condemn you as a sorcerer and burn you for it, then you are, for all practical purposes, a sorcerer, whether you began as one or not. Fear doesn't need to make sense in order to have consequences.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“Civilization was, Fatima realized, something very simple; it was the right of these small rituals to perpetuate themselves in peace.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“Whore," he spat at her.

"If I am a whore for resisting you," she said through her teeth, "what would I have been for giving in?"

"Whore," he said again.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“Once a story leaves the hands of its author, it belongs to the reader. And the reader may see any number of things, conflicting things, contradictory things. The author goes silent. If what he intended mattered so very much, there would be no need for inquisitions and schisms and wars. But he is silent, silent. The author of the poem is silent, the author of the world is silent. We are left with no intentions but our own.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“One could love many people. The heart was not a divided thing. Though part of hers would walk abroad into the unseen with Gwennec, it would not die.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“Because I couldn’t stand the little smile she had when she told me that I was loved, that she hated my sin, not me.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“Anger is good,” she heard him say. “Anger teaches you things. How to lead. How to make the decisions you’d rather not make. It protects you from fear and hesitation and the desire to turn back.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“It was less frightening, Fatima supposed, to be confronted by something that was honest about its capacity for violence than to dread the smiles and false assurances of something that believed in its own goodness even as it murdered and mutilated.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“Not everybody has to be friendly in order to be good.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“What if our stories are like my maps? What is a story but the map of an idea?”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“Even if they escaped, they would not escape intact: the act of saving themselves would leave scars, had left scars.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“This isn’t the end of the world, little Fatima,” he said in a voice that was almost kind. “It’s only the end of the world you know.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“If this is peace, then I hate peace. Peace is unfair”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“It’s all right, you silly boy,” murmured Hassan, speaking, or so it seemed, into the monk’s matted hair. “You think Luz has decided to be a particularly awful sort of person, and if you kill her, the evil will go away. But it’s not like that. Plenty of ordinary, peaceful men and women think someone like me ought to be murdered, even if they’d never dream of doing it themselves. Get enough of them together and the Inquisition will spring into existence all by itself, as if called from the very air.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“Though you have struggled, wandered, traveled far, It is yourselves you see, and what you”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“Where are the princes with their legendary swords and white steeds, who love where they ought and fight what they ought? Why is it only us, all muddled up?”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“God isn't like that. He knows we've all got things we can't do or can't stop. It doesn't follow that we're excused from those things we can do and can stop.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“The thing I do with maps. I've always wondered if it isn't some kind of intuition, better than what everyone else has, but the same sort of thing: whittling unconsciously through possibilities until I arrive at the sole possibility, the truth. Like being very, very good at guessing, so good that sometimes the angels indulge me and make my guess right even when it isn't[...]”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“Pretty child, said Azalel half pityingly, stroking her hair. You want so much and are given so little. Forget your mapmaker and all the clay men like him. Come with me to the Empty Quarter. It’s nearly as beautiful as you are—everything fashioned from quartz and song and light from the oldest stars. Come with me and I will teach you to drink fire. You need never lay eyes on anything made of mud ever again.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“They taste awful,” he said cheerfully, spitting out a pit. “A raw olive is a different animal from a cured one, apparently. God bless the man who first taught the world how to cure olives. He and the man who invented cheese are two unsung pillars of civilization.” “They were probably women,” muttered Fatima, fanning her face with the sleeve of her robe. “If they were men, we would remember their names.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“They taste awful,” he said cheerfully, spitting out a pit. “A raw olive is a different animal from a cured one, apparently. God bless the man who first taught the world how to cure olives. He and the man who invented cheese are two unsung pillars of civilization.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“How could the poets write about love so lightly, as if it was something pleasant? Love was terror and loss. Love was appalling.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King