The Kingmaker Quotes

“If a kiss has a color, this one is the muted shades of the sky overhead, a ménage à trois of midnight and indigo and moonshine silver. If a kiss has a sound, this one is the concert of our breaths and sighs and moans. If a kiss has a taste, it tastes like this. Hunger flavored with yearning and spiced with desperation.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“My mother's story has no end. Her life was interrupted mid-sentence -a dangling participle. An infinite etcetera of dots, but no period.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism,” I quote. “I love this country too much to settle for the lies written in our history books. I love the constitution too much not to hold the men who wrote it accountable for the truth of its principles.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“My mother was my first country. The first place I ever lived.” – “lands” by Nayyirah Waheed, Poet & Activist”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“I know it’s unreasonable because I met her no more than an hour ago. We’ve had one conversation. Some people leave an impression. Lennix Moon Hunter has left more than an impression. She’s left her mark on me. And it’s shaped like a star.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“On rare occasion, you come across someone who just gets you, and you don't have to figure out your place. Wherever you are is okay.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“In what world could you possibly think I would belong to you?”
“In the one we make together.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“Do what you need to do. Change your world,” he says softly, his eyes connected to mine so intensely there’s no hope of looking away. “I have to go make my world, but when the time is right, I’ll be back for you.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“I didn’t have words that night for what I felt when he initiated me not just into sex, but into this world that is just ours. Just our two bodies, sun and moon, just our souls, earth and water. We are the sky and the sea, and the horizon is where our hearts meet. Every part of that world is made by and from and for just us two.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“Yes, but I think revolution requires a certain degree of hubris.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“This is not about blaming for the past. It’s about us all being responsible for the future.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“should have made Mama take a dozen more pictures. I should have given her a thousand kisses. I should have slept at her feet. I would have if I’d known I’d never see her again.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“I think my greatest fear is actually hurting one of them with my choices.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“A riot is the language of the unheard.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“Besides, it’s the dreamers, the inventors and entrepreneurs who change the world the most. Gutenberg, Edison, Stephenson, Jobs—something about the present wasn’t good enough, so they made the future.” I almost choke on a jaded chuckle. “What do politicians make? They make war. They make profit off the misfortune of others. They make mistakes they won’t take responsibility for and decisions they never have to feel the impact of. No, thank you. Not for me.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“We were the last tribe to surrender. We have warrior in our blood.”
“What do you mean?” Berkeley asks.
“Geronimo was the last Indian warrior to formally surrender to the U.S. Government,” I tell him. “He was Apache.”
“Wow,” Berkeley says. “I didn’t know that.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“You cheated?” she asks, her eyes condemning slits. “No, I lied.” Katya nods sagely, turning down the corners of her mouth and shrugging. “Lying is simply cheating on the truth.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“The harder I have to work for something, the harder I take it.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“I felt intentional. Like every second, every decision, every person I share myself with—counts. And to be honest, I just haven’t met anyone I trusted with that.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“Grief is its own kind of intimacy, a bond of sorts between you and the one you lost.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“I’m still only thirteen years old, but in the four days of my Sunrise Dance, the rite of passage that carried me from girl to woman, it feels like I’ve lived a lifetime.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“My mother was my first country. The first place I ever lived.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“The harder I have to work for something… the harder I take it.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“I don’t give up on seemingly lost causes. When I want something – really want something – I’ll do whatever I have to until I have it.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker

“I’m the kid so often trapped between worlds, split in two and finding my place. On the rare occasion you come across someone who just gets you, and you don’t have to figure out your place. Wherever you are is okay.
I think he could be a ‘wherever you are’ person.”
― Kennedy Ryan, The Kingmaker