Jade Legacy Quotes

“You'd think it would be easier to face death as you get older, but it doesn't work that way. You get more attached to life, to people you love and things that are worth living for.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“How do we do it?” Hilo sighed deeply. “You of all people already know the answer to that, Shae. We don’t handle this world. We make it handle us.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“When something has to be done, there's always a way to do it.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“The way to defeat a chess master was not with greater genius, but by forcing her to play a different game.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“Only children and gods are arrogant enough to judge what they can't understand. There's no point being afraid of their opinions.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“In my experience, as long as your friends have a high opinion of you, it doesn’t hurt when your enemies have a low opinion, the lower the better.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“The clan is my blood,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion, but perfectly steady. “And the Pillar is its master.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“Don't show off how much you hate a man until you're ready to be his enemy.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“I was angry at you for a long time after you refused to wear jade. Of course you remember. Now, though… I’m thankful you’re not a Fist, Andy. I need—” Hilo’s voice faltered. “I need one of my brothers to live.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“The mind cannot adjust quickly to a fundamental change in reality without breaking. If the moon vanished from the sky, people would not believe it; they would think it was a trick of light or clouds. Anden felt it would be a long time before he accepted the truth.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“We all make mistakes. Sometimes terrible mistakes we can barely live with. But we learn from them. And maybe…” His voice collapsed. “Maybe we can forgive each other.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“trust that had been so dramatically spilled could only be refilled one drop at a time.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“I couldn’t be Pillar without you, and I still can’t. We’ve both hurt each other because we were too stubborn about what we expected, and we paid badly for that. But what’s the point of life if we give up on the people we love?” He enfolded her into his arms and stroked her smooth hair. He kissed her on the forehead and cheeks and mouth. “Wen, will you be my Pillarman?”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“I think it’s natural in our forties to start wondering if we’re past the main events of our lives, or if there are still other mountains to climb.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“Far do your enemies flee.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“Even the biggest tigers grow old, Hilo had once said. But even the oldest tiger was still a tiger.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“When is life ever like a story where the characters get exactly what they deserve, good or bad?”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“Shae gave a nod of silent understanding. Niko had put into words something she'd felt for a long time -- a sense that she struggled not only against the Mountain and all the other enemies of the clan, but against something even larger and more inexorable.

Niko lowered his gaze to his hands. "I thought I could escape and find some other meaning in my life. But if the clan crumbles, either quickly or slowly, if it becomes as obsolete and irrelevant as people like Jim Sunto believe, then everything that made me, including my father's murder and my mother's execution, would be meaningless. Every drop of blood spilled, every sacrifice made, every child ever trained to wear jade as a Green Bone warrior of Kekon over centuries of history.... That's what the Pillar carries. That's our power, and ours alone." He looked back toward the school with a small, sad smile. "Ru tried so hard to tell me that I was a selfish fool to run away from it. He was right.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“Jade warriors are young, and then they are ancient.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“Didn't you hear what I said, you weird fucker? What kind of Green Bone are you, anyway?" Spittle flew from Bero's mouth as his head jerked up. His shoulders were heaving. "I killed your father."


"You didn't," Niko told him bluntly. "I never knew my father, but he was a good person, a respected Pillar, and one of the most powerful Green Bones anyone could name. That's what I've been told all my life, and it's what I choose to believe. The Mountain clan murdered him, but the truth of it is that a man like that can only be brought down by his own flaws, in the face of forces beyond anyone's control. Not by someone like you.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“So many problems between people, even those who loved each other, came from a lack of communication and honesty.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“I know some mistakes can’t ever be fixed, but we’ve got to go on, don’t we, and try to make the most of what’s left.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“We don’t handle this world. We make it handle us.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“Kaul-jen,” he said slowly, “may I have your permission to ask Shae-jen—” “Yes, for fuck’s sake, you have my blessing as Pillar.” Hilo sighed.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“Don't ever make the mistake that I did. Don't show mercy.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“It was strange, Shae thought -- Green Bones revered jade, but it was not the gems themselves that were worthy of reverence. Jade had meaning because of the type of person one had to become to wear it. Jade was the visible proof that a person had dedicated their life to the discipline of wielding power, to the dangers and costs of being a Green Bone.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“Once, when he a child, Niko had asked his aunt Shae why she believed in the gods. She'd given him a strange but clear-eyed look.
"Because I've felt them watching me."
Niko had been disappointed. He'd expected a more rational explanation from the Weather Man. Now, at last, he understood her answer. With each step he took in the snow, Niko sank beneath the feeling of some terrible attention turning toward him, reaching from the other side of the world like a curse.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“On his deathbed, the disgraced king is said to have lamented, "I'll be remembered not for who I was, but for what I wasn't. Perhaps it's for the best. Let the gods judge me for what I did not do.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“Kaul Shaelinsan, Weather Man of No Peak,” she said, “you can fuck off and die.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy

“We all make mistakes. Sometimes terrible mistakes we can barely live with. But we learn from them. And maybe… Maybe we can forgive each other.”
― Fonda Lee, Jade Legacy