He Who Drowned the World Quotes

“I'll find his grave, and bury you together. You had no descendants, but I'll remember you. And my descendants, and their descendants, will remember you, and pray for you, at the monument I'll build to your names.
Go into your next life. Live it, and bear its suffering. Do it again with the life after that, and the next, and with each one find it easier. Until one day, in a thousand years, the force of the universe will bring you and Esen-Temur back together to start afresh.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“I don't want to be great, Zhu repeated. Her desire was the radiance of the sun, an immensity that filled every part of her without exception. Who else understood what it was to feel something of this magnitude; to want something with the entirety of their self, as she did? "I want to be the greatest.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“But if you were determined to want the impossible, there was a better way to get it. Zhu thought with amused defiance: Change the world, and make it possible.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“Heaven can't take you from me. I refuse. I refuse.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“This was the part she loved, fiercely. The leap from which there was no turning back; the buoyant thrill of knowing that all the threads of action would come together—had to come together—into success, even if she didn’t yet know how. It was a prayer, and it was faith, but it was nothing like the self-emptying devotion she had learned as a monk. She blazed with desire. She was full with it, and her faith was in herself.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“You had everything that mattered, but you could never believe it. He loved you, and you loved him. But you had to cling to this path that you thought was your fate. You killed him, even though it didn’t mean anything at all. It wasn’t fate that cursed you, General. It was you. How you scorned me for being so afraid! And yet you were the one who was too afraid to be yourself, and to claim what was given to you.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“To be in contact with someone else’s pain was to risk feeling it yourself, unless you severed the connection by hating them. When most people’s greatest desire was to avoid pain, of course they would rather hate.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“It was like the dark inverse of the sun. Whenever he tried to look at it he had the feeling of turning uncontrollably away from it, as in his unremembered dreams. All he knew was that once he let it out, it wouldn't be just the world that was drowned, but himself.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“That's my body, but my body isn't me, she thought. The thing that feels your hands on me, that pleases you, isn't me. My body is for you, it isn't for me. She resided in her body an inch below the surface, wearing it like a doll, with a sense of ownership and pride, perhaps, but never fully being it.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“Take him out drinking with you somewhere in Qingyuan tonight. Then on the way home,” she said, “kill him.” —Zhu”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“A man's greatest treasure is his sons.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“I know you hate me for this," Zhu said. He was neither cruel nor kind; his griefless young face shone with the hope and anticipation of someone who had never so much as dreamed that the future might be less than good. "I know you can't believe that I'll win. But I will, because I'm willing to do whatever it takes. Just wait, General, and I'll make sure you get what you want.
"I promise.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“If he’d accepted the girl’s flirtation—which he might have, because he was pretending—Lady Ki wouldn’t have sent him a warning.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“He was as powerless as the dead, but with none of the relief of it. At every moment he knew, awfully, that he was still alive, and that while he was alive he had to keep going.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“To be in contact with someone else's pain was to risk feeling it yourself, unless you severed the connection by hating them. When most people's greatest desire was to avoid pain, of course they would rather hate.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“Life-sustaining salt that, in such concentration, became life-denying.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“if you were determined to want the impossible, there was a better way to get it. Zhu thought with amused defiance: Change the world, and make it possible.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“They’re lovely girls. I haven’t been spat on once since we got here. I’ll have to leave a tip.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“It was the time of night that babies were born and people died, when the dark seemed endless and the idea of a morning a cruel dantasy that not even a child could believe.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“The woman gave a manicured laugh. "Don't warry. Your surrender will be given correctly. My husband's reputation may precede him, but a weak man, well managed, is a woman's greatest strength.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World