The World We Make Quotes

“Real family’s the people who are there when you need ’em.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“Meanwhile there have always been people who hate New York without ever setting foot in it—because they hear too much about it and get tired of the hype, because they “lost” a cousin who moved here from TinyRepublicanVille and turned socialist, because they secretly wish they could live here, too, but are too scared to try, whatever.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“no corporation needs help from eldritch abominations to do awful things. Neither does ICE.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“Every court is a horror movie setting at its core, where property matters more than human lives and justice gets measured in billable hours.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“Why don’t sports teams have avatars? Why isn’t Gritty immortal and magical by now?”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“She’s never seen anything so nasty, and she’s a Lovecraftian horror.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“You need to believe in yourself more, kunju. Why can’t you be more like that nice lady from Brooklyn? She’s an avatar and a city councilwoman. So accomplished.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“We are amalgamated gods sprung whole from the fusion of belief with reality, but usually, the beliefs are pretty steady.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“as if you can be socially liberal when you’re against funding social justice—”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“He moves to stand on a nearby subway grate, through which he can hear a 1 train idling on the platform below. He spreads his hands to feel the gentle waft of warm, funky-smelling subway air along his skin. (No one pays attention when he does this, because few people bother paying attention to odd behavior in New York, and he wouldn't care if they did, because few New Yorkers care what other people think.)”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“Letting new cities die and blaming ’em for it! So either sit your bitch asses down, or shut the fuck up and help. Do or die, show and prove. Can’t be no in-between.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“Did they hear the mobs coming? Were there warnings ahead of time—whispers over the wire, soldier instincts astir, sympathetic officials pulling aside favored servants or even clandestine lovers and telling them to brace for attack? What could they do, those proud but powerless people, in a country where no law protected them and even basic human decency turned its back? Where could they go, with no ancestral homes to return to and no one to rely on but themselves?”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“It’s like a group hug of concern, her borough folding gentle arms around her and slapping away all that Wall Street coldness, and for a moment Padmini cries harder. Can’t help it. “I’m okay,” she blurts, taking a tissue from the packet that the young man waves at her. “I’m sorry. It’s just… hard, sometimes. This damn city.” There are nods around her. “Fuck this city,” says the old lady. “That’s how you gotta be to live here, sweetie. Fuck it right in the ass.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“Yet here we still are. Were we supposed to mope about our imminent death all that time? I don’t think I have that much moping in me.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“So, thanks to so much of New York being so damn New York, we okay.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“Well, I was the seat of the British Empire.” She reaches over and pats his cheek, fondly, and he blinks. “Now, now, I’m joking, dear. I don’t do that anymore.” With that, London heads off. The street market is probably still going, so she’ll see if she can grab a kebab there. Then she’s going to do an old-fashioned pub crawl, because it’s been too long. Talking to baby cities always puts her in a nostalgic mood. Behind her, New York stares for a moment longer, shakes his head, then vanishes back home.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“Half of Bel’s new friends burst out laughing, while the other half look astonished. “The fuck—” “No fuck, that’s the point!” More laughter. “Supposed to make ’em more manly or something.” “It ain’t working! They need more hair on their palms!”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“Veneza wishes the captain happy job- and therapist-hunting.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“An instant later, the ferry pitches wildly again as the tentacle flails. This time the Woman’s creature isn’t trying to capsize the boat, however. It’s flailing in what looks like pain as it tries to get away from the rolling, clattering wave of oysters climbing its way up the tentacle’s length.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“He’s getting lopsided, with more legs on his left side than his right. He opens a mouth that is froglike, stretched across his face and lined with too many small square teeth, and no one sees this. Some do flinch, at least, when he suddenly yells in an echoing foghorn voice, “FOREIGNER. FUCKING FOREIGNER.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“You said it yourself: New York is rude. We'll give you the shirt off our backs and our last subway card swipe if you're lost, but step to us with wild accusations about things that aren't our fault and any one of us will go off on you.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“Cities are seeds. Each and every one of us that comes to life can sprout a new branch upon the great tree of the multiverse, or maybe even start a new tree altogether.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“...the manhole covers blow off and the subway grates pop up and R'lyeh's footmonsters are suddenly met by an equally vast flood of—oh, God, rats and pigeons and cockroaches, and pigeons carrying rats holding cockroaches! She's never seen anything so nasty, and she's a Lovecraftian horror.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“Americans always seem to expect the performance of friendliness, even when they aren't being friendly.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“He twitches through Times Square, resisting the urge to gawk like a tourist, groaning in native-New-Yorker frustration when the tourists get in his way—but in an eyeblink he's at Fourteenth Street, hurrying along a sidewalk and wondering if he should stop and pick up something for dinner from the farmers market and wondering if the doctor called in his prescription, and oh is it going to rain?”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“Bel's got a crush on NY1's Pat Kiernan, so he watches news every morning on the TV in the common area.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“Padmini smiles shakily. “It touched me as everything came apart. It thanked me. ‘How nice to be loved again,’ it said.” She shakes her head, on the brink of tears. “All that time…” She covers her mouth. Veneza comes over to give her a hug.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“She hates that she suddenly has “friends” she neither knows nor trusts, and even that the racists are just ordinary hateful people instead of fitting into Staten’s unique brand of pro-Wu-Tang anti-Blackness.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“Not today, not no way, ’cause I’m tellin’ you now that I ain’t come to play”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make

“but”
― N.K. Jemisin, The World We Make