N. K. Jemisin

"It was the oldest of tricks, to sow dissension between groups that had common interests. Good for deflecting attention from greater mischief, too."

"Funny thing, employment. If you keep doing it, you keep getting paid."

"Magic is merely communication, after all. Communication, and conduits."

"If they will not love me, fear is an acceptable substitute."

"This was what I’d asked her to give me. I had no right to complain just because it wasn’t what I wanted to hear."

"Fear was like poison to mortals; it killed their rationality."

"Those with power would always find some way to exert it over those who didn’t."

"At least I’m done with adolescence. Never could stand it; if I don’t want to kill someone, I want to have sex with them."

"Peace is meaningless without freedom."

"Mother always said that if one must do something unpleasant, one should do it wholeheartedly and not waste effort on regret."

"“We will continue to serve you, Lady, whether you’re here or not. What prayers shall we say for you at the dawn and twilight hour?” She threw me an odd look, as if checking to see if I was joking. I wasn’t This seemed to surprise and unnerve her; she laughed, though it sounded a bit forced. “Say whatever you want,” she said finally. “Someone might be listening, but it won’t be me. I have better things to do.” She vanished."

"Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall; Death is the Fifth, and master of all."

"Syenite wonders if there is any point in hating a crazy man. It’s not like he’ll notice, anyway."

"“Home is people,” she says to Asael, softly. Asael blinks. “Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind.”"

"We were all exposed to nothing but white dude fiction, occasionally young white women fiction, and if that’s how you’ve grown up, then that is what is normal."

"This is the year in which I get to smile at all of those naysayers – every single mediocre insecure wannabe who fixes their mouth to suggest that I do not belong on this stage, that people like me cannot possibly have earned such an honour, that when they win it it’s meritocracy but when we win it it’s ‘identity politics’ –… I get to smile at those people, and lift a massive, shining, rocket-shaped middle finger in their direction."

"…You’re still putting a pretty hefty mental commitment into making a short story. Even though it’s relatively brief, you still have to come up with a world that’s coherent. I find short stories almost as difficult to write as novels, it’s just less time-consuming. Short stories are hard for me. That’s why the collection is something like fifteen years worth of short stories. They asked me to write several new ones for the collection and I was just like, Not likely to happen. In fact, I can really only write them when I’m between novels because they take away from whatever energy I’m trying to pour into a novel."

"The pasts that I draw upon tend to be mythic pasts. I’m not super interested in writing historical fantasy. I have done that a few times in the case of subject areas that I felt like should have been explored more, like the Haitian Revolution, for example. But for the most part, I’m more interested in exploring the gods that we could have had. Or these are the creation myths that we could have explored. I’m not super interested in existing mythology, though existing mythology does inform just about everything that I’m coming up with. But that’s more along the lines of, This is how mythology should be structured, so you need to look at existing mythology to understand that. If I’m trying to come up with a secondary world, the goal is to use not too much of the existing world…"

"My job is to help the world..That is what an artist's job is—to the degree that we can. That is nothing more than holding up a mirror and saying, 'You're beautiful, baby.' Or holding up a mirror and saying, 'Look at the shit that you're doing to yourself. Maybe you should stop.' It is an artist's job to speak truth to power."

"There is no greater warrior than a mother protecting her child."

"But perhaps that was just the way of power: no such thing as too much."

"It is blasphemy to separate oneself from the earth and look down on it like a god. It is more than blasphemy, it is dangerous. We can never be gods, after all—but we can become something less than human with frightening ease."

"It is important to appreciate beauty, even when it is evil."

"Immortality gets very, very boring. You'd be surprised at how interesting the small mundanities of life can seem after a few millennia."

"But love like that doesn’t just disappear, does it? No matter how powerful the hate, there’s always a little love left, underneath. Yes. Horrible, isn’t it?"

"There is no logic to grief."

"(Book that...everyone should read:) One of the many books by queer and POC authors that are under challenge by conservatives, via your local library. If they’re no longer available at your library because the conservatives got there first, join your local Library Board and fight to reinstate them. Reading–and the freedom to speak truth to power–is part of a framework of equity and justice that is under attack in a way not seen for a generation. Fight for all books. Or else."