A commandment,” the man says, spreading his arms, “is set in stone.” Imagine that his face aches from smiling. He’s been smiling for hours: teeth clenched, lips drawn back, eyes crinkled so the crow’s feet show. There is an art to smiling in a way that others will believe. It is always important to include the eyes; otherwise, people will know you hate.

— N.K. Jemisin

N.K. Jemisin Quotes

I liked that he lost control, dangerous though it was. I liked knowing I could give him that much pleasure. He was one of the younger godlings, but he had still lived millennia to my decades, and sometimes I worried that I wasn’t enough for him. On nights like this, though, as he wept and groaned and strained against me, and scintillated like diamond when the moment struck, I knew that was a silly fear. Of course I was enough, because he loved me. That was the whole point.

— N.K. Jemisin

I get on the train to go home every day, and sometimes I look around and see all these people glowing. Filled with the beauty of this city.

— N.K. Jemisin

She will pay no attention to the world that is ending outside. The world has already ended within her, and neither ending is for the first time. She’s old hat at this by now.

— N.K. Jemisin

As a sculpture, she would be beautiful, if too relentlessly realistic for local tastes. Most Yumenescenes prefer polite abstraction over vulgar actuality.

— N.K. Jemisin

Libraries are safe places. They’re warm in the winter. Nobody cares if you stay all day as long as you’re not eyeballing the kids’ corner or trying to hit up porn on the computers.

— N.K. Jemisin

Perhaps, amid so much loneliness, tears become ultimately useless.

— N.K. Jemisin

This is the task of the Guardians, little one. We prevent orogeny from disappearing – because in truth, the people of the world would not survive without it. Orogenes are essential. And yet because you are essential, you cannot be permitted to have a choice in the matter. You must be tools – and tools cannot be people. Guardians keep the tool... and to the degree possible, while still retaining the tool’s usefulness, kill the person.

— N.K. Jemisin

Perhaps we can never weed corruption out of ourselves, not completely. But it’s important that we continue to try.

— N.K. Jemisin

The world isn’t fair – but you can want it to be. That’s a kind of hunger, too.

— N.K. Jemisin

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

Real family’s the people who are there when you need ’em.

— N.K. Jemisin

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

Friendships can transcend childhood,” I said softly when Shahar took the knife. She paused, looking at me in surprise. “They can. If the friends continue to trust each other as they grow older and change.

— N.K. Jemisin

So, thanks to so much of New York being so damn New York, we okay.

— N.K. Jemisin

She’s never seen anything so nasty, and she’s a Lovecraftian horror.

— N.K. Jemisin

My father was a patient, cool-headed man. My temper comes from my mother.

— N.K. Jemisin

Gods notice, but we learn to ignore these things early on, the same way mortal newborns eventually ignore the lonely silence of a world without heartbeats.

— N.K. Jemisin

Why don’t sports teams have avatars? Why isn’t Gritty immortal and magical by now?

— N.K. Jemisin

We are amalgamated gods sprung whole from the fusion of belief with reality, but usually, the beliefs are pretty steady.

— N.K. Jemisin

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
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