N.K. Jemisin

“He was dead again when I got home that day. His corpse was in the kitchen, near the counter, where it appeared he'd been chopping vegetables when the urge to stab himself through the wrist had struck. I slipped on the blood coming in, which annoyed me because that meant it was all over the kitchen floor.”

“-Si pudieras ser libre. ¿Qué pedirías?[...]-Estoy cansada de ser lo que todos los demás han hecho de mi -dije-. Quiero ser yo misma.-No seas niña. [...] Eres lo que tus creadores y tus experiencias han hecho de ti, como todos los seres de este universo. Acéptalo y sigue adelante. Estoy cansado de tus plañidos.”

“Eres insignificante. Una entre millones, ni especial ni única. Yo no pedí esta ignominia y me sentí ofendida por la comparación.Muy bien. A mí tampoco me gustas.”

“Separarse de la tierra y contemplarla desde arriba como los dioses es una blasfemia. No podemos ser dioses... pero podemos llegar a ser menos que humanos con aterradora facilidad.”

“De esta materia prima están hechos los grandes cuentos, ¿no? Puro romanticismo. En los cuentos, las parejas así viven felices para siempre. Pero los cuentos no dicen lo que sucede cuando se hace eso y se ofende a la familia más poderosa del mundo.”

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

“The Nightlord cannot be controlled, child. He can only be unleashed. And you asked him not to kill.”

“And in that sliver of time, I felt the power around me coalesce, malice-hard and sharp as crystal.That this analogy occurred to me should have been a warning.”

“The younger man stepped away from the table and came toward me, his whole posture radiating menace. Every Darre woman is taught to deal with such behavior from men. It is an animal trick that they use, like dogs ruffling their fur and growling. Only rarely is there an actual threat behind it, and a woman's strength lies in discerning when the threat is real and when it is just hair and noise.”

“You are Insignificant. One of millions, neither special nor unique. I did not ask for this ignominy, and I resent the comparison. Fine. I don't you like you, either.”

“We can never be gods, after all--but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.”

“It was very bad if the council had resorted to recruiting men. By tradition men were our last line of defence, their physical strength bent towards the single and most important task of protecting our homes and children. This meant the council had decided that our only defence was to defeat the enemy, period. Anything else meant the end of Darre.”

“I remembered Nahadoth's lips on my throat and fought to suppress a shudder, only half succeeding. Death as a consequence of lying with a god wasn't something I had considered, but it did not surprise me. A mortal man's strength had its limits. He spent himself and slept. He could be a good lover, but even his best skills were only guesswork - for every caress that sent a woman's head into the clouds, he might try ten that brought her back to earth.”

“There's truth even in tainted knowledge, if one reads carefully.”

“Fortunately, where reason failed, blind panic served well enough.”

“Whether you live or die is irrelevant. You are Arameri, and like all of us, you will serve.”

“(This is not a digression.)”