Top 120 Ann Leckie Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “I’ve been thinking,” I said to Oissen, when he returned the next afternoon. “Yes, the Myriad had warned me you might do that.”

— Ann Leckie

52. “So much is metaphor, an inadequately material way to speak of immaterial things.”

— Ann Leckie

53. “Thoughts that lead to action can be dangerous. Thoughts that do not, mean less than nothing.”

— Ann Leckie

54. “People don’t riot for no reason.”

— Ann Leckie

55. “Children are all sorts of people, aren’t they, and I suppose if I knew more I’d find some I like and some I don’t, just like everyone else.”

— Ann Leckie

56. “For my part,” I replied, “I find forgiveness overrated. There are times and places when it’s appropriate. But not when the demand that you forgive is used to keep you in your place.”

— Ann Leckie

57. “The omen Stillness had flipped, become Movement. And Justice was about to land before me, clear and unambiguous.”

— Ann Leckie

58. “Strange, how equally important, just different always seemed to translate into some “equally important” roles being more worthy of respect and reward than others.”

— Ann Leckie

59. “Water will wear away stone, but it won’t cook supper. Everything has its own strengths. Said with enough irony, it could also imply that since the gods surely had a purpose for everyone the person in question must be good for something, but the speaker couldn’t fathom what it might be.”

— Ann Leckie

60. “You can kill me, you mean. You can destroy my sense of self and replace it with one you approve of.”

— Ann Leckie

61. “Oh, how I missed the rest of myself.”

— Ann Leckie

62. “She found she couldn’t quite bring herself to say they looked like they might be alive and thinking. She thought of the news from Radch space, the whole reason the Geck ambassador had left her homeworld to begin with – Radchaai artificial intelligences declaring themselves independent, and potential signatories of the treaty with the Presger. But, she reminded herself, that was very far away.”

— Ann Leckie

63. “I would like to point out that as soon as Lieutenant Ekalu let you know that actually, your intended compliment was offensive to her, you immediately stopped trying to be nice.”

— Ann Leckie

64. “Do you love randomly?” She blinked in bewilderment. “What?” “Do you love at random? Like pulling counters out of a box? You love whichever one came to hand? Or is there something about certain people that makes them likely to be loved by you?”

— Ann Leckie

65. “Thoughts are ephemeral, they evaporate in the moment they occur, unless they are given action and material form. Wishes and intentions, the same. Meaningless, unless they impel you to one choice or another, some deed or course of action, however insignificant. Thoughts that lead to action can be dangerous. Thoughts that do not, mean less than nothing.”

— Ann Leckie

66. “If there was anything any Radchaai considered essential for civilised life, it was tea.”

— Ann Leckie

67. “I had once had twenty bodies, twenty pairs of eyes, and hundreds of others that I could access if I needed or desired it. Now I could only see in one direction, could only see the vast expanse behind me if I turned my head and blinded myself to what was in front of me.”

— Ann Leckie

68. “Security is here to protect citizens. You can’t do that if you insist on seeing any of them as adversaries.”

— Ann Leckie

69. “Oh and next time you feel like getting hammered, message me. That was some damn good stuff you puked all over yourself, I think it’d only fair I should get some, too. That hasn’t already been through you, I mean.”

— Ann Leckie

70. “There are two parts to reacting aren’t there? How you feel and what you do. And its the thing you do that is the important one.”

— Ann Leckie

71. “I had learned to be wary whenever a priest suggested that her personal aims were, in fact, God’s will.”

— Ann Leckie

72. “It had been, for both of our lives. Frantic action, then months or even years waiting for something to happen.”

— Ann Leckie

73. “Just how good of a citizen does one have to be” I asked, “in order to have water, air, and medical help?”

— Ann Leckie

74. “Virtues may be made to serve whatever end profits you. Still, they exist and will influence your actions. Your choices.”

— Ann Leckie

75. “I considered for a moment what would be the right facial expression, and made it.”

— Ann Leckie

76. “Good necessitates evil and the two sides of that disk are not always clearly marked.”

— Ann Leckie

77. “We sit here arguing, we can hardly agree on anything, and then you go straight to my heart like that. We must be family.”

— Ann Leckie

78. “Good, good. Always remember, Fleet Captain – internal organs belong inside your body. And blood belongs inside your veins.”

— Ann Leckie

79. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I still don’t understand exactly why what I said hurt you so much. But I don’t need to. It hurt you, and when you told me it hurt you I should have apologized and stopped saying whatever it was. And maybe spent some time trying to understand. Instead of insisting that you manage your feelings to suit me. And I want to say I’m sorry. And I actually mean it this time.”

— Ann Leckie

80. “People often think they would have made the noblest choice, but when they find themselves actually in such a situation, they discover matters aren’t quite so simple.”

— Ann Leckie

81. “She was born surrounded by wealth and privilege. She thinks she’s learned to question that. But she hasn’t learned quite as much as she thinks she has, and having that pointed out to her, well, she doesn’t react well to it.”

— Ann Leckie

82. “The important thing is you didn’t say yes to something that would have made you unhappy.”

— Ann Leckie

83. “If everyone were to consider all the possible consequences of all one’s possible choices, no one would move a millimeter, or even dare to breathe for fear of the ultimate results.”

— Ann Leckie

84. “I don’t answer that sort of question, I told her, by means of the tokens. I thought you understood that. I don’t foretell the future, except in the way that anyone does.”

— Ann Leckie

85. “I’ve been thinking about it, since you said it,” said Seivarden. No, said Mercy of Kalr. “And I’ve concluded that I don’t want to be a captain. But I find I like the thought that I could be.”

— Ann Leckie

86. “People don’t riot for no reason. And if you’re finding you have to deal with the Ychana carefully now, it’s because of how they’ve been treated in the past.”

— Ann Leckie

87. “And you turned fully to stare at your hand against the wall, and then down at your feet, feeling that constant, faint, grinding vibration traveling through the yellowish stones. Could you hear me, Eolo? Can you hear me now? I’m talking to you.”

— Ann Leckie

88. “We are all of us only human. We can only forgive so much.”

— Ann Leckie

89. “I’ve found that not eating is generally a bad decision,” I replied.”

— Ann Leckie

90. “I want to find out if I managed to damage any of Anaander’s ships. And if I did, I want to try to do more damage. I need to know what’s going on at Athoek so I can plan.” “Oh, Cousin,” replied Sphene. “We sit here arguing, we can hardly agree on anything, and then you go straight to my heart like that. We must be family.”

— Ann Leckie

91. “God’s intentions could be discerned by the careful study of even the smallest, most seemingly insignificant events. And the past weeks’ events were anything but small and insignificant.”

— Ann Leckie

92. “How comforting,′ I replied, my voice and my expression steadily serious, ’to think that in these difficult times God is still concerned with the details of the housing assignments. I myself have no time to discuss them just now.”

— Ann Leckie

93. “Governor Giarod was fairly good at not panicking visibly, but, I had discovered, not good at actually not panicking.”

— Ann Leckie

94. “Aenda Crav,” said Garal, eir tone mild but eir voice still loud enough to carry halfway across the plaza, “and Thers Rathem, and you, Chorem Caellas, you all flew here from the capital this morning so you could shout questions at me in person, but you can’t bring yourself to use the name I want to go by. None of you can, apparently, except for District Voice here.”

— Ann Leckie

95. “And it’s so easy to just go along. So easy not to see what’s happening. And the longer you don’t see it, the harder it becomes to see it, because then you have to admit that you ignored it all that time.”

— Ann Leckie

96. “Virtue is not a solitary, uncomplicated thing.” Good necessitates evil and the two sides of that disk are not always clearly marked. “Virtues may be made to serve whatever end profits you. Still, they exist and will influence your actions. Your choices.”

— Ann Leckie

97. “I had met quite a few priests in my long life, and found that they were, by and large, like anyone else – some generous, some grasping; some kind, some cruel; some humble, some self-aggrandizing. Most were all of those things, in various proportions, at various times. Like anyone else, as I said. But I had learned to be wary whenever a priest suggested that her personal aims were, in fact, God’s will.”

— Ann Leckie

98. “If that’s what you’re willing to do for someone you hate, what would you do for someone you love?”

— Ann Leckie

99. “My life always seems hopeless when it’s been too long since I’ve eaten.”

— Ann Leckie

100. “This struck me as something of a double bind. Speak and your possession of an opinion was plain, clear to anyone. Refrain from speaking and still this was proof of an opinion. If Captain Rubran were to say, Truly, I have no opinion on the matter, would that merely be another proof she had one?”

— Ann Leckie