Top 90 Erika Johansen Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Our species is capable of altruism, certainly, but it is not a game we play willingly, let alone well.”

— Erika Johansen

52. “The future cannot be divorced from the past.”

— Erika Johansen

53. “And Kelsea wondered suddenly whether humanity ever actually changed. Did people grow and learn at all as the centuries past? Or was humanity merely like the tide, enlightenment advancing and then retreating as circumstances shifted? The most defining characteristic of the species might be lapse.”

— Erika Johansen

54. “Carlin always said that most men were dogs, and Kelsea had never taken her seriously; there were too many good books written by men.”

— Erika Johansen

55. “I don’t want to die, Arlen, but I would lay down my life for any of these men, or they for me. That’s a real thing, sacrifice, but you will never understand it.”

— Erika Johansen

56. “And for all the anguish that Kelsea’s own reflection had caused her lately, she saw now that there was something far worse than being ugly: being ugly and thinking you were beautiful.”

— Erika Johansen

57. “This, I think, is the crux of evil in this world, Majesty: those who feel entitled to whatever they want, whatever they can grab. Such people never ask themselves if they have the right. They consider no cost to anyone but themselves.”

— Erika Johansen

58. “This is how women are trained to stay indoors, she thought, the idea echoing in her mind like a gravesong. This is how women are trained not to act.”

— Erika Johansen

59. “This country is diseased. The fortunate celebrate on the backs of the starving, the ill, the terrorised. The law affords no recourse to the disadvantaged. That’s a historical sickness, and there’s only one cure.”

— Erika Johansen

60. “She was Kelsea Glynn, a girl who’d grown up in the forest, who loved to study history and read fiction. But she was something else, something more than Kelsea, and so she remained there for a moment longer, watching over her country, straining to see the danger beyond the horizon.”

— Erika Johansen

61. “Stories moved Kelsea most, stories of things that never were, stories that transported her beyond the changeless world of the cottage.”

— Erika Johansen

62. “A church was only as good or bad as the philosophy that emanated from the pulpit.”

— Erika Johansen

63. “She had been ready to kill Da, ready for years, but now she was amazed to find that she had done something even more difficult: she had spoken aloud.”

— Erika Johansen

64. “If we could be better people,” she would say, “if we could care about each other as much as we do about ourselves, think about it, Lily! Think what the world would be!”

— Erika Johansen

65. “Sometime in the last forty-eight hours, Lily had discovered the great secret of pain: it thrived on the unknown, on the knowledge that there was a greater pain out there, something more excruciating that might yet be breached. The body was constantly waiting. When you took away the uncertainty, when you controlled the pain yourself, it was definitely easier to bear,...”

— Erika Johansen

66. “Lady, if you don’t wake up, I’m going to have you baptized.”

— Erika Johansen

67. “Katie preferred honesty, even at the expense of civility. She longed to have everything in the open.”

— Erika Johansen

68. “You win your people or you lose your throne.”

— Erika Johansen

69. “Love was a real thing, Aisa thought, but secondary. Certainly love was not as real as her sword.”

— Erika Johansen

70. “I see this land flowing with books, Father. Widespread literacy. Books everywhere, as common as they used to be in circulation before the Crossing, affordable even for the poor.”

— Erika Johansen

71. “The Tearling... I told them not to name things after me. – William Tear.”

— Erika Johansen

72. “Tyler had seen village dogs trained in much the same way for the ring. When an animal was beaten hard enough, it would work just to not be beaten, and consider itself well rewarded. The status quo could shift at any time.”

— Erika Johansen

73. “Carlin often said that history was everything, for it was in man’s nature to make the same mistakes over and over.”

— Erika Johansen

74. “Some people were simply broken, something inside them grown wrong and twisted.”

— Erika Johansen

75. “Your Majesty’s rescuer said a true thing, and one that’s stayed with me. Often the direct way is the right way, for reasons that can’t be foreseen.”

— Erika Johansen

76. “Stick with hard copies; they’re harder to alter after publication. In the better world, there won’t be any electronics at all.”

— Erika Johansen

77. “God does not keep his hands to himself. Believe, or not; your neighbor’s belief will wound you just as surely as your own. The.”

— Erika Johansen

78. “Always, we think we know what courage means. If I were called upon, we say, I would answer the call. I would not hesitate. Until the moment is upon us, and then we realize that the demands of true courage are very different from what we had envisioned, long ago on that bright morning when we felt brave.”

— Erika Johansen

79. “The Queen held up her hands for silence. At that moment, Javel knew for certain that she truly was the Queen, though he never knew why or how he knew.”

— Erika Johansen

80. “Beware the past, Kelsea. Be a steward.”

— Erika Johansen

81. “Carlin would like to see this: her library in use by a community of readers, an oasis in an entire nation starved for books. No, not even starved, Kelsea thought grimly. The Tearling was like a man who hadn’t eaten in so long that he didn’t even remember what it was like to be hungry anymore. The spark of an idea ignited in her mind, then danced away. Pen.”

— Erika Johansen

82. “But even Carlin’s words had no weight when fury washed over Kelsea; it was a tide that cleared all obstacles.”

— Erika Johansen

83. “Names made a thing real.”

— Erika Johansen

84. “This, I think, is the crux of evil in this world, Majesty: those who feel entitled to anything they want, anything they can grab.”

— Erika Johansen

85. “Tell me, Mrs. Mayhew, have you ever dreamed of a better world?” “Who hasn’t?” “Anyone who profits by keeping the world as it is.”

— Erika Johansen

86. “Rulers who attempt to control an unwilling populace govern nothing, and often find their heads atop a pike to boot.”

— Erika Johansen

87. “Utopia was not the clean slate Tear had imagined, but an evolution. Humanity would have to work for that society, and work hard, dedicating themselves to an unending vigilance against the mistakes of the past. It would take generations, countless generations perhaps, but – “We could get there,” Kelsea murmured. “And even if not, we should always be growing closer.”

— Erika Johansen

88. “Divested of your clothing and women and guard, you’re just a traitor with his crimes laid bare for the world to see.”

— Erika Johansen

89. “It’s all right lady,” Pen murmured. “I won’t let you fall.”

— Erika Johansen

90. “One night she’d stayed up until dawn reading a particularly long novel, and she had been allowed to skip her chores and sleep away most of the next day.”

— Erika Johansen

91. “Hell? Hell is a fairy tale for the gullible, for what punishment could be worse than that we inflict upon ourselves? We burn so badly in this life that there can be nothing left.”

— Erika Johansen

92. “She did not take offense; adults lied all the time, their reasons often as silly as those of children.”

— Erika Johansen