Top 80 Fonda Lee Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Even the biggest tigers grow old, Hilo had once said. But even the oldest tiger was still a tiger.”

— Fonda Lee

2. “People are born selfish; babies are the most selfish creatures, even though they’re helpless and wouldn’t survive a day on their own.”

— Fonda Lee

3. “It was strange, Shae thought – Green Bones revered jade, but it was not the gems themselves that were worthy of reverence. Jade had meaning because of the type of person one had to become to wear it. Jade was the visible proof that a person had dedicated their life to the discipline of wielding power, to the dangers and costs of being a Green Bone.”

— Fonda Lee

4. “You’d think it would be easier to face death as you get older, but it doesn’t work that way. You get more attached to life, to people you love and things that are worth living for.”

— Fonda Lee

5. “Summer had barely begun and already the city of Janloon was like a spent lover – sticky and fragrant.”

— Fonda Lee

6. “A man who wears the crown of a king cannot wear the jade of a warrior. Gold and jade, never together.”

— Fonda Lee

7. “No one could deny that Kaul Hilo has a way with his people. It came from genuine concern, and was a talent more mysterious to Anden than any jade ability.”

— Fonda Lee

8. “Fate worked in mysterious and beautiful ways.”

— Fonda Lee

9. “Possibilities that lay in the past were illusions, closed doors, as meaningless as unfulfilled intentions.”

— Fonda Lee

10. “The clan is my blood,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion, but perfectly steady. “And the Pillar is its master.”

— Fonda Lee

11. “The possibility of death was like the weather – you could make attempts to predict it, but you would likely be wrong, and no one would change their most important plans due to threat of rain.”

— Fonda Lee

12. “The clan is my blood and the Pillar is its master,” she whispered. “I have a lot of regrets in life, but those oaths aren’t one of them.”

— Fonda Lee

13. “In a war, you wield every weapon you have, including words. Especially words.”

— Fonda Lee

14. “The Horn placed his hands on her shoulders, and pulled her close, and laid his cheek against hers. “Heaven help me, Shae,” he whispered into her ear. “I’m going to kill them all.”

— Fonda Lee

15. “You didn’t need to speak sweetly and offer patronage at every turn to these people. You had to be honest with them and show that they had more to gain from your friendship than your enmity.”

— Fonda Lee

16. “She thought, Two strong-minded women in a man’s world, if they do not quickly become allies, are destined to be incurable rivals.”

— Fonda Lee

17. “Sometimes the most obvious and direct answer is the best one.”

— Fonda Lee

18. “Far do your enemies flee.”

— Fonda Lee

19. “A misunderstanding between friends is okay. A misunderstanding between enemies isn’t.”

— Fonda Lee

20. “Screw you, Hilo,” she snapped. “I can kill my ex-boyfriends myself.”

— Fonda Lee

21. “All he knew now was that remorse had a natural limit. After a certain amount of time, it finished eating a person hollow and had to alchemize into anger that could be turned outward lest it consume its host entirely.”

— Fonda Lee

22. “People are born selfish; babies are the most selfish creatures, even though they’re helpless and wouldn’t survive a day on their own. Growing up and losing that selfishness – that’s what civilization is, that’s what sets us above beasts.”

— Fonda Lee

23. “Expectations are a funny thing,” Wen said. “When you’re born with them, you resent them, fight against them. When you’ve never been given any, you feel the lack of them your whole life.”

— Fonda Lee

24. “Don’t show off how much you hate a man until you’re ready to be his enemy.”

— Fonda Lee

25. “So many problems between people, even those who loved each other, came from a lack of communication and honesty.”

— Fonda Lee

26. “Only children and gods are arrogant enough to judge what they can’t understand. There’s no point being afraid of their opinions.”

— Fonda Lee

27. “Anden let out a shaky breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.”

— Fonda Lee

28. “Mutual survival was the basis of brotherhood and loyalty, even of love.”

— Fonda Lee

29. “Any defiance of the wild leads at best to a fragile, temporary victory. Nature and fate are their own capricious monsters, ones that cannot be tamed any more than a roc ever truly belongs to her ruhker.”

— Fonda Lee

30. “He wasn’t dead yet. A man could be shot or stabbed, he could be fatally wounded, spurting his life out upon the ground, and still have a few precious minutes to bring down his enemy.”

— Fonda Lee

31. “I will practice humility: putting my beloved before myself, expecting no praise or reward, for now we are joined in all things.”

— Fonda Lee

32. “True love, Hilo mused, was sensual and euphoric, but also painful and tyrannical, demanding obedience.”

— Fonda Lee

33. “I couldn’t be Pillar without you, and I still can’t. We’ve both hurt each other because we were too stubborn about what we expected, and we paid badly for that. But what’s the point of life if we give up on the people we love?” He enfolded her into his arms and stroked her smooth hair. He kissed her on the forehead and cheeks and mouth. “Wen, will you be my Pillarman?”

— Fonda Lee

34. “Hilo draped his arms over Shae’s shoulders and hugged her, then spoke into her ear. “I could still kill him for you.” “Screw you, Hilo,” she snapped. “I can kill my ex-boyfriends myself.”

— Fonda Lee

35. “When is life ever like a story where the characters get exactly what they deserve, good or bad?”

— Fonda Lee

36. “We women claw for every inch we gain in this world, and you’d worked too hard for your place on Ship Street to let it be taken from you.”

— Fonda Lee

37. “When you love a person, you are expected to give them their freedom, but when you love a monster, you keep it caged.”

— Fonda Lee

38. “Sometimes, Andy, the people you think you can count on, they let you down in a bad way, and that’s hard to take. But for the most part, you give a man something to live up to, you tell him he can be more than he is now, more than other people think he’ll ever be, and he’ll try his godsdamned best to make it true.”

— Fonda Lee

39. “A man doesn’t have to be unkind or unlikable to have enemies. Sometimes, it’s good people who are hated for who they are.”

— Fonda Lee

40. “People have short memories, but nature is patient and implacable.”

— Fonda Lee

41. “We don’t handle this world. We make it handle us.”

— Fonda Lee

42. “This will be the end, she thought. This will be the end of the No Peak clan.”

— Fonda Lee

43. “No matter where you go, others will try to define you. Unless you define yourself.”

— Fonda Lee

44. “The term epic fantasy conjures an expectation of vast continents, kingdoms and armies, the rise and fall of nations. But there is also an epic scale to be found in a single life. In the seasons of a marriage. In seeing one’s children grow into adulthood. In passing hopes and dreams, as well as burdens and sorrows from one generation down to another.”

— Fonda Lee

45. “The mind cannot adjust quickly to a fundamental change in reality without breaking. If the moon vanished from the sky, people would not believe it; they would think it was a trick of light or clouds. Anden felt it would be a long time before he accepted the truth.”

— Fonda Lee

46. “The clan can claim everything I have – my time, my blood and sweat, my life and jade – but it can’t have my wife. She’s a stone-eye. She’s the one thing in the world that jade can’t touch.”

— Fonda Lee

47. “Let me take five of my Fists into the Armpit.”

— Fonda Lee

48. “He often wondered what he was missing, what he didn’t know, what other possibilities lay behind doors that had been summarily closed for him when he was too young to know they existed.”

— Fonda Lee

49. “I make this pledge to you and you alone, under the eyes of the gods in Heaven, from this moment until the last one of my life.”

— Fonda Lee

50. “When Wen opened the door and saw him dressed so formally, she backed away from him and put her hands to her chest, bending as if in pain. She trembled as he stepped in the house and put his arms around her. “You’ve decided to go,” she said. “Yes,” he said. “We have to be married today.”

— Fonda Lee