Top 300 N.K. Jemisin Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “There is no greater warrior than a mother protecting her child.”

— N.K. Jemisin

Featured in: Positive Quotes for Women, Strong Women Quotes, Quotes About Kids, Motherhood Quotes

2. “All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” – T. E. Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph.”

— N.K. Jemisin

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

— N.K. Jemisin

4. “Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind.”

— N.K. Jemisin

5. “The world can’t hurt you if you just ignore everything that’s wrong with it; well, not until it kills you anyway.”

— N.K. Jemisin

6. “In a child’s eyes, a mother is a goddess. She can be glorious or terrible, benevolent or filled with wrath, but she commands love either way. I am convinced that this is the greatest power in the universe.”

— N.K. Jemisin

7. “But the real disaster is that Atlantis became just a story. It failed so catastrophically that the entire human race shifted into a branch of realities in which Atlantis never existed at all.”

— N.K. Jemisin

8. “There is nothing foolish about hope.”

— N.K. Jemisin

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

— N.K. Jemisin

10. “There is no logic to grief.”

— N.K. Jemisin

11. “Let’s start with the end of the world, why don’t we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.”

— N.K. Jemisin

12. “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?”

— N.K. Jemisin

13. “Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall; Death is the fifth and master of all.”

— N.K. Jemisin

14. “How can we prepare for the future if we won’t acknowledge the past?”

— N.K. Jemisin

15. “Determination could easily become obsession.”

— N.K. Jemisin

16. “Tell them they can be great someday, like us. Tell them they belong among us, no matter how we treat them. Tell them they must earn the respect which everyone else receives by default. Them them there is a standard for acceptance; that standard is simply perfection. Kill those who scoff at those contradictions, and tell the rest that the dead deserved annihilation for their weakness and doubt. Then they’ll break themselves trying for what they’ll never achieve.”

— N.K. Jemisin

17. “They’re afraid because we exist, she says. There’s nothing we did to provoke their fear, other than exist. There’s nothing we can do to earn their approval, except stop existing – so we can either die like they want, or laugh at their cowardice and go on with our lives.”

— N.K. Jemisin

18. “Sometimes that’s all it takes to save a world, you see. A new vision. A new way of thinking, appearing at just the right time.”

— N.K. Jemisin

19. “Father Earth thinks in ages, but he never, ever sleeps. Nor does he forget.”

— N.K. Jemisin

20. “If the gods do decide to wipe us out, is it such a bad thing? Maybe we’ve earned a little annihilation.”

— N.K. Jemisin

21. “Is tact simply not in your nature, or are you this offensive on purpose?”

— N.K. Jemisin

22. “I am not as I once was. They have done this to me, broken me open and torn out my heart. I do not know who I am anymore. I must try to remember.”

— N.K. Jemisin

23. “Astra inclinant, sed non obligant;.”

— N.K. Jemisin

24. “So here is why I write what I do: We all have futures. We all have pasts. We all have stories. And we all, every single one of us, no matter who we are and no matter what’s been taken from us or what poison we’ve internalized or how hard we’ve had to work to expel it – – we all get to dream.”

— N.K. Jemisin

25. “For all those that have to fight for the respect that everyone else is given without question.”

— N.K. Jemisin

26. “This is what you must remember: the ending of one story is just the beginning of another. This has happened before, after all. People die. Old orders pass. New societies are born. When we say “the world has ended,” it’s usually a lie, because the planet is just fine. But this is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. For the last time.”

— N.K. Jemisin

27. “After all, a person is herself, and others. Relationships chisel the final shape of one’s being. I am me, and you. Damaya was herself and the family that rejected her and the people of the Fulcrum who chiseled her to a fine point.”

— N.K. Jemisin

28. “Any woman can face the world alone, but why should we have to?”

— N.K. Jemisin

29. “Peace is meaningless without freedom.”

— N.K. Jemisin

30. “It’s a gift if it makes us better. It’s a curse if we let it destroy us.”

— N.K. Jemisin

31. “This is what you must remember: the ending of one story is just the beginning of another.”

— N.K. Jemisin

32. “It was said that the gods favored fools because they were entertaining to watch.”

— N.K. Jemisin

33. “After all, a person is herself, and others. Relationships chisel the final shape of one’s being. I am me, and you.”

— N.K. Jemisin

34. “It is important to appreciate beauty, even when it is evil.”

— N.K. Jemisin

35. “I think,” Hoa says slowly, “that if you love someone, you don’t get to choose how they love you back.”

— N.K. Jemisin

36. “In a child’s eyes, a mother is a goddess... I am convinced that this is the greatest power in the universe.”

— N.K. Jemisin

37. “Well, some worlds are built on a fault line of pain, held up by nightmares. Don’t lament when those worlds fall. Rage that they were built doomed in the first place.”

— N.K. Jemisin

38. “You’re a gift of the earth – but Father Earth hates us, never forget, and his gifts are neither free nor safe.”

— N.K. Jemisin

39. “To those who’ve survived: Breathe. That’s it. Once more. Good. You’re good. Even if you’re not, you’re alive. That is a victory.”

— N.K. Jemisin

40. “The way of the world isn’t the strong devouring the weak, but the weak deceiving and poisoning and whispering in the ears of the strong until they become weak, too.”

— N.K. Jemisin

41. “Rising from the dead? Glowing at sunrise? What did that make him, the god of cheerful mornings and macabre surprises?”

— N.K. Jemisin

42. “He pretends to be less special than he is, because the world has punished him for loving himself.”

— N.K. Jemisin

43. “Home is people,” she says to Asael, softly. Asael blinks. “Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind.” Heresmith.”

— N.K. Jemisin

44. “When we say “the world has ended,” it’s usually a lie, because the planet is just fine. But this is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. For the last time.”

— N.K. Jemisin

45. “For some of us, things have always been hard, and I wrote the Broken Earth trilogy to speak to that struggle, and what it takes to live, let alone thrive, in a world that seems determined to break you.”

— N.K. Jemisin

46. “Imprisonment of orogenes was never the only option for ensuring the safety of society... Lynching was never the only option. The nodes were never the only option. All of these were choices. Different choices have always been possible.”

— N.K. Jemisin

47. “Time grows short, my love. Let’s end with the beginning of the world, shall we? Yes. We shall.”

— N.K. Jemisin

48. “The shadows of Ina-Karekh are the place where nightmares dwell, but not their source. Never forget: the shadowlands are not elsewhere. We create them. They are within.”

— N.K. Jemisin

49. “Ah, my love. An apocalypse is a relative thing, isn’t it?”

— N.K. Jemisin

50. “Beware ground on loose rock. Beware hale strangers. Beware sudden silence.”

— N.K. Jemisin