Top 200 Naomi Alderman Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “But consider this: are patriarchies peaceful because men are peaceful? Or do more peaceful societies tend to allow men to rise to the top because they place less value on the capacity for violence? Just asking the question.”

— Naomi Alderman

152. “She can’t afford to afford to look weak, not at a time like this.”

— Naomi Alderman

153. “God is neither woman nor man but both these things. But now She has come to show us a new side to Her face, one we have ignored for too long.”

— Naomi Alderman

154. “We send electric currents down orderly runs of circuits and switches, but the shape that electricity wants to take is of a living thing, a fern, a bare branch. The strike point in the center, the power seeking outward.”

— Naomi Alderman

155. “The way I see it, I’m dead, and so are you. What do dead people do for fun around here?”

— Naomi Alderman

156. “However complex you think it is, it is more complex than that.”

— Naomi Alderman

157. “She sees it all in that instant, the shape of the tree of power. Root to tip, branching and re-branching. Of course, the old tree still stands. There is only one way, and that is to blast it entirely zo pieces.”

— Naomi Alderman

158. “Children are born so small. It does not matter if they are boys or girls. They are all born so weak and so powerless.”

— Naomi Alderman

159. “We don’t have to ask ourselves what they will do if they win. We’ve already seen it.”

— Naomi Alderman

160. “If you’re going to stay here, you’re going to need to own the place so they can’t take it from you. The only way you’re safe, honeybun, is if you own it.”

— Naomi Alderman

161. “It’s a hot night; the air feels damp, like there’s a storm brewing.”

— Naomi Alderman

162. “Unfortunately these days quite a lot of people on the internet seem happy to live by the rule of salt. That’s a rule of infinite vendetta: scroll back years through a social media timeline, the worst thing you can find another person has done is totally legit to do to them. But then, that’s the worst thing you’ve done, and it’s legit to do it to you. And on and on, everyone trapped inside.”

— Naomi Alderman

163. “Cuando una multitud habla con una sola voz, eso es fuerza y poder.”

— Naomi Alderman

164. “A human being is made not by our own will but by that same organic, inconceivable, unpredictable, uncontrollable process that drives the unfurling leaves in season and the tiny twigs to bud and the roots to spread in tangled complications.”

— Naomi Alderman

165. “The future calls us on one painful step at a time and the first rule of life is to survive.”

— Naomi Alderman

166. “There are strange movements rising now, not only across the world, but right here in the US of A. You can see it on the internet. Boys dressing as girls to seem more powerful.”

— Naomi Alderman

167. “It’s not what I’ve done, Allie thinks to herself, it’s what I’m going to do. And the voice says: It’s what Eve’s going to do.”

— Naomi Alderman

168. “There is no shape to anything except the shape it has. Every name we give ourselves is wrong.”

— Naomi Alderman

169. “It’s a sort of pride to her that she watched the whole thing without wincing or looking away or carrying on.”

— Naomi Alderman

170. “The only way to be safe is to own the place.”

— Naomi Alderman

171. “The shape of power is always the same; it is the shape of a tree.”

— Naomi Alderman

172. “To witness is the first responsibility.”

— Naomi Alderman

173. “Ah, my dear,” Aunt Jane smiles kindly, “the problem with that, you see, is that no one is ever the murdering sort until they are.”

— Naomi Alderman

174. “Simple feels safe. Certainty feels safe.”

— Naomi Alderman

175. “Screaming as they take a hit. Laughing as they deliver one.”

— Naomi Alderman

176. “You can’t put anyone into a box. Listen, even a stone isn’t the same as any other stone, so I don’t know where you all think you get off labeling humans with simple words and thinking you know everything you need.”

— Naomi Alderman

177. “When this thing happens, she is calm, floating above the storm, watching the raging sea below.”

— Naomi Alderman

178. “When does power exist? Only in the moment it is exercised.”

— Naomi Alderman

179. “The knowledge is as good as freedom.”

— Naomi Alderman

180. “Looking forward to this! I think I’d rather enjoy this “world run by men” you’ve been talking about. Surely a kinder, more caring and – dare I say it? – more sexy world than the one we live in.”

— Naomi Alderman

181. “Beneath every story, there is another story. There is a hand within the hand – hasn’t Allie learned that well enough? There is a blow behind the blow.”

— Naomi Alderman

182. “So I went walking, like the independent woman I am.”

— Naomi Alderman

183. “What matters is that she could, if she wanted. The power to hurt is a kind of wealth.”

— Naomi Alderman

184. “How many miracles does it take? Not too many.”

— Naomi Alderman

185. “Well, apparently addressing racial inequality in one’s work is un-American, so I was hauled before the committee.”

— Naomi Alderman

186. “You would see good in the face of Satan himself if he arrived at your door with a pitiful story and a hungry belly.” “And would I be wrong to do so? If Satan needed feeding?”

— Naomi Alderman

187. “We experience the greatest happiness when we have touched the world and left it better, according to the Will of the Almighty.”

— Naomi Alderman

188. “He realizes now that he could not stop her, whatever she wanted to do now. The thought is terrifying. The thought is electrifying.”

— Naomi Alderman

189. “Not the past, not the lines of pain inscribed on the human body, not a thing will ever disappear.”

— Naomi Alderman

190. “She could run. There’s her dad’s voice in her head, saying, Take care of yourself, sweetie. And there’s her mon’s voice in her head, saying, You’re a hero, act like it.”

— Naomi Alderman

191. “She thinks to herself, If I was saved, there must be a reason.”

— Naomi Alderman

192. “Nothing worse has happened to him than to anyone. There is no reason for him to be afraid, no more reason than any other man.”

— Naomi Alderman

193. “People are allowed to be weak.”

— Naomi Alderman

194. “I am never going to know how to live without a community of purpose. I am going to keep looking for this for the rest of my life, whatever happens.”

— Naomi Alderman

195. “She has always known exactly how to be silent.”

— Naomi Alderman

196. “I’m not who I was.”

— Naomi Alderman

197. “There was fog, but behind the fog there was morning.”

— Naomi Alderman

198. “The younger women can wake it up in the older ones; but from now on all women will have it.”

— Naomi Alderman

199. “In her game, she didn’t need a gun, or space-helmet, or lightsaber. In the game Margot played when she was a child, she was enough all by herself.”

— Naomi Alderman

200. “This is the pattern of the rule of salt. Imagining bad futures creates fear and fear creates bad futures.”

— Naomi Alderman