Top 500 R.F. Kuang Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “Ruin me, ruin us, and I’ll let you.”

— R.F. Kuang

52. “The English made regular use of only two flavours – salty and not salty – and did not seem to recognize any of the others. For a country that profited so well from trading in spices, its citizens were violently averse to actually using them;.”

— R.F. Kuang

53. “Take what you want. I’ll hate you for it. But I’ll love you forever. I can’t help but love you.”

— R.F. Kuang

54. “He can’t take his eyes off of her. She’s the most magnificent thing he’s ever seen.”

— R.F. Kuang

55. “The poet runs untrammeled across the meadow. The translator dances in shackles.”

— R.F. Kuang

56. “From ash we come, and to ash we return.”

— R.F. Kuang

57. “She recognized the way he was looking at her. It was how she’d once looked at Altan. It was the way she’d seen Daji look at Riga – that look of wretched, desperate, and reproachful loyalty. It said, Do it. Take what you want, it said. I’ll hate you for it. But I’ll love you forever. I can’t help but love you. Ruin me, ruin us, and I’ll let you.”

— R.F. Kuang

58. “Grief suffocated. Grief paralysed. Grief was a cruel, heavy boot pressed so hard against his chest that he could not breathe.”

— R.F. Kuang

59. “I have become something wonderful, she thought. I have become something terrible. Was she now a goddess or a monster? Perhaps neither. Perhaps both.”

— R.F. Kuang

60. “It’s easy to be brave. Harder to know when not to fight.”

— R.F. Kuang

61. “Don’t try to speak,” Nezha murmurs, because it’ll kill him if she does. Because his resolve is only so strong, and if she utters another word then he’ll be lost.”

— R.F. Kuang

62. “Build on your anger. don’t ever let go of that anger. Rage gives you power. Caution does not.”

— R.F. Kuang

63. “Was she now a goddess or a monster? Perhaps neither. Perhaps both.”

— R.F. Kuang

64. “It were too much to expect that they will not require a further demonstration of force on a larger scale before being brought to their senses.”

— R.F. Kuang

65. “You have such a great fear of freedom, brother. It’s shackling you. You’ve identified so hard with the colonizer, you think any threat to them is a threat to you. When are you going to realize you can’t be one of them?”

— R.F. Kuang

66. “This is how colonialism works. It convinces us that the fallout from resistance is entirely our fault, that the immoral choice is resistance itself rather than the circumstances that demanded it.”

— R.F. Kuang

67. “But that’s the great contradiction of colonialism. It’s built to destroy that which it prizes most.”

— R.F. Kuang

68. “By the time they’d finished their tea, they were almost in love with each other – not quite yet, because true love took time and memories, but as close to love as first impressions could take them.”

— R.F. Kuang

69. “This industry is built on silencing us, stomping us into the ground, and hurling money at white people to produce racist stereotypes of us.”

— R.F. Kuang

70. “And so religion is merely a social construct in both the east and west,” Rin concluded. “The difference lies in its utility.”

— R.F. Kuang

71. “It’s French, Letty.’ Ramy rolled his eyes. ‘Latin’s flimsiest daughter. How hard could it be?”

— R.F. Kuang

72. “She’s the only divine thing he’s ever believed in. The only creature in this vast, cruel land who could kill him. And sometimes, in his loveliest dreams, he imagines she does.”

— R.F. Kuang

73. “I don’t need your pity. I need you to kill them for me. You have to kill them for me,” Venka hissed. “Swear it. Swear on your blood that you will burn them.”

— R.F. Kuang

74. “People will seek to use you or destroy you. If you want to live, you must pick a side. So do not shirk from war, child. Do not flinch from suffering. When you hear screaming, run toward it.”

— R.F. Kuang

75. “My point being, abolition happened because white people found reasons to care – whether those be economic or religious. You just have to make them think they came up with the idea themselves. You can’t appeal to their inner goodness. I have never met an Englishman I trusted to do the right thing out of sympathy.”

— R.F. Kuang

76. “Words tell stories. Specifically, the history of those words – how they came into use, and how their meaning morphed into what they mean today – tell us just as much about a people, if not more, than any other kind of historical artefact.”

— R.F. Kuang

77. “Here at Babel, we take inspiration from Psammetichus.’ He peered around, and his sparkling gaze landed on each of them in turn as he spoke. ‘Translation, from time immemorial, has been the facilitator of peace. Translation makes possible communication, which in turn makes possible the kind of diplomacy, trade, and cooperation between foreign peoples that brings wealth and prosperity to all.”

— R.F. Kuang

78. “Nothing lasts,‘” said Nezha, at the same time that Kitay said, “’The world doesn’t exist.”

— R.F. Kuang

79. “Languages aren’t just made of words. They’re modes of looking at the world. They’re keys to civilizations. And that’s knowledge worth killing for.”

— R.F. Kuang

80. “Youth, Rin thought, was an amplification of beauty. It was a filter; it could mask what one was lacking, enhance even the most average features. But beauty without youth was dangerous. The Empress’s beauty did not require the soft fullness of young lips, the rosy red of young cheeks, the tenderness of young skin. This beauty cut deep, like a sharpened crystal. This beauty was immortal.”

— R.F. Kuang

81. “Elites with entrenched interests will always hate you,” Daji said. “That’s inevitable. But the elites don’t matter, the masses do. What you have to do is shroud yourself in myth. Your enemies’ deaths become part of your legend. Eventually you will become so far removed from reality that right and wrong don’t apply to you. Your identity becomes part and parcel of the idea of the nation itself. They’ll love you no matter what you do.”

— R.F. Kuang

82. “This was a failure of nerve. A refusal to push things to the limit. Violence was the only thing that brought the colonizer to the table; violence was the only option. The gun was right there, lying on the table, waiting for them to pick it up. Why were they so afraid to even look at it?”

— R.F. Kuang

83. “For the first time since I submitted the manuscript, I feel a deep wash of shame. This isn’t my history, my heritage. This isn’t my community. I am an outsider, basking in their love under false pretenses. It should be Athena sitting here, smiling with these people, signing books and listening to the stories of her elders.”

— R.F. Kuang

84. “But the future, vague as it was frightening, was easily ignored for now; it paled so against the brilliance of the present.”

— R.F. Kuang

85. “But never forget the audacity of what you are attempting. Never forget that you are defying a curse laid by God.”

— R.F. Kuang

86. “But realize this, brother. You fly no one’s flag. You’re free to seek your own harbour. And you can do so much more than tread water.”

— R.F. Kuang

87. “I don’t think you two quite understand how hard it is to be a woman here,’ said Victoire. ‘They’re liberal on paper, certainly. But they think so very little of us. Our landlady roots through our things when we’re out as if she’s searching for evidence that we’ve taken lovers. Every weakness we display is a testament to the worst theories about us, which is that we’re fragile, we’re hysterical, and we’re too naturally weak-minded to handle the kind of work we’re set to do.”

— R.F. Kuang

88. “English did not just borrow words from other languages; it was stuffed to the brim with foreign influences, a Frankenstein vernacular. And Robin found it incredible, how this country, whose citizens prided themselves so much on being better than the rest of the world, could not make it through an afternoon tea without borrowed goods.”

— R.F. Kuang

89. “Rin wasn’t surprised that Nezha had cut Kitay out of his social circle. There was no way Nezha would have stuck around anyone half as witty as Kitay – there were too many opportunities for Kitay to upstage him. “What’d you do to offend him?” Kitay pulled a face. “Nothing, except beat him on the exam. Nezha’s prickly about his ego. Why, what did you do?” “I gave him that black eye,” she admitted. Kitay raised an eyebrow. “Nice.”

— R.F. Kuang

90. “Fear was impossible to eradicate. But so was the will to survive.”

— R.F. Kuang

91. “It’s violent work that sustains the fantasy.”

— R.F. Kuang

92. “Language was just difference. A thousand different ways of seeing, of moving through the world. No; a thousand worlds within one. And translation – a necessary endeavour, however futile, to move between them.”

— R.F. Kuang

93. “I suppose we decided to be girls because being boys seems to require giving up half your brain cells.”

— R.F. Kuang

94. “Sring Venka was a prim, spoiled Sinegardian princess turned lethal soldier turned brittle survivor; of course she’d walk into a war zone with red paint on her lips simply because she felt like it.”

— R.F. Kuang

95. “But that’s the great contradiction of colonialism.’ Cathy uttered this like a simple matter of fact. ‘It’s built to destroy that which it prizes most.”

— R.F. Kuang

96. “He hoped. He hoped until hope became its own form of torture. The original meaning of hope was ‘to desire’, and Robin wanted with every ounce of his being a world that no longer was.”

— R.F. Kuang

97. “Ramy slept on the floor beside Robin, body curled around the couch like protective parenthesis. The sight of them all together made Robin’s chest ache.”

— R.F. Kuang

98. “Restraint. Repression. Had he not practised this his entire life? Let the pain slide off you like raindrops, without acknowledgment, without reaction, because to pretend it is not happening is the only way to survive.”

— R.F. Kuang

99. “Defying empire, it turned out, was fun.”

— R.F. Kuang

100. “Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing, is opening doors to other lands. Writing gives you power to shape your own world when the real one hurts too much.”

— R.F. Kuang