Top 500 R.F. Kuang Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “Defying empire, it turned out, was fun.”

— R.F. Kuang

102. “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

103. “There was no innate, perfectly comprehensible language; there was no candidate, not English, not French, that could bully and absorb enough to become one. 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

104. “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

105. “She had been granted a power beyond imagination. She had the strength of their ancestors. She held within her every Speerly who had died on that terrible day, and every Speerly who had ever lived on the Dead Island. They were the Phoenix’s chosen people. The Phoenix thrived on anger, and Rin possessed that in abundance.”

— R.F. Kuang

106. “If you hold the fate of the country in your hands, if you have accepted your obligation to your people, then your life ceases to be your own. Once you accept the title of ruler, your choices are made for you.”

— R.F. Kuang

107. “War was not a game, where one fought for honor and admiration, where masters would keep her from sustaining any real harm. War was a nightmare.”

— R.F. Kuang

108. “Balderdash,’ he would drawl slowly, ‘is a word which used to refer to the cursed concoction created by bartenders when they’d nearly run out of every drink at the end of the night. Ale, wine, cider, milk – they’d dump it all in and hope their patrons wouldn’t mind, since after all the goal was simply to get drunk. But this is Oxford University, not the Turf Tavern after midnight, and we are in need of something slightly more illuminating than getting sloshed. Would you like to try again?”

— R.F. Kuang

109. “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

110. “There are no kind masters, Letty,’ Anthony continued. ‘It doesn’t matter how lenient, how gracious, how invested in your education they make out to be. Masters are masters in the end.”

— R.F. Kuang

111. “Words and phrases you think are carved into your bones can disappear in no time.”

— R.F. Kuang

112. “She began to burn herself again. She found release in the pain; it was comforting, familiar. It was a trade-off she was well used to. Success required sacrifice. Sacrifice meant pain. Pain meant success.”

— R.F. Kuang

113. “There are no Cinderella stories – just hard work, tenacity, and repeat attempts at the golden ticket.”

— R.F. Kuang

114. “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

115. “Our dead don’t leave us. They’ll hunt you as long as you let them.”

— R.F. Kuang

116. “He learned he had the Roman Catholics to thank for his favourite almond cheesecakes, for the prohibition of dairy during fast days had forced English cooks to innovate with almond milk.”

— R.F. Kuang

117. “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

118. “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

119. “The cultural constructions are clear: so many Chinese ghosts are hungry, angry, voiceless women. In taking Athena’s legacy, I’ve added one to their ranks.”

— R.F. Kuang

120. “He went back to his first morning in Oxford: climbing a sunny hill with Ramy, picnic basket in hand. Elderflower cordial. Warm brioche, sharp cheese, a chocolate tart for dessert. The air smelled like a promise, all of Oxford shone like an illumination, and he was falling in love.”

— R.F. Kuang

121. “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

122. “The world is already ending. You see, the Hundred Clans know that time moves in a circle. There are never any new stories, just old ones told again and again as this universe moves through its cycles of civilization and crumbles into despair. We are on the brink of an age of chaos again, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. I just prefer to back certain horses in the race.”

— R.F. Kuang

123. “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

124. “They were no longer a cohort. Now they were only a wake.”

— R.F. Kuang

125. “We must make space for the subaltern voices, the suppressed narratives.”

— R.F. Kuang

126. “The anger was a shield. The anger helped her to keep from remembering what she’d done. Because as long as she was angry, then it was okay – she’d acted within reason. She was afraid that if she stopped being angry, she might crack apart.”

— R.F. Kuang

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

— R.F. Kuang

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

— R.F. Kuang

129. “It’s us. Frozen in time, captured in a moment we’ll never get back as long as we live. It’s wonderful.”

— R.F. Kuang

130. “Rin forced the last parts of what was human out of her soul and gave way to her hatred. Hating was so easy. It filled a hole inside her. It let her feel something again. It felt so good.”

— R.F. Kuang

131. “People are fragile and desperate fools. They don’t know what’s real and what’s false, so they’ll cling to their little truths, because it’s better than imagining that their world might not matter so much after all.”

— R.F. Kuang

132. “I needed you – Altan needed you – and all you did was, was – ” Jiang spoke so quietly she almost couldn’t hear him. “I couldn’t save Altan.” Her voice broke. “But you could have saved me.” He looked stricken. For once he had no quippy retort, no excuse or deflection.”

— R.F. Kuang

133. “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

134. “If there is a divine creator, some ultimate moral authority, then why do bad things happen to good people? And why would this deity create people at all, since people are such imperfect beings?”

— R.F. Kuang

135. “Let them think of us as dirt, Rin thought. She was dirt. Her army was dirt. But dirt was common, ubiquitous, and patient, and necessary. The soil gave life to the country. And the earth always reclaimed what it was owed.”

— R.F. Kuang

136. “I’ve reached behind the canvas, she thought. And now I hold the brush.”

— R.F. Kuang

137. “How did you explain to a child the idea of gravity, until they knew what it meant to fall?”

— R.F. Kuang

138. “For a country that profited so well from trading in spices, its citizens were violently averse to actually using them; in all his time in Hampstead, he never tasted a dish that could be properly described as ‘seasoned’, let alone ‘spicy’.”

— R.F. Kuang

139. “She terrifies him, and he loves her so much it hurts.”

— R.F. Kuang

140. “Men are selfish and petty,” argued Erlang Shen, Grand Marshal of the Heavenly Forces. “Their life spans are so short that they give no thought to the future of the land. If we lend them aid, they will drain this earth and squabble among themselves. There will be no peace.”

— R.F. Kuang

141. “I wonder how you people do it,” Kitay mused. “You know, actually having to try to remember things. Your lives sound so difficult.” “I will murder you with this ink brush,” Rin grumbled.”

— R.F. Kuang

142. “Nothing lasts. The world does not exist.”

— R.F. Kuang

143. “In the years to come, Robin would return so many times to this night. He was forever astonished by its mysterious alchemy, by how easily two badly socialized, restrictively raised strangers had transformed into kindred spirits in a span of minutes.”

— R.F. Kuang

144. “Empire needed extraction. Violence shocked the system, because the system could not cannibalize itself and survive. The hands of the Empire were tied, because it could not raze that from which it profited.”

— R.F. Kuang

145. “Destiny is a myth. Destiny is the only myth. The gods choose nothing. You chose.”

— R.F. Kuang

146. “Because you’re part of it. Because you exist. And unless you want to only ever be a tiny modicum of existence that doesn’t understand its relation to the grander web of things, you will explore.” “Why should I?” “Because I know you want power.” He tapped her forehead again. “But how can you borrow power from the gods when you don’t understand what they are?”

— R.F. Kuang

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

— R.F. Kuang

148. “If nothing lasted and the world did not exist, all that meant was that reality was not fixed. The illusion she lived in was fluid and mutable, and could be easily altered by someone willing to rewrite the script of reality.”

— R.F. Kuang

149. “This is a test, and Rin is failing, and his heart is breaking.”

— R.F. Kuang

150. “Tonight was a borrowed grace, innocent of the future. They sat in miserable and desperate silence, wishing and regretting while the bloody moon traced its ponderous path across the sky.”

— R.F. Kuang