Top 100 S.A. Chakraborty Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “You don’t stop fighting a war just because you’re losing battles. You change tactics.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

2. “Greatness takes time, Banu Nahida. Often the mightiest things have the humblest beginnings.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

3. “Someone steals from me, I steal from others, and I’m sure the people I stole from will eventually take something that doesn’t belong to them. It’s a circle. – Nahri.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

4. “A new, rather grisly lesson in Daevabad’s history.” Nahri made a face. “Just once, I’d like to learn of an event that was nothing but our ancestors conjuring rainbows and dancing in the street together.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

5. “A woman can lower her gaze only so often without tripping over her feet.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

6. “To keep walking a path between loyalty to your family and loyalty to what you know is right. One of these days, you’re going to have to make a choice.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

7. “In what world do men and women pay the same price for passion?”

— S.A. Chakraborty

8. “I’ve had enough of men hurting me because they were upset.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

9. “You’re young,” he said quietly. “You have no experience with what happens to people like us during a war. People who are different.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

10. “Because a lost little girl from Cairo thought she was living in some sort of fairy tale. And because for all her supposed cleverness, she couldn’t see that the dashing hero who saved her was its monster.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

11. “Can I swim?” he snapped, as if the very idea offended him. “Can you burn?”

— S.A. Chakraborty

12. “I’m not sleeping alongside you in some temple dedicated to fish orgies.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

13. “No, I wasn’t afraid. I was tired.” Ali’s voice broke on the word. “I’m tired of everyone in this city feeding on vengeance. I’m tired of teaching our children to hate and fear other children because their parents are our enemies. And I’m sick and tired of acting like the only way to save our people is to cut down all who might oppose us, as if our enemies won’t return the favor the instant power shifts.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

14. “Nahri looked out at the dark garden, her thoughtd roiling. The king was dead, the grand wazir was a traitor, the Qaid was gone, and Ali – the only one of them with military experience – was involved in a mutiny across the city.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

15. “When the Franks and Turks weren’t fighting over Egypt, the only thing they seemed to agree on was that the Egyptians couldn’t govern it themselves. God forbid. It’s not as though the Egyptians were the inheritors of a great civilization whose mighty monuments still littered the land. Oh, no. They were peasants, superstitious fools who ate too many beans.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

16. “It’s a bit more difficult to hold a grudge over the good days.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

17. “Go steal some happiness for yourself, my friend,” she said shortly. “Trust me when I say the chance doesn’t always come back.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

18. “Ali’s expression instantly grew stormy. “I didn’t say he was going to burn in hell,” he defended. “I suggested he repent before that happened.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

19. “Don’t let others make you feel small because they’re struggling to measure up.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

20. “Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

21. “Ah, Darayavahoush, there are always people to save. And always cunning men and women around who find a way to take advantage of that duty and harness it into power.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

22. “So you just live quietly with these powers?” he demanded. “Haven’t you ever wondered why you have them? Suleiman’s eye... you could be overthrowing governments, and instead you steal from peasants!”

— S.A. Chakraborty

23. “So you’re telling me I should hide my kebabs? – Nahri.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

24. “I’m coming back, Nahri,” he promised. “You’re my Banu Nahida. This is my city.” His expression was defiant. “Nothing will keep me from either of you.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

25. “I do not believe ambitious men who say the only route to peace and prosperity lies in giving them more power – particularly when they do it with lands and people who are not theirs.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

26. “Eat you?” He made a disgusted sound. “The smell of your blood alone is enough to put me off eating for a month.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

27. “Because I am shafit. That I can wield my magic better than a pureblood, that the sheikh here could spin intellectual circles around the scholars of the Royal Library – that is proof that we’re not so different from the rest o f you.” He glared at Ali. “It’s not a thin I mean to hide.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

28. “My name is Banu Manizheh.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

29. “She told me to keep myself whole. That there wasn’t any shame in taking care of yourself in order to help those who needed you.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

30. “Judging from the screams of the mob, Nahri suspected animating winged lions that breathed flames was not a regular occurrence to the djinn world.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

31. “Praise be to God, have I actually silenced you for once? I should have accused you of treason earlier in our conversation and saved myself your insufferable comments.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

32. “The king lifted his dark brows. “This should be an interesting story.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

33. “People do not thrive under tyrants, Alizayd; they do not come up with innovations when they’re busy trying to stay alive, or offer creative ideas when error is punished by the hooves of a karkadann.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

34. “In what world do men and women pay the same price for passion? You’ll be the one blamed.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

35. “Mismatched wooden shelves crammed with dusty glass vials, tiny reed baskets, and crumbling ceramic jars covered the walls. Lengths of dried herbs, animal parts, and objects she couldn’t identify hung from the ceiling while clay amphorae competed for the small amount of floor space. Yaqub knew his inventory like the lines of his palms, and listening to his stories of ancient Magi or the hot spice lands of the Hind transported her to worlds she could hardly imagine.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

36. “I can count my short reign a success if I manage to convince the two most stubborn people in Daevabad to do something they don’t want to do.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

37. “I am who I am because of that human world. It wasn’t the Banu Nahida who’d driven the peris to their knees, it was the con artist of Cairo, and Nahri wouldn’t cast her away.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

38. “He snatched up the reins again, holding her tight. There was nothing affectionate or remotely romantic about the gesture; it was desperation, like a man clinging to a ledge. “We run.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

39. “Nahri always smiled at her marks.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

40. “Not wanting to be destroyed by despair doesn’t make you a coward. It makes you a survivor.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

41. “Find out what you really are, what really exists in this world. Come to Daevabad where even a drop of Nahid blood will bring you honor and wealth beyond your imagining. Your own infirmary, the knowledge of a thousand previous healers at your fingertips. Respect.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

42. “Dara hesitated and then spoke. “If what I have seen is true, it means there is peace for the worst of us. Rest for those who do not deserve it. It was beautiful. And it spoke to a mercy this world does not deserve.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

43. “You bet on whether or not I kissed your wife?” Ali was aghast. “What is wrong with the two of you?” When his brother and sister only cackled harder, he drew up. “I hate you. “I hate you both.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

44. “He looks like he belongs here, she thought. Like a ghost forgotten in time, searching for its long dead-companions.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

45. “It looked like the type of place people came to be forgotten.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

46. “That made it worse, this passing of a barbed baton between women who, no matter how clever, how powerful, would always be known by the men to whom they were attached.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

47. “If you rule by violence, you should expect to be removed by violence.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

48. “Nahri was a survivor, and it was time to get to work.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

49. “I find I can get a more accurate measure of a man when he’s not aware he’s being appraised.”

— S.A. Chakraborty

50. “I find politics loathsome.” “Do you?” Muntadhir waved about the courtyard. “And what do you think all this is if not politics? I find that those who look on politics with contempt are usually the first to be dragged down by them.”

— S.A. Chakraborty