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R.F. Kuang QUOTES

R.F. Kuang QUOTES

101 " We don't die so much as we return to the void. We dissolve. We lose our ego. We change from being just one thing to becoming everything. Most of us, at least. "

― R.F. Kuang , The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)

102 " She wondered if he was going to kiss her now. She didn't know much about being kissed, but if the old stories were anything to judge by, now seemed like a good time. The hero always took his maiden somewhere beautiful and declared his love under the stars.
She would have liked Nezha to kiss her, too. She would have liked to share this final memory with him before she fled. But he only stared thoughtfully at her, his mind fixed on something she couldn't guess at. "

― R.F. Kuang , The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War, #2)

103 " I am a mortal who has woken up, and there is power in awareness. "

― R.F. Kuang , The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)

104 " And you think you're on the brink of madness, you think that this moment is going to be when you finally snap, but it's not.
"How do you know that?"
"Because it gets easier every time. Eventually you learn to exist on the precipice of insanity. "

― R.F. Kuang , The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War, #2)

105 " 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 , The Burning God (The Poppy War, #3)

106 " But ideological purity is a battle cry, it’s not the stable foundation for a unified country. A nation means nothing if it can’t provide for the people in it. You have to act for their sake. "

― R.F. Kuang , The Burning God (The Poppy War, #3)

107 " A rational explanation eluded her.
Because the answer could not be rational. It was not founded in military strategy. It was not because of a shortage of food rations, or because of the risk of insurgency or backlash. It was, simply, what happened when one race decided the other was insignificant. "

― R.F. Kuang , The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)

108 " We’re not here to be sophisticated. We’re here to fuck people up. "

― R.F. Kuang , The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)

109 " If your opponent is of choleric temper, you should seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak so that he grows arrogant. The good tactician plays with his enemy like a cat plays with a mouse. Feign weakness and immobility, and then pounce on him. "

― R.F. Kuang , The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)

110 " I have tamed a land created to wither humans away until they are polished bone. Do not think to defy me. "

― R.F. Kuang , The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War, #2)

111 " The tides of history had shifted. She had never before believed in fate, but this she came to know with more and more certainty as each day passed: the script of the world was now wholly, inalterably colored by a brilliant crimson streak. "

― R.F. Kuang , The Burning God (The Poppy War, #3)

112 " They would take back the south with sheer numbers. The Mugenese and the Republic were strong, but the south was many. And if southerners were dirt like all the legends said, then they would crush their enemies with the overwhelming force of the earth until they could only dream of breathing. They would bury them with their bodies. They would drown them in their blood. "

― R.F. Kuang , The Burning God (The Poppy War, #3)

113 " They’ve all gone completely mad.”
“Throes of victory,” Rin said. “Growing pains.”
“They’re skinning people alive,” Venka said.
“Because they traded little girls for food rations.”
“Oh. Fair enough.” Venka flicked an invisible speck of dust from her wrist. “I hope they castrated them, too. "

― R.F. Kuang , The Burning God (The Poppy War, #3)

114 " All these years trying to find a way to kill himself, and here’s someone who might actually finish the job. And somehow, paradoxically, this is the most he’s ever wanted to be alive. This is the first time in an eternity that he doesn’t feel like he’s drowning "

― R.F. Kuang , The Drowning Faith (The Poppy War, #2.5)

115 " 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 , The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)

116 " Her voice, thin and reedy, faded without echo into the frigid air. But she screamed it again, and then again, and then again. It felt so good to say that she'd survived, that she'd fucking finally come out on top, that she didn't even care that she was screaming to corpses. "

― R.F. Kuang , The Burning God (The Poppy War, #3)

117 " Because you’re about to be the ones in power,” she says. “And because you never decentralize power once you’ve got it. I wouldn’t.” “Well, we all know you wouldn’t.” She gives him a look. “That’s not my cynicism, Nezha. That’s human nature. "

― R.F. Kuang , The Drowning Faith (The Poppy War, #2.5)

118 " I know the vision you dreamed of for this nation and I know I may have destroyed it. But my first obligation is not to the unborn people of this country's future, but the people who are suffering now, who pass their days in fear because of the war that you have brought to their doorstep. "

― R.F. Kuang , The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War, #2)

119 " —and I don’t care if you’re pissed, you can’t throw food at the Dragon Warlord, said Nezha.
Kitay’s face was purple with anger. If he was at all relieved to see Nezha alive, he didn’t show it. “Your men tried to blow up my house!”
“They tend to do that,” Rin said.
“I was still in it!” Kitay cried. “And so we’re my ledgers!”
Nezha looked amazed. “Who gives a shit about your ledgers?”
“I was doing the city’s taxes.”
“What?”
Kitay stuck his lower lip out. “And I was almost done. "

― R.F. Kuang , The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War, #2)

120 " The cruelty could not register for her. Bloodlust, she understood. Bloodlust, she was guilty of. She had lost herself in battle, too; she had gone further than she should have, she had hurt others when she should have stopped. But this—viciousness on this scale, wanton slaughter of this magnitude, against innocents who hadn’t even lifted a finger in self-defense, this she could not imagine doing. They surrendered, she wanted to scream at her disappeared enemy. They dropped their weapons. They posed no threat to you. Why did you have to do this? A rational explanation eluded her. Because the answer could not be rational. It was not founded in military strategy. It was not because of a shortage of food rations, or because of the risk of insurgency or backlash. It was, simply, what happened when one race decided that the other was insignificant. The Federation had massacred Golyn Niis for the simple reason that they did not think of the Nikara as human. And if your opponent was not human, if your opponent was a cockroach, what did it matter how many of them you killed? What was the difference between crushing an ant and setting an anthill on fire? Why shouldn’t you pull wings off insects for your own enjoyment? The bug might feel pain, but what did that matter to you? If you were the victim, what could you say to make your tormentor recognize you as human? How did you get your enemy to recognize you at all? And why should an oppressor care? "

― R.F. Kuang , The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)