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Yoon Ha Lee Quotes

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Famous Yoon Ha Lee Quotes

“The first rule of any game was to assume you could win, even if you had to hunt through the universe’s cracks for a strategy, even if you had to turn the pieces inside-out, even if you had to tell so many lies to the opponent that they couldn’t figure out which way was up.”

Victory Strategy Intrigue Game

Book:Revenant Gun

Source: Revenant Gun

“Cheris, people are very simple,” Jedao said. “You occupy the conscious mind with one thing, then drive a spike into the subconscious mind with something else while the walls are down.”

People

Book:Ninefox Gambit

Source: Ninefox Gambit

“According to some law of fuckery and bad luck, enemies always arrived at the most inconvenient time, by chance if not by design.”

Enemy Fate Luck Timing Bad Luck Misfortune

Book:Revenant Gun

Source: Revenant Gun

“What good is immortality if nothing has been done to repair the fault lines in the human heart?”

Heart Humanity Human Immortality Mortality

Book:Raven Stratagem

Source: Raven Stratagem

“Above them, stars shine in constellations that Jenny recognizes from the ceiling of her father's house, the ones Mom and Dad helped her put up when she was in third grade. Constellations with names like Fire Truck and Ladybug Come Home, constellations that you won't find in any astronomer's catalogue.”

Stars Astronomy Constellations

Book:Conservation of Shadows

Source: Conservation of Shadows

“You have a heart of stone," the Sea Oracle said, "but did you think that meant your nature was unyielding? If there is something the sea knows, it is that sand is nothing but stone given wisdom by the hand of water over time. And sand can be shaped. How you wish to shape the sand of your heart - that is up to you.”

Life Growth

Book:The Fox's Tower and Other Tales: A Collection of Magical Short Stories

Source: The Fox's Tower and Other Tales: A Collection of Magical Short Stories

“Sometimes the best way to understand people was through their food.”

Food

Book:Raven Stratagem

Source: Raven Stratagem

“Once a woman put her hand in a gate and it ate her fingers. A five-legged spider with red eyes crawled out. That woman put in three fingers from her other hand, so that the spider might be complete. Do you have that integrity of purpose, sister?”

Sacrifice Balance Integrity

Book:Conservation of Shadows

Source: Conservation of Shadows

“But then, war is about taking the future away from people.”

War Destiny

Book:Ninefox Gambit

Source: Ninefox Gambit

“War is about people. Even when you're killing them.”

War Mercy

Book:Hexarchate Stories

Source: Hexarchate Stories

“The most maddening part of any battle was the waiting.”

War Battle

Book:Revenant Gun

Source: Revenant Gun

“Everyone from the past was inaccessible, not just Ruo, dust-words in too many histories to read. But he wasn't the only one thus severed. All the Kel in his swarm had been torn from their comrades, families, friends. What they had left was each other.”

Loss Found Family

Book:Revenant Gun

Source: Revenant Gun

“What was a shadow, after all, but a shape in the moving world reduced to a projection of possibilities?”

Possibility Probability Possibilities Shadows Probabilities

Book:Conservation of Shadows

Source: Conservation of Shadows

“Immortality was like sex: it made idiots of otherwise rational people.”

Sex Immortality Rationality

Book:Ninefox Gambit

Source: Ninefox Gambit

“He imagined what it must feel like to have mouths opening in your very flesh, gaping in a tongueless susurrus. When the eyes boiled out of the gashes, could you see what they saw? Did they give you a new appreciation of the lethality of light?”

War Crimes Body Horror

Book:Revenant Gun

Source: Revenant Gun

“In some universes, all possible pasts funnel towards a single fixed ending, Ω. It you are of millenarian bent, you might call Ω Armageddon, If you are of grammatical bent, you might call it punctuation on a cosmological scale. If you are a philosopher in such a universe, you might call Ω inevitable.”

Cosmology Singularity Armageddon Science Humor Big Crunch Science Humour

Book:Conservation of Shadows

Source: Conservation of Shadows

“The presence of atrocity doesn’t mean you have to put your life on hold. You’ll arguably be better at dealing with the horrible things you have to witness, or even to perpetrate, if you allow yourself time to do the small, simple things that make you happy. Instead of looking for ways to destroy yourself.”

Happiness Self Destruction Hobby Atrocity

Book:Revenant Gun

Source: Revenant Gun

“Schrödinger's cat has far more than nine lives, and far fewer. All of us are unknowing cats, alive and dead at once, and of all the might-have-beens in between, we record only one.”

The Present Moment Quantum Reality Quantum Realities Schrodinger S Cat

Book:Conservation of Shadows

Source: Conservation of Shadows

“After watching the house for a few days, she had concluded that the magician lived alone, but you never knew if someone had a secret lover stashed away. Or a very loud pet. That time with the peacock, for instance. Noisy birds, peacocks.”

Noises Peacocks Cat Burglary

Book:Conservation of Shadows

Source: Conservation of Shadows

“The city lies at the galaxy's dust-stranded edge, enfolding a moon that used to be a world, or a world that used to be a moon; no one is certain anymore. In the mornings its skies are radiant with clouds like the plumage of a bird ever-rising, and in the evenings the stars scatter light across skies stitched and unstitched by the comings and goings of fire-winged starships. Its walls are made of metal the color of undyed silk, and its streets bloom with aleatory lights, small solemn symphonies, the occasional duel.”

World Building Swooning Over Sentences Pretty Prose

Book:Conservation of Shadows

Source: Conservation of Shadows

“This time they're making sure they can hold what they take: conquest is always easier than subjugation.”

Territory Imperialism Conquest Territorial Subjugation Empire Building Occupied

Book:Conservation of Shadows

Source: Conservation of Shadows

“I saw those fascinating treatises on the Hafn reverence for the agrarian lifestyle, not to mention all the pastoral poetry. Fucking peculiar for spacefarers, not to mention their descriptions of milking machines are bizarre—who writes poetry about milking machines?”

Agrarian Lifestyle

Book:Raven Stratagem

Source: Raven Stratagem

“Counterfactuals never feed the children.”

Reality Hypocrisy

Book:Raven Stratagem

Source: Raven Stratagem

About the Author

Known for: Author
Quotes: 23

Books & Sources

Conservation of ShadowsRelated source material

Revenant GunRelated source material

Raven StratagemRelated source material

Ninefox GambitRelated source material

Hexarchate StoriesRelated source material

The Fox's Tower and Other Tales: A Collection of Magical Short StoriesRelated source material