Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the lovely Bionic Bookworm.
This prompt was a struggle for me! I can never remember quotes even if I thought them super profound at the time. So, basically, I went through some of my favorite books looking for quotes…which is to say that these are not especially comprehensive. They don’t cover the range of every single quote I’ve appreciated because I simply cannot remember and I certainly did not go through all my books on Goodreads. Alas.
Unsurprisingly, N.K. Jemisin features quite a bit. Also, there’s actually 6-8 quotes here because that’s just how I roll (it was really hard to pick okay). Oddly enough, a lot of these seem to tie in with the current political situation in some way or another. That was not planned.
“Do not lose that hunger. You will always have to fight for everything. Even when you already have it, you will have to keep fighting to maintain it. You will have to be more ruthless, more brutal, more everything. Any weakness will undo everything you have accomplished. They will see any crack as evidence that they were right that a woman cannot do what you do.”
— Kiersten White, Now I Rise
“There was no peace in continuing to do what had already proven unworkable. Sometimes tradition itself disrupted peace, and only newness could smooth the way.”
— N.K. Jemisin, The Shadowed Sun
“But if you stay, no part of this comm[unity] gets to decide that any part of this comm[unity] is expendable. No voting on who gets to be people.”
“Everyone shouldn’t have a say in whose life is worth fighting for.”
— N.K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate
“In a child’s eyes, a mother is a goddess. She can be glorious or terrible, benevolent or filled with wrath, but she commands love either way. I am convinced that this is the greatest power in the universe.”
— N.K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
“Freedom granted by your rulers is just a chain with a little slack.”
— Seth Dickinson, The Traitor Baru Cormorant
“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”
— Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
— Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Severus Snape (Harry Potter): I had to start out with the apex of unlikable characters, didn’t I? Snape is a horrible person. Abusive, borderline racist, selfish, bitter, just an all-around terrible person. I wouldn’t even want to be in the same room with him, let alone be his friend. And yet Snape is undeniably fascinating: he has spent nearly all of his life regretting and attempting to atone for getting the love of his life killed. None of his intentions were honorable – he thought he was getting another family killed, and even when he realized it was Lily he didn’t give a damn about her husband and infant son dying. He just wanted to save her, and whether his feelings for Lily were love or obsession is, I think, irrelevant. Lily died anyway, and Snape switched sides to atone. He also – and this is just my personal headcanon here – isolated himself and did everything he could to make other people hate him, because he believed he deserved it. He kept fighting not necessarily because he believed in the cause, but because he felt he owed it to Lily. Like I said, fundamentally not a good person, and that’s not even getting into how horrible of a teacher he was (he was Neville’s worst fear for God’s sake!). But so, so multi-layered, complex, and fascinating.
Adelina Amouteru (The Young Elites): Adelina grew up with her sister and abusive stepfather. With a parent like that, it is no surprise that Adelina is reserved, wary, and bitter. However, as her powers begin to manifest and the friends she thought she had abandoned her, Adelina swerves sharply into villain territory. She sets out to get revenge, abandoning any and all morality in the process. She wants revenge and she wants power, and she will do anything she can to get it, even as she struggles not to lose her mind. Being in Adelina’s head is one hell of a trip; the girl is half insane at this point. She’s such a compelling, dynamic character. I’m excited to read the final book in this series!
Isyllt Iskaldur (The Necromancer Chronicles): I don’t know if Isyllt would be considered widely unlikable by everyone, but I find her an unusual female character. She reminds me a bit of a noir detective. She’s taciturn, pragmatic, and no-nonsense. After spending her teens in the streets, Isyllt was taken in by the King (sort of) and turned into a kind of spy/necromancer/magician (in other words, she’s super cool). She’s kind of closed off in a way that female characters usually aren’t, which makes her super intriguing.
Nassun (The Obelisk Gate): Essun’s daughter Nassun is not necessarily unlikable, but pitiable. After experiencing the unimaginable trauma of witnessing her father murder her brother, and then being kidnapped by him as he struggles not to kill her for simply being who she is, Nassun transforms from an ordinary young girl to an unbelievably cold, cynical young woman. By the end of the book she has veered into such strange, nihilistic territory that being in her head becomes pretty uncomfortable.
Petyr Baelish (A Song of Ice and Fire): This is kind of cheating, since I don’t know that I would call Petyr a protagonist, necessarily, but whether we like it or not he is essentially the lynch pin of the entire series. He set most of the events in the series in motion. Some thing he did just to create chaos, to see what would happen, in true chaotic neutral form. Petyr is sneaky and subtle and brilliant (forget TV show Petyr, I’m talking about book Petyr, who is a fundamentally different person). He’s one hell of a strategist and he’s incredibly ambitious, but like Snape, he is also caught up in a past romance which pushes him from “ambiguously motivated” to “supremely creepy” territory. Despite that, the dynamic Petyr has with Sansa Stark, his lost love’s daughter, is the most fascinating in the entire series. The pair of a somewhat disturbing dynamic, but I love it all the same, just as I am fascinated with Petyr Baelish.
Hadeer Elsbai 