The Stone Sky

Highlights

Page 187

The Fulcrum is not the first institution to have learned an eternal truth of humankind: No need for guards when you can convince people to collaborate in their own internment.

Page 467

They’re afraid because we exist, she says. There’s nothing we did to provoke their fear, other than exist. There’s nothing we can do to earn their approval, except stop existing – so we can either die like they want, or laugh at their cowardice and go on with our lives.

Page 309

“This is the task of the Guardians, little one. We prevent orogeny from disappearing – because in truth, the people of the world would not survive without it. Orogenes are essential. And yet because you are essential, you cannot be permitted to have a choice in the matter. You must be tools – and tools cannot be people. Guardians keep the tool… and to the degree possible, while still retaining the tool’s usefulness, kill the person.”

Page 689

The contact seems to strengthen Kelenli. Her smile fades and she says, “Then I’ll tell you.” Remwha is still studying her wooden floor. He rubs the grain of it with his fingers and manages to send along its dust molecules: Should you? I am chagrined because it’s something I should have considered. She shakes her head, smiling. No, she shouldn’t. But she does anyway, through the earth so we will know it’s true.

Note: I grow tired of this carrot dangling

Page 712

Syl Anagist’s assimilation of the world had been over for a century before I was ever made; all cities were Syl Anagist. All languages had become Sylanagistine. But there are none so frightened, or so strange in their fear, as conquerors. They conjure phantoms endlessly, terrified that their victims will someday do back what was done to them – even if, in truth, their victims couldn’t care less about such pettiness and have moved on. Conquerors live in dread of the day when they are shown to be, not superior, but simply lucky.

Page 800

How can we prepare for the future if we won’t acknowledge the past?

Page 657

“I think,” Hoa says slowly, “that if you love someone, you don’t get to choose how they love you back.” So many layers in the strata of that statement.

Page 991

There are stages to the process of being betrayed by your society. One is jolted from a place of complacency by the discovery of difference, by hypocrisy, by inexplicable or incongruous ill treatment. What follows is a time of confusion – unlearning what one thought to be the truth. Immersing oneself in the new truth. And then a decision must be made. Some accept their fate. Swallow their pride, forget the real truth, embrace the falsehood for all they’re worth – because, they decide, they cannot be worth much. If a whole society has dedicated itself to their subjugation, after all, then surely they deserve it? Even if they don’t, fighting back is too painful, too impossible. At least this way there is peace, of a sort. Fleetingly. The alternative is to demand the impossible. It isn’t right, they whisper, weep, shout; what has been done to them is not right. They are not inferior. They do not deserve it. And so it is the society that must change. There can be peace this way, too, but not before conflict. No one reaches this place without a false start or two.

Page 273

But for a society built on exploitation, there is no greater threat than having no one left to oppress.

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