Ancillary Justice Quotes
"Sometimes I don’t know why I do the things I do. Even after all this time it’s still a new thing for me not to know, not to have orders to follow from one moment to the next."
"The body lay naked and facedown, a deathly gray, spatters of blood staining the snow around it."
"Frozen, bruised, and bloody as she was, I knew her. Her name was Seivarden Vendaai, and a long time ago she had been one of my officers."
"Seivarden Vendaai was no concern of mine anymore, wasn’t my responsibility."
"The kind of place that will rent me a sledge and sell me a hypothermia kit."
"I’m not Radchaai. You have to be human to be Radchaai."
"Nineteen years, three months, and one week before I found Seivarden in the snow, I was a troop carrier orbiting the planet Shis’urna."
"Everything happens as it does because the universe is the way it is."
"The flower of justice is peace. The flower of propriety is beauty in thought and action."
"What trouble we’d run into, I and my lieutenants, had been sporadic. The Garseddai had put up only nominal resistance."
"My heart is a fish, hiding in the water-grass."
"The smallest, most seemingly insignificant event is part of an intricate whole."
"I had gotten this far by taking one step, and then another."
"I take no offense, Divine. And you are correct."
"If you’re going to succeed, you’ve got to have the right connections."
"Luxury always comes at someone else's expense."
"The world is a complex place, and there are no easy answers."
"Sometimes, the truth is more frightening than any lie."
"In moments of crisis, we discover who we truly are."
"Power is a dangerous game, and often the most innocent pay the price."
"The past is a ghost that haunts us, no matter how far we run."
"In the pursuit of greatness, we must be careful not to lose ourselves."
"Courage isn't the absence of fear, but the triumph over it."
"Sometimes, the most unlikely friendships are the strongest."
"Everything on my watch is my responsibility, isn't it, sir?"
"If everything that happens is the will of Amaat, if nothing can happen that is not already designed by God, why bother to do anything?"
"I am as Anaander Mianaai made me. Anaander Mianaai is as she was made. We will both of us do the things we are made to do."
"It’s easy to say that if you were there you would have refused, that you would rather die than participate in the slaughter, but it all looks very different when it’s real, when the moment comes to choose."
"If everyone who had objected to the destruction of the Garseddai had refused, what would have happened?"
"I think it might have turned out differently."
"You can only make your best approximate calculation. You can only make your throw and try to puzzle out the results afterward."
"A great deal of the time, you don’t really have the words to describe what you’re hoping for."
"Virtue is not a solitary, uncomplicated thing."
"If I had shot the Lord of the Radch nothing would have changed, I was sure, except that not only would Lieutenant Awn still be dead, I would be destroyed."
"Everything that is, is because of God. So if we’re wealthy and respected, that’s how things should be."
"Sometimes, when omens are cast, one flies or rolls off where you didn’t expect and throws the whole pattern out of shape."
"Nothing quite clarifies your thoughts like thinking you’re about to die."
"You’re thinking that any fool knows better than to speak up and criticize a government official for any reason."
"You know that each of your ancillary segments is entirely capable of having its own identity."
"It was my job, to protect the citizens of Ors."
"In one gesture I would have secured the loyalty of the Tanmind and removed someone troublesome to me."
"I should have died rather than obey you, in the temple of Ikkt."
"Since that moment, I have wondered what the difference is between the two."
"Thoughts are ephemeral, they evaporate in the moment they occur, unless they are given action and material form."
"Thoughts that lead to action can be dangerous. Thoughts that do not, mean less than nothing."
"Power requires neither permission nor forgiveness."
"It's hard for me to know how much of myself I remember. How much I might have known, that I had hidden from myself all my life."
"I was compelled to obey this Mianaai, in order to lead her to believe that she did indeed compel me."
"Lieutenant Awn lay on the floor of the Var decade room, facedown again, dead."
"And then One Var swung the gun up and shot Anaander Mianaai point-blank in the face."
"A familiar sensation. For the smallest fragment of a second I smelled humid air and lake water."
"If I only ever wanted to hear music from the Gerentate, I would never have left there."
"In the end, whatever their differences, they were both the same."
"You should be afraid of the person with weapons. You should be afraid."
"I’ve never known officers to be puking drunk."
"You’re confused, but you were made by Anaander Mianaai to serve Anaander Mianaai. Not her enemies."
"Everything that happens on my watch is my fault, citizen."
"It’s funny, you’re what I’ve lost, and I’m what you’ve lost."
"I could pick off anyone who comes through the shafts. Just like I did you."
"The person, the person, the person with weapons."
"I don’t think anyone here thinks of you as an ancillary."
"Compare our actions. You left her in doubt. I killed her."
"It’s the people without the money and the power, who desperately want to live, for those people small things aren’t small at all."
"You destroy the instruments of your enemy wherever you find them."
"I can’t be what you’ve lost. You can’t ever have that back, I’m sorry."
"Choose my aim, take one step and then the next. It had never been anything else."