Quotes from Kij Johnson

Does Carthage even have forests? Did Virgil know for sure or was it just convenient for his story? Virgil was a professional liar. This would not be the only place where he pruned the truth until it was as artificial as an espaliered pear tree against a wall, forced into an expedient shape and bearing the demanded fruit.

A fish is not seduced by bait. When it grows hungry, it eats whichever mosquito or dragonfly happens to be closest. If one is fortunate or destined, it is one's bait that is closest at that moment. But it is chance that fish and bait are in the right places at the right time.

Humans assign words to things and pretend the words are adequate.

Some people change the world. And some people change the people who change the world,

in the end she had not wanted a life spent treading water in his story. She still did not—and yet she regarded herself in the glass a little ruefully. To have that choice removed by time and age was painful.

Sam has rolled to his side, waiting patiently for Linna to remember to scratch him. Live forever, she thinks, and wills his twisted spine and legs straight and well.

He's not from Ulthar. I thought I said: he was special. He's from the waking world. That's where he's taking her.

Everyone had a fudoki, Small Cat knew now. Everyone had their own stories, and the stories of their families and ancestors. There were adventures and love stories, or tricks and jokes and funny things that had happened or disasters. Everyone wanted to tell the stories, and to know where they fit in their own fudokis. She was not that different.

The constant talking didn't bother her, for cats use their voices to say 'here I am, where are you?' and this seemed to be the primary intention of most human conversation.

She hadn't loved Randolph Carter. He had been a man like many, so wrapped and rapt in his own story that there was no room for the world around him except as it served his own tale: the black men of Parg and Kled and Sona Nyl, the gold men of Thorabon and Ophir and Rinar; and all the women invisible everywhere, except when they brought him drinks or sold him food - all walk-on parts in the play that was Randolph Carter, or even wallpaper.

There was for everything a possibility, an invisible pattern that could be made manifest given work and the right materials.

All those losses, but this one at least he could prevent. "When the time comes," he said: "When you sail. I will come with you.

Jealousy, like poetry, is incomprehensible to me.

She would never have a day that she did not see something and hear a voice in her mind say, "Remember this and then write this." Chapter 6 p. 96

The sentence, "She was hollow, as though something had chewed a hole in her body and the hole had grown infected," unless it's been used before by someone else in a story she cannot recall.

hippocephalic

Yeah. I mean, I work in a coffee shop. People here don't even see it; it's like this boring job for them—but every day people say hello to me; every day I meet someone new, who is round and bright and—scattery, made out of parts, plans and fears and love and worry and I don't even know what. I don't know how to explain it. Random and meaningful and beautiful. I know that doesn't make sense.

granddaughter, then I am a god, right? So I can save Ulthar. Some people change the world. And some people change the people who change the world,

Of course, he had always been wise in the ways of cats, valuing them above entire races, many men, and most women.

Do not kneel," said Claire Jurat in a voice like thunder, like earths breaking and stars forming. "No more gods.

Ferrys die, but there is always a Ferry to cross the mist. Bridges and ferryfolk, they are not so different, Kit.

Never mind,' she said, 'I don't see the point of a God.' 'And I don't see much point in a cat.' the Kami replied.

They like visiting wherever it is, sure. But this is their home. Everyone likes to come home sooner or later." "If they have a home," Aimee says. "Everyone has a home, even if they don't believe in it," Geof says.

Because there's always a reason for everything, isn't there? Because if there isn't a reason for even one thing, like how you can get sick, or your husband stop loving you, or people you love die—then there's no reason for anything. So there must be reasons.