Raybearer Quotes

“Uniformity is not unity. Silence is not peace.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“Why does everyone hate change so much?" I demanded.
"Because things could get worse."
"Maybe. But do you know what I think?"
My chest throbbed. "I think deep down, we're afraid that things could get better. Afraid to ding out that all the evil—all the suffering we ignore—could have been prevented. If only we had cared enough to try.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“Only one thing is more powerful than a wish, and that is a purpose.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“No, we don't deserve the burdens that our parents gave us, but we cant defeat monsters we won't face.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“Stories are meant to be shared," Melu said gently, "but no one was made for another person, Tarisai.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“I hope you never win the pride of a monster, Tarisai. It’s worse than their contempt.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“But I knew, deep down, that love had never fixed anyone. It had only given them the strength to try over and over and over again.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“Do not ask how many people you will save. Ask, Towhat world will you save them? [...] What world, Wuraola, is worth surviving in?”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“I've never understood why mortals make things so complicated. Am's story for men and women has always been simple: You are equals, built to work side by side. But when it comes to power, mortals have always loathed simplicity.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“It's no use bringing up the past. You write your story, not the people who came before you.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“Through you, my legacy lives."
"You didn't make me who I am. I am not the sequel of your story.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“Leadership isn't good or evil, it's what you choose to do with it.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“People never listen to what you want. They listen to who you are.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“Peace comes when stories are celebrated, not erased.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“A future, I added in my head, where no child was bound by curses, and every daughter had a name.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“And off she goes,” Sanjeet murmured. His voice was cavernous, even against the roar of the waves. “Bent on winning freedom for the entire world. Tarisai of Swana.” He laughed, a gentle growl that made my insides restless. “She would have us be masters of our own fates, whether we like it or not.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“Didn't I tell you a bath would help?”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“You caged me like a bird. But you cannot make me sing.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“Why does everyone hate change so much?" I demanded.
"Because things could get worse."
"Maybe. But do you know what I think?" My chest throbbed. "I think deep down, we're afraid that things could get better. Afraid to find out that all the evil - all the suffering we ignore - could have been prevented. If only we cared enough to try.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“The place closest to your soul isn't your heart," Kirah explained. "It's your stomach. Anger, love, and sorrow simmer together there, like bubbles in a cauldron. People of the Wing believe that when the Pelican breathed each soul into being, it wrote two secrets on a burning coal: your greatest good and your best desire. You swallowed the coal before being born, and it burned in your belly. That's why we wail as newborns, Mama would say.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“I am not a ghost, I screamed without words. I am not nothing. I am not nameless; I will not fade into graceful oblivion like every other Kunleo girl,”
― Jordan Ifueko , Raybearer

“And the more I learn, the farther I feel. I don’t know where home is anymore.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“The ruling barely solved anything. But he had made my plans feel like fishing for the moon, while his looked so...plausible. Was it better to have a perfect solution that I couldn't enforce? Or a weak solution that everyone loved?”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“You are all the same, young people. Full of questions and deaf to ugly answers. Leaving your safe homes, your warm beds because—let me guess—you want to follow your heart.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“But you didn’t. You stayed because Artisar had just lost its emperor, and Dayo needed you. Artisar needed you. It’s who you are, Jeet. It’s who I am, too. We weren’t raised to see the world as a small place, where nothing matters but our happiness. That isn’t our story. And . . . I don’t think it ever will be.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“I think deep down, we’re afraid that things could get better. Afraid to find out that all the evil—all the suffering we ignore—could have been prevented. If only we had cared enough to try.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“You had enough faith in me to cross a firepit,' Sanjeet said. 'For everyone's sake, Tar, have that faith in yourself.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“Tarisai, she said, Tarisai Idajo.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“The place closest to your soul isn’t your heart,” Kirah explained. “It’s your stomach. Anger, love, and sorrow simmer together there, like bubbles in a cauldron.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“Monsters were nothing. The true terrors were people like me - the ones who saw suffering, who heard the screams of a hundred generations echoing for miles around them - and still did nothing.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer