"'This is why we are strong. We draw our strength from centuries and centuries of unforgotten injustices. Our task—our very reason for being—is to make those deaths mean something. After us, there will be no Speer. Only a memory.' She had thought she understood Altan’s power, but only now did she realize the depth of it. The weight of it. He was burdened with the legacy of a million souls forgotten by history, vengeful souls screaming for justice. The ghosts of Speer were chanting now, a deep and sorrowful song in the language she was born too late to understand, but connected to her very bones. The ghosts spoke to them for an eternity. Years passed. No time passed at all. Their ancestors imparted all that they knew of Speer, all that had ever been remembered of their people. They instilled in her centuries of history and culture and religion. They told her what she had to do. 'Our god is an angry god,' said the woman who looked like Rin. 'It will not let this injustice rest. It demands vengeance.'"

-R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

"The Nikara believed in strictly defined social roles, a rigid hierarchy that all were locked into at birth. Everything had its own place under heaven. Princelings became Warlords, cadets became soldiers, and orphan shopgirls from Tikany should be content with remaining orphan shopgirls from Tikany. The Keju was a purportedly meritocratic institution, but only the wealthy class ever had the money to afford the tutors their children needed to actually pass. Well, fuck the heavenly order of things. If getting married to a gross old man was her preordained role on this earth, then Rin was determined to rewrite it. 'It means I’m very good at memorizing long passages of gibberish,' she said. Tutor Feyrik was silent for a moment. 'You don’t have an eidetic memory,' he said finally. “I taught you to read. I would have known.” “I don’t,” she acknowledged. 'But I’m stubborn, I study hard, and I really don’t want to be married.'"

-R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“'Because they’re crammed on that tiny island and they think Nikan should be theirs. Because they fought us before and they almost won,' Rin said curtly. 'What does it matter? They’re coming, and we’re staying, and at the end of the day whoever is alive is the side that wins. War doesn’t determine who’s right. War determines who remains.'"

-R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

"The air behind Jiang was warping, shimmering, turning darker than the night itself. Jiang’s eyes had rolled up into the back of his head. He chanted loudly, singing in that unfamiliar language that Rin had heard him use only once before. 'You are Sealed!' the general bellowed. But he backed rapidly away from the void and clutched his halberd close. 'Am I now?' Jiang spread his arms. Behind him sounded a keening wail, too high-pitched for any beast known to man. Something was coming through the darkness. Beyond the void, Rin saw silhouettes that should exist only in puppetry, outlines of beasts that belonged to story. A three-headed lion. A nine-tailed vixen. A mass of serpents tangled into one another, its multitude of heads snapping and biting in every direction. 'Rin. Nezha.' Jiang didn’t turn around to look at them. 'Run.' Then Rin understood. Whatever was being summoned, Jiang couldn’t control them. The gods will not be called willingly into battle. The gods will always demand something in return. He was doing precisely what he had forbidden her to do."

-R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

"He choked, unable to speak. His limbs were numb, frozen; it was all he could do to remain upright. Daji had the power of hypnosis, he knew, but never had she used it on him. All thoughts were pushed from his mind. All he could think about were her eyes. They were at first large, luminous and black; and then they were yellow like a snake’s, with narrow pupils that drew him in like a mother grasping at her baby, like a cruel imitation of his own goddess. And like his goddess, she was so beautiful. So very beautiful. Transfixed, Tyr lowered his knives. Visions danced before him. Her great yellow eyes pulsed in his gaze; suddenly gigantic, they filled his entire field of sight to the periphery, drew him into her world. He saw shapes without names. He saw colors beyond description. He saw faceless women dancing through vermilion and cobalt, bodies curved like the silk ribbons they spun in their hands. Then, as her prey was entranced, the Vipress slammed down into him with her fangs and flooded him with poison. The psychospiritual assault was devastating and immediate. She shattered Tyr’s world like glass, like he existed in a mirror and she had dashed it against a sharp corner, and he was arrested in the moment of breaking so that it was not over in seconds but took place over eons. Somewhere a shriek began and grew higher and higher in pitch, and did not stop. The Vipress’s eyes turned a colorless white that bored into his vision and turned everything into pain. Tyr sought refuge in the shadows, but his goddess was nowhere, and those hypnotic eyes were everywhere. Everywhere he turned, the eyes looked upon him; the great Snake hissed, her gaze trained on him, boring into him, paralyzing him—"

-R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War