“So there’s a freeing up that happens when I can go into that storytelling mode...It isn’t about how much sense you make, it is about how compelling you are. (interview)”

“You look at science fiction and look how often it talks about being alien, being alienated about the other. Look at the number of blue people - 'Avatar,' I'm looking at you. And it is now easier to find people of color in science-fiction literature and media, but the issues of representation are still really, really troubling.”

“I love science fiction. There are ways in which this community kept me and my partner alive through some very, very bad years, and I will always acknowledge that.”

“So there’s a freeing up that happens when I can go into that storytelling mode...It isn’t about how much sense you make, it is about how compelling you are. (interview)”

“It’s so the stories go that the Ginen tell. If you find a beautiful fairmaid swimming in the river, her fish tail flashing; if you follow her down into her water home with her, she will make the water like air so you can breathe. But then she’ll ask you, playful, You eat salt, or you eat fresh? And if you say salt, she will let you go back home, but if you say fresh …“It’s my business,” he said. Pouted. Looked at the ground.If you only eat unsalted food, fresh food, we believe you make Lasirèn vexed, for salt is the creatures of the sea, and good for the Ginen to eat, but fresh—fresh is the flesh of Lasirèn, and if you eat that, it’s pride. You’re trying to make yourself as one of the lwas. Makandal never eats salt. He, a living man, giving himself powers like a lwa. That’s why he couldn’t hear the voice of the lwas.”

“Beauty and ingenuity beat perfection hands down, every time.”

“Mid-range, androgynous voice. I first thought that Solaris was a guy. Then a girl. Maybe. Then I gave up trying to figure out which. It would become obvious at some point, or not.”

“When your elders are millennia-old demigods, you’d best take the injunction to respect your elders seriously.”

“We are all here, all the powers of the Ginen lives for all the centuries that they have been in existence, and we all fight. We change when change is needed. We are a little different in each place that the Ginen have come to rest, and any one of is already many powers. No cancer can fell us all, no blight cover us completely.”

“The heaviness of loss in her heart hadn't eased, but there was room there for humour, too.”