“Fear motivates, more than love or ambition or joy. Fear is more powerful than anything else in the world. I have spent so long yearning for things—for love, for acceptance—that I do not really need. I need nothing except the submission that comes with fear. I do not know why it took me so long to learn this.”

American young adult science fiction and fantasy author

Marie Lu is an American young adult science fiction and fantasy author. She is best known for the Legend series and for several other novels aimed at younger readers. Her work includes the dystopian, militarized world of Legend, along with the Young Elites series, the Warcross series, and Batman: Nightwalker in the DC Icons series. Her writing is associated with speculative fiction, especially stories set in imagined futures and focused on conflict, power, and survival.