Susanna Clarke Quotes

She had been a comet; and her blazing descent through dark skies had been plain for all to see.

The very shapes of the trees were like frozen screams.

After all," he thought, "what can a magician do against a lead ball? Between the pistol firing and his heart exploding, there is no time for magic.

Sir Doctor, we esteem very much the Hexenmeister of the Great Vellinton.

Like the hero of a fairy-tale Mr Norrell had discovered that the power to do what he wished had been his own all along.

Oh, Mr Norrell! Such a noodle I am upon occasion!

This is a very grave matter, punishable by ... well, I do not exactly know what, but something rather severe, I should imagine.

[A] smile is the most becoming
ornament that any lady can wear.

One of them is married and another is engaged and the third cannot make up her mind.

I shall advise all the good-looking women of my acquaintance not to die

You mean to say he became mad deliberately?' ... Nothing is more likely,' said the duke.

I always start out saying exactly what everybody looks like. I don't know why.

Being a politician, he was never dissuaded from giving any body his opinion by the mere fact that they were not inclined to hear it.

Mr Hawkins said nothing; the Hawkins' domestic affairs were arranged upon the principle that Fanny supplied the talk and he the silence.

The Pillar of Darkness has been a horror confined to Venice, which seemed - to the Paduans at least - a natural setting for horrors.

A piece of writing is like a piece of magic. You create something out of nothing.

A cold, miserable little hamlet on the eastern coast of America called Piper's Grave.

It is curious and we magicians collect curiosities, you know.

Ha!" cried Dr John contemptuously. "Magic! That is chiefly used for killing Frenchmen, is it not?

I cannot recall an instance of anything very dreadful happening at half-past one

Even a magician must have relations,

She wore a gown the color of storms, shadows, and rain and a necklace of broken promises and regrets.

She so cheerfully resigned to his neglecting her that he could not help opening his mouth to protest

In 'Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell,' I wanted to create the most convincing story of magic and magicians that I could.

I know magicians and I know magic and I say this: all magicians lie and this one more than most.

Well, I suppose one ought not to employ a magician and then complain that he does not behave like other people.

In his madness and his blindness he was Lear and Gloucester combined.

Ha!' said the tall man drily. 'He was in high luck. Rich old uncles who die are in shockingly short supply.

There are some things which have no business being put into books for all the world to read.

It sometimes happens that when one acts quickly and with great resolve, all the indecisiveness and doubt comes afterwards, when it is too late. So

In peacetime some sort of introduction is generally required to make a person's acquaintance; in war a small eatable will perform the same office.

He smiles but rarely and watches other men to see when they laugh and then does the same.

Sometimes you my graciously permit all the most beautiful ladies in the land to wait in line to kiss your hands and fall in love with you.

Thaumatomane: a person possessed of a passion for magic and wonders, Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson.

She spoke the language of the Scottish Highlands (which is like singing).

One day," he said,"I shall find the right spell and banish the Darkness And on that day I will come to you.

For there was nothing in his eyes but the black night and the cold stars.

Magic (in the practical sense) was much fallen off. It had low connexions.

Soldiers, I am sorry to say, steal everything." He thought for a moment and then added, "Or at least ours do." How

Now came Dr Foxcastle, sailing magisterially around the corner like a fat, black ship.

An explorer cannot stay at home reading maps other men have made.

There must come a time when the bullets will run out

It is also true that his hair had a reddish tinge and, as everybody knows, no one with red hair can ever truly be said to be handsome.

...hatching his poems..

..(As to what they might be resting upon, Stephen was determined not to consider).

The land is all too shallow
It is painted on the sky
And trembles like the wind-shook rain
When the Raven King passed by

It's not easy to convey to someone who doesn't read comics just how Alan Moore has dominated the field since 'Watchmen.'

Time and I have quarrelled. All hours are midnight now. I had a clock and a watch, but I destroyed them both. I could not bear the way they mocked me.

Which demomstrates the sad poverty of English launguage ...

In a war one is either living like a prince or a vagabond. I

What nobility of feeling! To sacrifice your own pleasure to preserve the comfort of others! It is a thing, I confess, that would never occur to me.

Oh," said the Duke of Wellington, not much interested, "they are still complaining about that, are they?

Mr. Honeyfoot did not propose going quite so far
indeed he did not wish to go far at all because it was winter and the roads where very shocking.

One way of grounding the magic is by putting in lots of stuff about street lamps, carriages, and how difficult it is to get good servants.

Like many spells with unusual names, the Unrobed Ladies was a great deal less exciting than it sounded.

To a magician there is very little difference between a mirror and a door.

To be more precise it was the color of heartache.

It seemed that it was not only live magicians which Mr. Norrell despised. He had taken the measure of all the dead ones too and found them wanting.

He argument he was conducting with his neighbor as to whether the English magician had gone mad because he was a magician, or because he was English.

He hoped his enemies all had reason to fear him and his friends reason to love him ...

In some ways, 'Mansfield Park' is 'Pride and Prejudice' turned inside out.

It was an old fashioned house
the sort of house in fact, as Strange expressed it, which a lady in a novel might like to be persecuted in.

And such a pinched-looking ruin of a thing now! I shall advice all the good-looking woman of my acquaintance not to die.

It might well appear to Sir Walter that there had been no quarrel. It was often the case that gentlemen did not observe the signs.

I hope there may be bogs and that John McKenzie may drown in them.

Magic, madam, is like wine and, if you are not used to it, it will make you drunk.

'Pride and Prejudice' is often compared to 'Cinderella,' but Jane Austen's real 'Cinderella' tale is 'Mansfield Park.'

Both had indulged in, if not Black Magic, then certainly magic of a darker hue than seemed desirable or legitimate.

a book of magic should be written by a practising magician, rather than a theoretical magician or a historian of magic.

and a couple of days later he sent Strange a haggis (a sort of Scotch pudding) as a present.

He gave her his heart. She took it and placed it quietly in the pocket of her gown. No one observed what she did.

I tell stories. I kind of stumbled on that by trying to combine Jane Austen and magic.

But though he had no striking vices, his virtues were perhaps almost as hard to define.

It is the right of a traveller to vent their frustration at every minor inconvenience by writing of it to their friends.

All books are doors; and some of them are wardrobes.

Drawing teaches habits of close observation that will always be useful.

Lovers are rarely the most rational beings in creation ...

I only wish he had not married," said Mr. Norell fretfully. "Magicians have no business marrying.

Beautiful flames, can destroy so many things - prison walls that hold you, stitches that bind you fast.

There is nothing in the world so easy to explain as failure - it is, after all, what everybody does all the time.

But, though French, she was also very brave...

It's funny, because I don't think of myself as a novelist. I think of myself as a writer.

You must learn to live as I do - in the face of constant criticism, opposition and censure. That, sir, is the English way.

Other countries have stories of kings who will return at times of great
need. Only in England is it part of the constitution.

But the other Ministers considered that to employ a magician was one thing, novelists were quite another and they would not stoop to it.

I feel very much at home in the early nineteenth century and am not inclined to leave it.

I suppose a magician might," he admitted, "but a gentleman never could.

I had to restrain myself from buying a book on 19th-century fruit knives.

Byron!" exclaimed the little man. "Really? Dear me! Mad, and a friend of Lord Byron!" He sounded as if he did not know which was worse.

I have always heard that Italian women are rather fierce.

Could soldiers read? Mr Norrell did not know. He turned with a look of desperate appeal to Childermass.
Childermass shrugged.

But now there were ten bells. And the bell for Lost-Hope was ringing violently.

Erhaps mortals are not formed for fairy bliss?

O, wherever men of my sort used to go, long ago. Wandering on paths that other men have not seen. Behind the sky. On the other side of the rain.

And how shall I think of you?' He considered a moment and then laughed. 'Think of me with my nose in a book!

I have been quite put out of temper this morning and someone ought to die for it.

For this is England where a man's neighbours will never suffer him to live entirely bereft of society, let him be as dry and sour-faced as he may.

He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands.

He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to listen to him.

It is, after all, many centuries since clergymen distinguished themselves on the field of war, and lawyers never have.