Susanna Clarke Quotes

But that is not to say that there might not be someone in the world - I do not say I have seen him yet - whom I would be a little afraid to look at sometimes - for fear that he might be looking sad -...

But the veterans of the Peninsular War remarked approvingly that rain was always an Englishman’s friend in times of war. They told their comrades: There is nothing so comforting or familiar to us, you...

Byron tilted his head to a very odd angle, half-closed his eyes and composed his features to suggest that he was about to expire from chronic indigestion.

Can a magician kill a man by magic? Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. I suppose a magician might, he admitted, but a gentleman never could.

Childermass was still there. He had taken his dinner at one of the tables and was now doing the household accounts. As Mr Norrell entered, he looked up and grinned. I believe Mr Strange will do very w...

Clegg began life as a tightrope walker at the northern fairs, but as tightrope-walking is not a trade that combines well with drinking – and Clegg was a famous drinker – he was obliged to give it up.

David was the son of a famous Venetian rabbi. From his youth he had been accustomed to debate good principles and right conduct with all sorts of grave Jewish persons. These conversations had formed h...

Did you ever look into an English novel? Well, do not trouble yourself. It is nothing but a lot of nonsense about girls with fanciful names getting married.

Even a magician must have relations,

Good God! It is very nonsensical for us all to sit here and assert that Norrell can or cannot do this or can or cannot do that. We are all rational beings I think, and the answer, surely, is quite sim...

He knew that there was a world of difference between these two notions: one was sane and the other was not, but he could not for the life of him remember which was which.

He thought he stood upon an English hillside. Rain was falling; it twisted in the air like grey ghosts. Rain fell upon him and he grew thin as rain. Rainwashed away thought, washed away memory, all th...

He was sick of the noise and sight of so many people and determined to go quietly away, but it so happened that just at that moment the crowds about the door were particularly impenetrable; he was cau...

Houses, like people, are apt to become rather eccentric if left too much on their own; this house was the architectural equivalent of an old gentleman in a worn dressing-gown and torn slippers, who go...

I am a Book, said Vinculus, stopping in mid-caper. I am the Book. It is the task of the Book to bear the words. Which I do. It is the task of the Reader to know what they say.

I have always heard that Italian women are rather fierce.

In familiar surroundings our manners are cheerful and easy, but only transport us to places where we know no one and no one knows us, and Lord! how uncomfortable we become!

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

It was as if a door had opened somewhere. Or possibly a series of doors. There was a sensation as of a breeze blowing into the house and bringing with it the half-rememberedscents of childhood. There...

More than one soldier wondered if, at last, the French had found a magician of their own; the French infantrymen appeared much taller than ordinary men and the light in their eyes as they drew closer...