Susanna Clarke Quotes

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.

Strange, said Henry Woodhope, where did you get this nonsense? From the man under the hedge. Henry, you do not listen. And he seemed honest, did he? Honest? No, not particularly. He seemed, I would sa...

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

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

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

I reached out my hand, England's rivers turned and flowed the other way...I reached out my hand, my enemies's blood stopt in their veins...I reached out my hand; thought and memory flew out of my enem...

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

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

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

He screamed.Mmm?' inquired the gentleman.I...I would never presume to interrupt you, sir. But the ground appears to be swallowing me up.'It is a bog,' said the gentleman, helpfully.It is certainly a m...

In the moonlight David saw that Thoresby had become very peculiar indeed. Figs nestled among the leaves of beech-trees. Elder-trees were bowed down with pomegranates. Ivy was almost torn from walls by...

They were gentleman-magicians, which is to say they had never harmed any one by magic – nor ever done any one the slightest good. In fact, to own the truth, not one of these magicians had ever cast th...

If other magicians think differently from you, then you must battle it out with them. You must prove the superiority of your opinions, as I do in politics. You must argue and publish and practise your...

This is the genius of my enemy! Lock a door against him and all that happens is that he learns first how to pick a lock and second how to build a better one against you!

It is the contention of Mr Norrell of Hanover-square that everything belonging to John Uskglass must be shaken out of modern magic, as one would shake moths and dust out of an old coat. What does he i...

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

The brown fields were partly flooded; they were strung with chains of chill, grey pools. The pattern of the pools had meaning. The pools had been written on to the fields by the rain. The pools were a...

He wished he had never come to London. He wished he had never undertaken to revive English magic. He wished he had stayed at Hurtfew Abbey, reading and doing magic for his own pleasure. None of it, he...

Excess of grief may bring on quite as fine a bout of madness an an excess of any thing else. Truth to tell, I was not quite myself for a time. Truth to tell, I was a little wild.

In the fish-market by the Grand Canal a fisherman sold Frank three mullet, but then almost neglected to take the money because his attention was given to the argument he was conducting with his neighb...