She lived quite alone and whether the fault was hers or whether the fault was theirs I do not know. And a great deal of time went by and she did not speak to a living soul and a great wind of madness...
She did not rise at their entrance, nor make any sign that she had noticed them at all. But perhaps she did not hear them. For, though the room was silent, the silence of half a hundred cats is a pecu...
Richard Chaston (1620–95). Chaston wrote that men and fairies both contain within them a faculty of reason and a faculty of magic. In men reason is strong and magic is weak. With fairies it is the oth...
One day, he said,I shall find the right spell and banish the Darkness And on that day I will come to you.
Nothing, I believe, inspires a man with such eagerness to begin his day’s work as the sight of his instruments neatly laid out
It would need someone very remarkable to recover your name, Stephen, someone of rare perspicacity, with extraordinary talents and incomparable nobility of character. Me, in fact.
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...
How quickly was every bad thing discovered to be the fault of the previous administration (an evil set of men who wedded general stupidity to wickedness of purpose). As for the present Ministry, the F...
He was a man who knew there were such things as jokes in the world or people would not write about them, but had never actually been introduced to one or shaken its hand.
He smiles but rarely and watches other men to see when they laugh and then does the same.
He muttered something of Mr. Norrell's honest countenance.The York society did not think this very satisfactory (and had they actually been privileged to see Mr. Norrell's countenance they might have...
And the name of the one shall be Fearfulness. And the name of the other shall be Arrogance... Well, clearly you are not Fearfulness, so I suppose you must be Arrogance.'This was not very polite.
All of Man’s works, all his cities, all his empires, all his monuments will one day crumble to dust. Even the houses of my own dear readers must – though it be for just one day, one hour – be ruined a...
Yet we ought to kill someone!' said the gentleman, immediately reverting to his former subject. 'I have been quite out of temper this morning and someone ought to die for it.
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.
The old King is dead. The new King approaches! And at his approach the world sheds its sorrow. The sings of the old King dissolve like morning mist! The world assumes the character of the new. His vir...
That will teach me to meddle with magic meant for kings! Norrell is right. Some magic is not meant for ordinary magicians. Presumably John Uskglass knew what to do with this horrible knowledge. I do n...
Stephen began to dream again. This time he dreamt that hills walked and the sky wept. Trees came and spoke to him and told him their secrets and also whether or not he might regard them as friends or...
She had been a comet; and her blazing descent through dark skies had been plain for all to see.
Saints, such as me, ought always to listen attentively to the prayers of poor, dirty, ragged men, such as you. No matter how offensively those prayers are phased.