Susanna Clarke > Quotes

“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 would.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“She wore a gown the color of storms, shadows, and rain and a necklace of broken promises and regrets.”
― Susanna Clarke

“To be more precise it was the color of heartache.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“There is nothing in the world so easy to explain as failure - it is, after all, what everybody does all the time.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“Mr. Robinson was a polished sort of person. He was so clean and healthy and pleased about everything that he positively shone - which is only to be expected in a fairy or an angel, but is somewhat disconcerting in an attorney.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“It may be laid down as a general rule that if a man begins to sing, no one will take any notice of his song except his fellow human beings. This is true even if his song is surpassingly beautiful. Other men may be in raptures at his skill, but the rest of creation is, by and large, unmoved. Perhaps a cat or a dog may look at him; his horse, if it is an exceptionally intelligent beast, may pause in cropping the grass, but that is the extent of it. But when the fairy sang, the whole world listened to him. Stephen felt clouds pause in their passing; he felt sleeping hills shift and murmur; he felt cold mists dance. 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. In the fairy's song the earth recognized the names by which it called itself.”
― Susanna Clarke

“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.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“..The 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.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“A piece of writing is like a piece of magic. You create something out of nothing.”
― Susanna Clarke

“And how shall I think of you?' He considered a moment and then laughed. 'Think of me with my nose in a book!”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“There is nothing else in magic but the wild thought of the bird as it casts itself into the void. There is no creature upon the earth with such potential for magic. Even the least of them may fly straight out of this world and come by chance to the Other Lands. Where does the wind come from that blows upon your face, that fans the pages of your book? Where the harum-scarum magic of small wild creatures meets the magic of Man, where the language of the wind and the rain and the trees can be understood, there we will find the Raven King.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“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.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“For, though the room was silent, the silence of half a hundred cats is a peculiar thing, like fifty individual silences all piled one on top of another.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“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 got up and went to bed at odd times of day, and who kept up a continual conversation with friends no one else could see.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“To sit and pass hour after hour in idle chatter with a roomful of strangers is to me the worst sort of torment.”
― Susanna Clarke

“The governess was not much liked in the village. She was too tall, too fond of books, too grave, and, a curious thing, never smiled unless there was something to smile at.”
― Susanna Clarke, The Ladies of Grace Adieu: And Other Stories

“Oh! And they read English novels! David! 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."

From "Tom Brightwind”
― Susanna Clarke

“Such nonsense!" declared Dr Greysteel. "Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful!"
"Except for staring at one in a supercilious manner," said Strange. "That has a sort of moral usefulness, I suppose, in making one feel uncomfortable and encouraging sober reflection upon one's imperfections.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“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 enemies' heads like a flock of starlings;
My enemies crumpled like empty sacks.
I came to them out of mists and rain;
I came to them in dreams at midnight;
I came to them in a flock of ravens that filled a northern sky at dawn;
When they thought themselves safe I came to them in a cry that broke the silence of a winter wood...

The rain made a door for me and I went through it;
The stones made a throne for me and I sat upon it;
Three kingdoms were given to me to be mine forever;
England was given to me to be mine forever.
The nameless slave wore a silver crown;
The nameless slave was a king in a strange country...

The weapons that my enemies raised against me are venerated in Hell as holy relics;
Plans that my enemies made against me are preserved as holy texts;
Blood that I shed upon sncient battlefields is scraped from the stained earth by Hell's sacristans and placed in a vessel of silver and ivory.
I gave magic to England, a valuable inheritance
But Englishmen have despised my gift
Magic shall be written upon the sky by the rain but they shall not be able to read it;
Magic shall be written on the faces of the stony hills but their minds shall not be able to contain it;
In winter the barren trees shall be a black writing but they shall not understand it...

Two magicians shall appear in England...
The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me;
The first shall be governed by thieves and murderers; the second shall conspire at his own destruction;
The first shall bury his heart in a dark wood beneath the snow, yet still feel its ache;
The second shall see his dearest posession in his enemy's hand...

The first shall pass his life alonel he shall be his own gaoler;
The second shall tread lonely roads, the storm above his head, seeking a dark tower upon a high hillside...

I sit upon a black throne in the shadows but they shall not see me.
The rain shall make a door for me and I shall pass through it;
The stones shall make a throne for me and I shall sit upon it...

The nameless slave shall wear a silver crown
The nameless slave shall be a king in a strange country...”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“After two hours it stopped raining and in the same moment the spell broke, which Peroquet and the Admiral and Captain Jumeau knew by a curious twist of their senses, as if they had tasted a string quartet, or been, for a moment, deafened by the sight of colour blue.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“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”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange i pan Norrell. Tom 3

“You mean to say he became mad deliberately?'
...Nothing is more likely,' said the duke.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“Magic, madam, is like wine and, if you are not used to it, it will make you drunk.”
― Susanna Clarke, The Ladies of Grace Adieu: And Other Stories

“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.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“It was a 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.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“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.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“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.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“Some time later there was a knock at his door. He was surprised to find it was now evening and the room was quite dark. The knock sounded again. The landlord was at the door. The landlord began to talk, but Strange could not understand him. This was because the man had a pineapple in his mouth. How he had managed to cram the whole thing in there, Strange could not imagine. Green, spiky leaves emerged slowly out of his mouth and then were sucked back in again as he spoke. Strange wondered if perhaps he ought to go and fetch a knife or a hook and try and fish the pineapple out, in case the landlord should choke. But at the same time he did not care much about it. 'After all,' he thought with some irritation, 'it is his own fault. He put it there.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

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

“Unfortunately, Childermass's French was so strongly accented by his native Yorkshire that Minervois did not understand and asked Strange if Childermass was Dutch. ”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“I know magicians and I know magic and I say this: all magicians lie and this one more than most.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“Well, I suppose one ought not to employ a magician and then complain that he does not behave like other people.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“He had once found himself in a room with Lady Bessborough's long-haired white cat. He happened to be dressed in an immaculate black coat and trousers, and was there thoroughly alarmed by the cat's stalking round and round and making motions as if it proposed to sit upon him. He waited until he believed himself to be unobserved, then he picked it up, opened a window, and tossed it out. Despite falling three storeys to the ground, the cat survived, but one of its legs was never quite right afterward and it always evinced the greatest dislike of gentlemen in black clothes.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“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).”
― Susanna Clarke

“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 most terrifying substance.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“It is curious and we magicians collect curiosities, you know.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“It has been remarked (by a lady infinitely cleverer than the present author) how kindly disposed the world in general feels to young people who either die or marry. Imagine then the interest that surrounded Miss Wintertowne! No young lady ever had such advantages before: for she died upon the Tuesday, was raised to life in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and was married upon the Thursday; which some people thought too much excitement for one week.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“It is these black clothes," said Strange. "I am like a leftover piece of funeral, condemned to walk about the Town, frightening people into thinking of their own mortality.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange y el Señor Norrel

“Lovers are rarely the most rational beings in creation...”
― Susanna Clarke

“There was very little about her face and figure that was in any way
remarkable, but it was the sort of face which, when animated by
conversation or laughter, is completely transformed. She had a lovely
disposition, a quick mind and a fondness for the comical. She was
always very ready to smile and, since a smile is the most becoming
ornament that any lady can wear, she had been known upon occasion to
outshine women who were acknowledged beauties in three countries.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“you must learn to live as I do - in the face of constant criticism, opposition and censure. That, sir, is the English way.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange y el Señor Norrel

“But when the fairy sang the whole world listened to him. Stephen felt clouds pause in their passing; he felt sleeping hills shift and murmur; he felt cold mists dance. 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. In the fairy’s song the earth recognized the names by which it called itself.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“But, though French, she was also very brave...”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“I have always heard that Italian women are rather fierce.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“Ha!' said the tall man drily. 'He was in high luck. Rich old uncles who die are in shockingly short supply.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“And such a pinched-looking ruin of a thing now! I shall advice all the good-looking woman of my acquaintance not to die.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“John Longridge, the cook at Harley-street, had suffered from low spirits for more than thirty years, and he was quick to welcome Stephen as a newcomer to the freemasonry of melancholy.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“Bryon 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.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“Mr. Segundus began to suspect that they had an uneventful morning, and that when a strange gentleman had walked into the room and dropt down in a swoon, they were rather pleased than otherwise.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell