Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

by Susanna Clarke

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!

Then the small man smiled in rivalry of the other’s smile (these two gentlemen positively jousted in smiles)

Upon my word, there is nothing in the world so easy to explain as failure – it is, after all, what every body does all the time.”

“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.”

“I believe it is one of the dialects of Hell,” said Strange. “Is it indeed?” said Somerset. “Well, that is remarkable.” “They have learnt it very quickly,” said Lord Wellington, “They have only been dead three days.” He approved of people doing things promptly and in a businesslike fashion.

He had decided that the correct attitude to take was one of dignified moral superiority softened by a very moderate amount of apology.

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.

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.

“As far as neighbours go, those trees are quite exemplary. They mind their own affairs and have never troubled me. I rather think that I will return the compliment.” “But they are blocking the light.” “So are you, Henry, but I have not yet taken an axe to you.”