A Skinful of Shadows Quotes

“If someone throws aside their pride and begs with all their heart, and if they do so in vain, then they are never quite the same person afterwards. Something in them dies, and something else comes to life.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“Everybody betrayed her, so why expect otherwise? But it turned out that distrust could fool you and endanger you, just as trust could.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“Habits, places and faces grew into you over time, like tree roots burrowing into stone work.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“I trust you, she had often told him. But was that true?

No, she realized, with a feeling like grief. All these years, even while she plotted with James, in her heart of hearts she had been waiting for him to betray her. When at last she had looked into his eyes and seen a host of dead enemies staring back, her mind had filled with a storm. But there had been an eye to that storm, a quiet core where a calm, relieved voice was saying: Ah, there it is at last. No more waiting for the sword to fall.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“Even when she slept, her anxieties did not.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“Humans are strange, adaptable animals, and eventually get used to anything, even the impossible or unbearable. ... Terror is tiring, and difficult to keep up indefinitely, so sooner or later it must be replaced with something more practical.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“They understood something together at that moment, Makepeace and Bear. Sometimes you had to be patient through pain, or people gave you more pain. Sometimes you had to weather everything and take your bruises. If you were lucky, and if everyone thought you were tamed and trained... there might come a time when you could strike.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“But then again, the dead are often easier to praise than the living.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“Trust was like mould. It accumulated over time in unattended places... Over the years, Makepeace had become encrusted with other people's inattentive trust.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“The world was turning cartwheels, Makepeace realized, and nobody was sure which was was up any more. Rules were breaking, but nobody was certain which ones. If you had enough confidence, you could walk in and at as if you knew what the new rules were, and other people would believe you.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“The Devil has no better friend than an empty belly.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“If someone throws aside their pride and begs with all their heart, and if they do so in vain, then they are never quite the same person afterwards. Something in them dies, and something else comes to life. Afterwards, it was as if some understanding of the world had sunk into Makepeace's soul like winter dew. She knew that she would never feel safe or loved as she had before. And she knew that she would never, ever beg that way again.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“Mother was like this sometimes. Conversations became riddles with traps in them, and your answers had consequences.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“Like medicine, truth could be used as a poison by someone cunning enough.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“She could find no join, no place where she ended and Bear started. In that first clumsy embrace of the spirit, they had tangled themselves hopelessly, she supposed. Whatever happened, wherever she went, there would always be Bear. Whoever knew her, or liked her, or loved her, would have to accept Bear.
She could even love herself a little now, knowing that she was Bear.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“I do not know," said Dr Quick, "It is a blow to my vanity to consider the possibility that I am nothing but a bundle of thoughts, feelings and memories, given life by somebody else's mind. But then again, so is a book.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“Bear, I need your eyes. I need your nose. I need your night-wits and forest-wisdom.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“Mistress Gotely!" she shouted, her voice echoing blasphemously throughout the chapel. "Beth! Alys! Help me!" They would not come to her aid, she knew that. She was alone. But the other servants might hear her, and it would mean something to be remembered. She wanted them to know that she had not gone willingly or quietly. If they remembered that, she would still be something, if only a scar on their memories, a pang of guilt they tried to ignore.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“What strange beasts people are, she thought. We adjust to everything so quickly. Perhaps we would even get used to Hell.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“You couldn't trust people. Dogs snarled before they bit you, but people often smiled.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“Back in Poplar, everyone had known that the King was being led astray by evil advisers and Catholic plots, and the Parliament was full of brave, honest, clear-sighted men who wanted the best for everybody. It had been so obvious! It had been common sense! . . .

But here in Grizehayes, it was just as obvious to everybody that a power-hungry Parliament driven to frenzy by crazy Puritans was trying to steal power from the rightful King. Neither side seemed to be stupid, and both were equally certain.

Was I raised by Puritans? I believed what they believed back then. Were we all frothing mad? Or was I right then, and am I mad now?”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“I died recently, and I am in no hurry to enjoy the experience again just yet.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“Lord Fellmotte was not a man. He was an ancient committee. A parliament of deathly rooks in a dying tree.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“Worlds ended sometimes.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“Makepeace felt something in her chest wrench, and wondered if it was her heart breaking. She waited to see how that would feel. Perhaps hearts broke like eggs, and spilt, and stopped working. But all she felt was numb. 'Perhaps my heart already broke and never grew back.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“You were a mistake, girl,' she said simply, 'but a mistake honestly meant.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“You don't have to stay if you don't want to,' said the girl called Makepeace. 'But you're welcome to travel with us as long as you like. We believe in second chances, for the people who don't usually get them.
'You're among friends, Hannah, You're home.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“She imagined it, a great Bear lost in darkness, friendless and trapped as it had been for so long. It could not understand where it was, or why its body was so strange and weak. All it knew was that it was under attack, just as it had always been...”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“No, not like me. He's no better than the other Fellmottes. Another rich man bent on what he thinks the world owes him, and willing to pay any price, as long as it's in the blood of others.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows

“Children are little priests of their parents, watching their every gesture and expression for signs of their divine will.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows