Quotes from Sarah Monette

She looked at me, her eyes mocking and mean and sad all at the same time.

The eye sockets of their skulls are dark, like they've got all the night inside their heads.

It is one thing to suspect yourself of going mad; it is another thing entirely to discover your suspicions are correct.

They're like sparrows, aren't they? Twitter, twitter, twitter-all of it malice and nonsense, but it's the only way I can start to understand.

It was a narrow, twisting hallway, paneled and floored in elaborate interlocking patterns of light and dark wood. False windows flanked every corner, their frames elaborately carved and fretted: looking through one, I discovered a flat, painted landscape like nothing I had ever seen-twisted trees and dark, jeering rocks and the gilt sun lying against the painted sky like a counterfeit coin.

I had hoped that I might replace the burning blackness in my mind with the simple, remote darkness of the night sky. Sometimes I could calm myself that way, but tonight the longer I stared at the sky, its untouchable beauty, the more I wanted to hurt someone.

Anyone wanting to cause trouble in the Mirador should be fascinated by Felix.

Malkar's suite was in the part of the Mirador called Fra Barbarossa, still lavish with the tastes of long-dead Ophidian kings. The walls were faced with white marble and hung with gold brocade. Statues of ancient heroes stood in niches, watching me with painted eyes. I knew all their names, all their histories, and their very indifference woke me, alarmed me, and I was caught frozen, able to neither walk forward into Hell nor to turn and walk away.

What Malkar was doing-and I wanted to shriek and giggle and weep, all at once-was creating a spell that would allow him to use me in the same way that Cabaline wizards used their rings. It was a brilliantly evil parody of Cabaline magic; even if I'd had all my wits about me, even if hadn't been still mind-numbed by phoenix, I didn't think I would even have been able to find a place to start a counterspell.

I follow the voice, follow the sobbing and cursing, follow it down a twisting, tightening spiral until, somewhere far beneath the earth, among the roots on the monstrous clock, I find him.

I had been addicted to phoenix six years ago, just as I had been addicted to Malkar. I had beaten the addiction and not taken phoenix since. I was horrified by how comforting the taste was. I had known people in Pharaohlight, who had insisted that phoenix was tasteless, but they were wrong. It tasted like tears.

I don't want to make waves, you see, and that means I had better know what's the pond before I go jumping in.

Every maze has a monster at its heart.

There is a terrible weight to that never from Malkar Gennadion, who is also Brinvillier Strych-and who knows how many other names he may have had? Who knows how many lives he may have held and used and discarded, how many other lives he may have left ruined in his wake? I wonder if even Malkar himself knows any longer.

I felt him in my mind, even more vividly than I felt him in my body, a hurtful, hateful rending presence, like the color of blood, like the taste of iron, like the scent of burning, destroying everything in his path until he reached for the core of my power and seized it.

Her grin turned into a smile. It looked like a real one.

How easily we read each other when we're out for blood.

I wanted to feel his strength; I wanted to feel him. I didn't care how anymore. I just wanted him to touch me.

With vitality, her face became beautiful, and her purring laugh was like a gift.

Felix's rather rueful admiration seemed to distress Mildmay even more than his anger had.

Mildmay's anger was like a third person sitting between us-which was all the more unfortunate as there was barely room for two.

He was big, taller than me and bulky, with dark red-brown hair queued back like a flashie, and light brown eyes that looked as clever and fake as glass.

Marathines insisted, with great indignation, that there was no slavery in their country, but I couldn't see any difference to speak of between that and the system of contracts and indentures in the Pharaohlight brothels.

They did not care that this serene harmony was built on blood and death and pain.