Quotes from Naomi Novik

Ik vind het heerlijk om vlak voor ik naar bed ga een existentiële crisis te hebben, het is zo rustgevend.

I submerged into it like a ritual bath and let it close over my head gladly. I wanted to stop my ears and my eyes and my mouth with it.

Ik wilde niet alleen dat zij míj hielpen om te overleven. Ik wilde dat zíj overleefden.

Met een kring mensen één betovering tot stand brengen is iets heel anders dan een yogales doen met een docent die alle deelnemers aanmoedigt hun eigen tempo te volgen, het is alsof je met vier mensen die je nauwelijks kent een gechoreografeerde dans leert van een chagrijnige instructeur die je de volle laag geeft als je je teen ietsje scheef zet.

true, but unkind anyway.

I walked slowly back to the baker, to give him a worn penny in return for a coarse half-burned loaf that hadn't been the loaf I'd made at all. He'd given a good loaf to one of his other customers, and kept a ruined one for us.

Als bungeejumpen van de hoogste klif ter wereld je geweldig lijkt, zou je dit ook fantastisch vinden. Ik vond het persoonlijk niks.

I felt his shocked alarm. By instinct I pulled him with me towards where the magic was running thinner, as though I really was in a rising river, striking out for a shore. Together we managed to drag ourselves out.

He made her give him gold just to live, as if she belonged to him because he was strong enough to kill her. My father was strong enough to kill me but that did not mean I belonged to him. He sold me for six kopeks, for three pigs, for a jug of krupnik.

Well," I said after a moment, inconsequentially, "I suppose it did work." He stared at me, outrage dawning, and I started laughing, helplessly, almost snorting: I was dizzy with magic and alarm.

It looked as though someone had come through with a pump and inflated everything in the scene by thirty percent, highway and cars and all, before going away satisfied.

You have done a great working. So now he can do another in return. But high magic never comes without a price." "Why is it a great working that we shoved more than half his treasure into a tunnel?" I said, exasperated. "You were challenged beyond the bounds of what could be done, and found a path to make it true," Tsop said.

I didn't know those normal kids and maybe I'd never know them, but each one of them was a story whose unhappy ending hadn't been written yet, and in its place I'd inscribed one line with my own hand

I don't know why Americans won't just talk about the weather like reasonable people

but the rest, I suspected, was the subtler magic of contrast; I didn't imagine Mirnatius showed much courtesy to his servants. "Matas and Vladas," I repeated. "Thank you for your care of my old nanushka, and now let us go inside: you must have a drink of hot krupnik in the kitchen after your long trip.

Sarkan, I said, holding the smoke and thunder of his name in my mouth like a prize, and slid onto him.

I suppose I should've felt sorry for her, but I'd rather be sorry for someone who never had luck at all than for someone whose extreme luck ran out unexpectedly.

Laurence could make no real quarrel with the aims, which were natural and just; but England was at war, after all, and he was conscious, as Temeraire was not, of the impudence in demanding concessions from their own Government under such circumstances: very like mutiny. Yet

Wat heb je nú weer gedaan, stommeling? - De Draak

Onderweg was het Woud van me weg geweken, alsof het bang was dat ik de spreuk anders weer zou opzeggen. Fulmia.

Oh, who am I lying to? My supply of grace wouldn't overflow an acorn cap.

De Draak keerde zich weer naar me om. 'Je bent er dus in geslaagd manschappen hierheen te halen,' merkte hij sarcastisch op.

My anger's a bad guest, my mother likes to say: comes without warning and stays a long time.

Me vino muy bien verlos permanecer allí sentados y no acudir en mi ayuda, porque cuando terminé de gritar por segunda vez y el desollador consiguió entrar, comprendí que estaba totalmente sola y que tendría que apañármelas como pudiera, pues no le importaba a nadie más.