Quotes from Susanna Clarke

The brown fields were partly flooded; they were strung with chains of chill, grey pools. The pattern of the pools had meaning. The pools had been written on to the fields by the rain. The pools were a magic worked by the rain, just as the tumbling of the black birds against the grey was a spell that the sky was working and the motion of grey-brown grasses was a spell that the wind made. Everything had meaning.

But these people were judged very stupid by their friends. Was not Jonathan Strange known to be precisely the sort of whimsical, contradictory person who would publish against himself?

Mr Murray was sorry to find that his two authors could not agree better, but he reflected that it probably could not be helped since both men were famous for quarrelling: Strange with Norrell, and Byron with practically everybody.3 When

Another room was almost empty except for a doll's house standing on a table in the middle of the floor; the doll's house was an exact copy of the real house–except that inside the doll's house a number of smartly dressed dolls were enjoying a peaceful and rational existence together...

The idea of forty precious volumes being taken into a country in a state of war where they might get burnt, blown up, drowned or dusty was almost too horrible to contemplate. Mr Norrell did not know a great deal about war, but he suspected that soldiers are not generally your great respecters of books. They might put their dirty fingers on them. They might tear them! They might – horror of horrors! – read them and try the spells! Could soldiers read? Mr Norrell did not know.

Arabella, like a sweet, compliant woman and good wife, put all thoughts of her new curtains aside for the moment and assured both gentlemen that in such a cause it was no trouble to her to wait.

Though all the houses of Venice are strange and old, those of the Ghetto seemed particularly so – as if queerness and ancientness were two of the commodities this mercantile people dealt in and they had constructed their houses out of them. Though all the streets of Venice are melancholy, these streets had a melancholy that was quite distinct – as if Jewish sadness and Gentile sadness were made up according to different recipes. Yet

she feared he would never profit by it for it was not the fashion to be modest and quiet and kind-hearted.

Books and papers are the basis of good scholarship and sound knowledge," declared Mr Norrell primly. "Magic is to be put on the same footing as the other disciplines.

In peacetime some sort of introduction is generally required to make a person's acquaintance; in war a small eatable will perform the same office.)

If magic does not have friends in Yorkshire where may we find them?

Sir Walter took this to mean he had not –which Sir Walter was glad of, for Sir Walter thought a great deal of a man's having a profession and believed that useful, steady occupation might cure many things which other remedies could not.

As a scientist and an explorer I have a duty to bear witness to the splendours of the world.

In person he was rather tall and his figure was considered good. Some people thought him handsome, but this was not by any means the universal opinion. His face had two faults: a long nose and an ironic expression. 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.

As well as my regular meetings with the Other and the quiet, consolatory presence of the Dead, there are the birds. Birds are not difficult to understand. Their behaviour tells me what they are thinking. Generally it runs along the lines of: Is this food? Is this? What about this? This might be food. I am almost certain that this is. Or occasionally: It is raining. I do not like it.

Ela usava um vestido da cor das tempestades, das sombras e da chuva, e um colar de promessas quebradas e arrependimentos.

Several people seized Strange bodily. One man started shaking him vigorously, as though he thought that he might in this way dispel any magic before it took effect.

Lord Wellington is in the Lines." It was a very curious phrase and if Strange had been obliged to hazard a guess at its meaning he believed he would have said it was some sort of slang for being drunk.

There are books about magic and there are books of magic, and the price of the latter is far above rubies.

Napoleon Buonaparte, it was said, was scouring France to find a magician of his own – but with no success. In London the Ministers were quite astonished to find that, for once, they had done something the Nation approved.

Why did you think he described the other world—the one he said he went to most often—as a labyrinth?' Ketterley shrugged. 'A vision of cosmic grandeur, I suppose. A symbol of the mingled glory and horror of existence. No one gets out alive.

There are some things which have no business being put into books for all the world to read.

Mi sono reso conto che la ricerca della Conoscenza ci ha incoraggiato a pensare alla Casa come se fosse una sorta di enigma da sciogliere, un testo da interpretare, e che se mai scoprissimo la Conoscenza, allora sarebbe come se alla Casa venisse strappato via il valore lasciando soltanto una semplice scenografia. (...) La Casa ha valore in sé perché è la Casa. È sufficiente già di per sé. Non è un mezzo per arrivare a un fine.

Of all the tiresome situations in the world, thought the Prince Regent, the most tiresome was to rise from one's bed in a state of uncertainty as to whether or not one was the ruler of Great Britain.