Quotes from Susanna Clarke

The very shapes of the trees were like frozen screams.

Not everything about the Wind was bad. Sometimes it blew through the little voids and crevices of the Statues and caused them to sing and whistle in surprising ways; I had never known the Statues to have voices before and it made me laugh for sheer delight.

The governess was not much liked in the village. She was too tall, too fond of books, too grave, and, a curious thing, never smiled unless there was something to smile at.

I mean that two of any thing is a most uncomfortable number. One may do as he pleases. Six may get along well enough. But two must always struggle for mastery. Two must always watch each other. The eyes of all the world will be on two, uncertain which of them to follow.

It is curious and we magicians collect curiosities, you know.

You mean to say he became mad deliberately?' ...Nothing is more likely,' said the duke.

It is these black clothes, said Strange. I am like a leftover piece of funeral, condemned to walk about the Town, frightening people into thinking of their own mortality.

But when the fairy sang the whole world listened to him. Stephen felt clouds pause in their passing; he felt sleeping hills shift and murmur; he felt cold mists dance. 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.

In my mind are all the tides, their seasons, their ebbs and their flows.

It is my belief that the World (or, if you will, the House, since the two are for all practical purposes identical) wishes an Inhabitant for Itself to be a witness to its Beauty and the recipient of its Mercies. If I leave, then the House will have no Inhabitant and how will I bear the thought of it Empty?

I know magicians and I know magic and I say this: all magicians lie and this one more than most.

Yet it is true—skin can mean a great deal. Mine means that any man may strike me in a public place and never fear the consequences. It means that my friends do not always like to be seen with me in the street. It means that no matter how many books I read, or languages I master, I will never be anything but a curiosity—like a talking pig or a mathematical horse.

After two hours it stopped raining and in the same moment the spell broke, which Peroquet and the Admiral and Captain Jumeau knew by a curious twist of their senses, as if they had tasted a string quartet, or been, for a moment, deafened by the sight of colour blue.

The World feels Complete and Whole, and I, its Child, fit into it seamlessly. Nowhere is there any disjuncture where I ought to remember something but do not, where I ought to understand something but do not.

She even learnt the language of a strange country which Senior Cosetti had been told some people believed still existed, although no-one in the world could say where it was. The name of this country was Wales.

The land is all too shallow It is painted on the sky And trembles like the wind-shook rain When the Raven King passed by

had a long drink of water. It was delicious and refreshing (it had been a cloud only hours before).

Ha!' said the tall man drily. 'He was in high luck. Rich old uncles who die are in shockingly short supply.

But the other Ministers considered that to employ a magician was one thing, novelists were quite another and they would not stoop to it.

There are people in this world, whose lives are nothing but a burden to them. A black veil stands between them and the world. They are utterly alone. They are like shadows in the night, shut off from joy and all gentle human emotions, unable to even give comfort to each other. Their days are full of nothing but darkness, misery and solitude.

you must learn to live as I do - in the face of constant criticism, opposition and censure. That, sir, is the English way.

For there was nothing in his eyes but the black night and the cold stars.

Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.

This experience led me to form a hypothesis: perhaps the wisdom of birds resides, not in the individual, but in the flock, the congregation.