Quotes from Susanna Clarke

I left the Embrace of the Faun and wandered miserably through the House. I believed that I was mad – or that I had been mad – or else that I was becoming mad now. Whichever way it was, it was a terrifying prospect. After a while I decided that this way of going on did no good at all.

But though the magician particularly asked to be taken there alone, his dear friends, Mr. Drawlight and Mr. Lascelles, were not so unkind as to leave him to face this great crisis of his career alone

May the House in its Beauty shelter us both.

Even know, as I write the words, I begin to feel anxious again. A crowd of images stirs in my mind — strange, nightmarish, but at the same time oddly familiar. The word 'Birmingham', for example, brings with it a blare of noise, a flash of movement and colour and the fleeting image of towers and spires against a heavy grey sky. I try to catch hold of these impressions, to examine them further, but instantly they fade.)

At the last moment the albatross swung over my left shoulder. I fell to the Pavement. He flapped his wings in a frantic, panicked sort of way, stuck out his wiry pink legs and tumbled out of the Air into a sort of heap on the Pavement. In the Air he was a miraculous being – a Heavenly Being – but on the Stones of the Pavement he was mortal and subject to the same embarrassments and clumsiness as other mortals.

They have Matthew Rose Sorensen back – or so they believe. A man with his face and voice and gestures moves about the world, and that is enough for them.

I am an anamnesiologist. I study what has been forgotten. I divine what has disappeared utterly. I work with absences, with silences, with curious gaps between things.

Even now, as I write the words, I begin to feel anxious again. A crowd of images stirs in my mind — strange, nightmarish, but at the same time oddly familiar. The word 'Birmingham', for example, brings with it a blare of noise, a flash of movement and colour and the fleeting image of towers and spires against a heavy grey sky. I try to catch hold of these impressions, to examine them further, but instantly they fade.)

And so I have to ask myself: whose memory is at fault? Mine or his? [...] Two memories. Two bright minds which remember past events differently

I returned to the Third Northern Hall. I lined a fishing net with heavy-gauge plastic. Inside I placed what I thought was the right amount of nesting material for two such enormous birds. It approximated to three days' fuel. This was no insignificant amount and I knew that I might be colder because I had given it away. But what is a few days of feeling cold compared to a new albatross in the World?

The House was particularly silent. No birds flew; no birds sang. Where had they all gone? It seemed they found the cloud-haunted World as oppressive as I did. In the Sixth Western Hall I found them at last. They were gathered there, perched on the Shoulders and Heads of every Statue, on Plinths and on Columns, sitting silently, waiting.

I remember how the smell of the rain that pervaded the streets did not die away as I entered, but somehow intensified; inside the house there was a smell of rain, clouds and air, a smell of limitless space. A smell of the sea.

Night fishing is best, when the fish are drawn to play in spots of bright Moonlight and are easy to see.

Even then I knew that the Tides were not random. I saw that if I could record and document them, I might be able to predict their appearance. That was the beginning of my Table.

This experience led me to form a hypothesis: perhaps the wisdom of birds resides, not in the individual, but in the flock, the congregation. I have tried to think of an experiment that would test this theory. The problem, as I see it, is that it is impossible to know in advance when such events will occur; and so the only viable course of action is months – more likely years – of careful observation and meticulous record keeping.

So this, as far as I can tell, is what the birds told me. A message from afar. Obscure Writing. Innocence eroded.

Piranesi. It is what he calls me. Which is strange because as far as I can remember it is not my name.

do not understand why this sentence is in the past tense. The World still speaks to me every day.

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. While ample for a brief neighbourly

I have known for many years that The Other does not revere the House in the same way I do, but it still shocks me when he talks like this. How can a man as intelligent as him say there is nothing alive in this House?

He raised his arms and in sonorous tones he called on Addy Domarus several times and in several different ways to Come! Come!

In 'Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell,' I wanted to create the most convincing story of magic and magicians that I could.

I had to restrain myself from buying a book on 19th-century fruit knives.

One way of grounding the magic is by putting in lots of stuff about street lamps, carriages, and how difficult it is to get good servants.