Quotes from Frances Hardinge

Mosca said nothing. The word 'damsel' rankled with her. She suddenly thought of the clawed girl from the night before, jumping the filch on an icy street. Much the same age and build as Beamabeth, and far more beleaguered. What made a girl a 'damsel in distress'? Were they not allowed claws? Mosca had a hunch that if all damsels had claws they would spend a lot less time 'in distress'.

Desperation is a millstone. It wears away at the very soul, grinding away pity, kindness, humanity and courage. But sometimes it whets the mind to a sharpened point and creates moments of true brilliance. And standing there, nose tickled by the dusty hide of the stuffed deer head, such a moment visited Mosca Mye.

It is terribly bad form to admit to being terrified for one's life, but nobody in their right mind would go to a Court banquet without making preparations. One must have the right costume, the right Faces, and at least eighty-two ways of avoiding assassination.

Mosca and Saracen shared, if not a friendship, at least the solidarity of the generally despised. Mosca assumed that Saracen had his reasons for his persecution of terriers and his possessive love of the malthouse roof. In turn, when Mosca had interrupted Saracen's self-important nightly patrol and scooped him up, Saracen had assumed that she too had her reasons.

Making a wish is like saying, 'I can't deal with anything, I give up, somebody bigger come along and solve it all instead.

Human fear has a terrible power. It changes everything, distorts everything, maddens everything. Fear is the dark womb where monsters are born and thrive.

I can't think straight. But why am I trying to do that anyway? Everybody else thinks straight. That's why nobody expects me to think zigzag-hop.

People were animals, and animals were nothing but teeth. You bit first, and you bit often. That was the only way to survive.

In an instant he saw the delusion of his five hundred years. He was not looking into a box; he was looking out of one. All these centuries his mind, his body, his world had been a box of horrors. He took one last breath, then pushed open the lid of his prison and escaped.

But easier, she reminded herself, was not the same as better.

Pull on a thread, and you pull on the whole web. And then out come the spiders . . .

It is easy to love power, because power tells you it is majesty and beauty and greatness.

She had big, vague eyes and a big, vague smile, and was always very busy in the way that a moth crashing about in a lampshade is busy.

Oh, painted smirk of a hopeless dawn, the girl is still wearing her breeches...

Habits, places and faces grew into you over time, like tree roots burrowing into stone work.

Everybody betrayed her, so why expect otherwise? But it turned out that distrust could fool you and endanger you, just as trust could.

Well, they set spiders and snakes on me for a bit and blew me up and there was this really scary cake, but it's mostly all right now, I think. Except I don't ever want any more cake. Look!

We thought ourselves kings of the ages. Now we find that all our civilisation has been nothing but a brief, brightly lit nursery, where we have played with paper crowns and wooden sceptres.

You could keep people alive forever through stories.

It was hopeless. She was flawless. She was a sunbeam. Mosca gave up and got on with hating her.

She dreamed of a world where books did not rot or give way to green blot, where words and ideas were not things you were despised for treasuring.

All these years I've been...I'm...' He still seemed to be choking. 'I'm...an orphan. I'm...I'm alone. I'm...I'm...I'm...free.' He pushed himself up on one elbow, staring at his hands as if for the first time they had become his own. 'I can...I can do anything. I can leave Jealousy! I can break my spectacles and run off barefoot to become a...a...cobbler! I can...I can marry my housekeeper! Do I have a housekeeper? I never had time to notice! But now I can get a housekeeper! And marry her!

Do you know what courage is? Not a willingness to fling oneself into danger without proper thought – that is nothing, nothing. There is cowardice in all impulse. Real courage lies in thinking things through, seeing all the risks, and taking them anyway. Lady Tamarind has courage.

My good lady,' interrupted Clent, 'are you telling me that he is not the Luck? That you have in some way obfuscated the chronology of his nativity?' Seconds passed. A beetle flew into Mistress Leap's hair while she stared at Clent, then it struggled free and flew off again. 'Did you lie about when he was born?' translated Mosca.