Quotes from Frances Hardinge

She did not hate Clent for the way he had spoken. For most of her life she had been at the mercy of stronger and more powerful people who cared nothing for her. She had always been afraid, and her fear had made her angry.

Like medicine, truth could be used as a poison by someone cunning enough.

At first only Tamarind had noticed the awkward, disquieting way his expressions changed, as if a puppeteer were pulling wires to move his face muscles, and doing it rather badly. Nowadays she saw the fear in everybody's eyes. Her brother was going out of tune like an old piano, and nobody would come to retune his strings. Dukes and kings may go mad at their leisure, for nobody has enough power to stop them.

Mosca felt something enormous swell within the knotted stomach that she hid behind her fists. It seemed it must surge out of her like a wild, black wave, sweeping away stalls and strollers alike and biting the plaster from the walls.

I'm going to get out. Her spirits lurched unsteadily into the air like a wounded pigeon. I'm going to get out of this wormpit of a town. And I will never, never come back here again.

Brand a man as a thief and no one will ever hire him for honest labour – he will be a hardened robber within weeks. The brand does not reveal a person's nature, it shapes it.

Mosca had been so busy working the oars of her little plan that she had failed to see the iceberg upon which it was doomed to founder. And now here it was in front of her, a towering glacial mountain of selfishness, and she could not understand how she could have missed it. How vast was it? How far beneath the surface did it go?

Mandelion spread itself like a butterfly of brick and slate.

Somehow, without noticing, Mosca had become old enough to hear about such things.

Then why couldn't Father see that?" not-Triss felt despair and hurt welling up inside her again, and it was all she could do to stop her teeth from sharpening. "Why couldn't Mother see it?" "Because they're stupid," growled Pen, rubbing at her nose with her sleeve. "They can't tell when real Triss is fake-crying, so of course they can't tell when fake Triss is real-crying.

Mosca had come armed with a rich pack of lies, ready to pick whichever seemed to suit Goshawk's mood best. Under the wintry draught of his gaze, however, she felt most of them wither away in her hands.

Clent, however, suppressed any sense of pity without the slightest difficulty. His brain was busy with the icy clockwork of calculation. If only this young woman's fears were justified! Beamabeth Marlebourne would be unlikely to threaten anybody, locked away inside the Luck's cell for the rest of her life. Such a fate had a tempting poetry to it too, given that she really was the Luck of Toll, and had been all her life.

Would you have her birched in the public square? Baited by dogs perhaps? Madam, we have destroyed her good name, and she will find the world a much colder and darker place as a result. Even now her father is probably changing her name to Buzzletrice.

And you may comfort yourself with the thought that you have been the caltrop under her satin shoe every step of the way. You misdirected the Romantic Facilitator she had hired, you turned up in her own house and reported her plans to her father and when she was on the brink of snatching the ransom you careered in from stage left dressed as a pantomime horse and threw everything into disorder. And then, just when she was probably working her way towards claiming a second ransom, you rescued her.

Why don't we give her a crumb or two of that?" "For the same reason that I do not try to pull a thread free from a cobweb and use it to darn my socks," growled Grandible. "Pull on a thread, and you pull on the whole web. And then out come the spiders . . .

Thank you," she whispered. "I promise I will not interfere in Court business again." "Oh yes, you will." Zouelle looked up to see her uncle regarding her with a sad little smile. "You decided that you were ready to start meddling in the great game. I really hope you were right, Zouelle, because once you start playing it you can never leave. You are in the game now, my dear. There is no going back.

Everything is really something else in disguise. Of course she was no exception, she reminded herself. Everybody would assume that she was there as the Childersins' novelty pet, or as a Perfume-detector. Nobody would guess that she was there to look for the person who had stolen her history.

I lied to you and it was easy, because you believe everybody means what they say. Everyone's lying to you, Neverfell. Everyone. And you can't tell, because you're just not very bright when it comes to people. Brighten up fast, or you're done for.

She could find no join, no place where she ended and Bear started. In that first clumsy embrace of the spirit, they had tangled themselves hopelessly, she supposed. Whatever happened, wherever she went, there would always be Bear. Whoever knew her, or liked her, or loved her, would have to accept Bear. She could even love herself a little now, knowing that she was Bear.

There may be questions still unanswered, but that means that we need science, not that science is useless [...] There are fish in the sea as yet uncaught, but that does not mean that fishing nets have failed and should be thrown aside.

There was a hunger in her, and girls were not supposed to be hungry. They were supposed to nibble sparingly when at table, and their minds were supposed to be satisfied with a slim diet too. A few stale lessons from tired governesses, dull walks, unthinking pastimes. But it was not enough. All knowledge – any knowledge – called to Faith, and there was a delicious, poisonous pleasure in stealing it unseen.

Just between you and me,' Mosca whispered, 'radicalism is all about walkin' on the grass.

I no longer draw up maps – and maps are a Cartographer's love letters to Caverna, his way of serving and worshipping her. She is in my thoughts all the time, but I am no longer her slave." "Then you still . . . love her?" asked Neverfell, struggling with the notion. "More than ever," her companion answered softly.

The Devil has no better friend than an empty belly.