Gail Carriger Quotes

I hate missing everything. That's why I want to marry well and be a grand lady. Then I can host all the parties, all the time, and see everything that is going on always. How can you stand not knowing?
Gail Carriger
I never gossip. I observe. And then relay my observations to practically everyone.
Gail Carriger
The monkeys, she explained, were considered reincarnated politicians, which made Rue laugh and the stick entirely understandable.
Gail Carriger
Lady Maccon stopped suddenly. Her husband got four long strides ahead before he realized she had paused. She was starring thoughtfully up into the aether, twirling the deadly parasol about her head."I have just remembered something," Alexia said when he returned to her side."Oh, that explains everything. How foolish of me to think you could walk and remember at the same time.
Gail Carriger
The important question is, what will your wear for a wedding dress, Alexia? You look horrible in white.
Gail Carriger
That's a very murky position," objected Felix."So's the weather. But this is England, we must learn to live with uncertainty.
Gail Carriger
Consider the necessary, analyze the consequences, clean up the mess.
Gail Carriger
Chasing ghosts while pursued by daemons...
Gail Carriger
He might have lost his mind, but never his fashion sense.
Gail Carriger
Mortals trotted about in shoes and corsets made to limit movement, fashion for prey.
Gail Carriger
She took a moment to lament her lack of parasol. Every time she left the house, she felt keenly the absence of her heretofore ubiquitous accessory.
Gail Carriger
What do you want?" Sophronia was moved to exasperation."Me? Stockings and breeches to come back in fashion. I do miss seeing a man's calves.
Gail Carriger
Gavin tried not to stare at the lobster. He decided not to inquire further. Whatever Jack's reasoning, best to accept that crustaceans were necessary to his view of the world.
Gail Carriger
After four marriages, and four deaths, she had everything in life a woman might desire: titled position, swollen coffers, the freedom to travel, and a world that accepted her because it was afraid of her.
Gail Carriger
Most girls recently out of finishing school are like soufflés: puffed up, not very substantial inside, and prone to collapsing at the slightest provocation.
Gail Carriger
Sophronia and Dimity took a vacant love seat at the front, Sophronia dislodging a large, fluffy cat with a scrunched-up face. The cat gave her a disgusted look. Or seemed to; it was hard to tell with that face.
Gail Carriger
Madame Lefoux accepted a cup of tea and sat on another little settee, next to the relocated calico cat. The cat clearly believed Madame Lefoux was there to provide chin scratches. Madame Lefoux provided.
Gail Carriger
Cats were not, in her experience, an animal with much soul. Prosaic, practical little creatures as a general rule. It would suit her very well to be thought catlike.
Gail Carriger
After every unladylike action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction. Consider the necessary, analyze the consequences, clean up the mess.
Gail Carriger
Tonight I crash an airship. On purpose.
Gail Carriger
His eyes are peculiar. There is nothing in them, like an eclair without the cream filling. It's wrong, lack of cream.
Gail Carriger
Here, I stole it for you. Why don’t you tell me what it’s for.”“Aw, Sophronia, how thoughtful. You brought me a present!
Gail Carriger
It had taken her a good deal of time before she believed that she was worth all that fierce affection he lavished upon her. To have it stolen away unjustly was that much more cruel.
Gail Carriger
But we were talking about me and my problems."Sophronia looked Monique up and down gravely."I don't think we're going to solve those in the space of one carriage ride.
Gail Carriger
I suppose that saves us from having to determine what to do with a butler who goes around killing people. It certainly reflects badly upon our domestic staff. Still, I shall miss him. There was a man who knew how to brew a good cup of tea.
Gail Carriger
Lyall's face went deadpan as he relayed the details, as those who are tortured or raped will become when they retell the pattern of abuse
Gail Carriger
It didn't feel sporting to shoot at a crazy person, even if that person was a vampire who'd agreed to the job.
Gail Carriger
The vampire's eyes were open, and he was staring at her intently. It was as though he were trying to speak to her with simply the power of a glare.Alexia did not speak glare-ish.
Gail Carriger
It is a valuable thing for an intelligencer to be forgotten.
Gail Carriger
[She] lost her patience, a thing she was all too prone to misplacing.
Gail Carriger
One could not blame a people for disliking vampires. Vampires were like brussels sprouts - not for everyone and impossible to improve upon with sauce.
Gail Carriger
And vampires were perverted. Or so she hoped
Gail Carriger
What if all those strange and unexplainable bends in history were the result of supernatural interference? At which point I asked myself, what's the weirdest most eccentric historical phenomenon of them all? Answer:the Great British Empire. Clearly, one tiny little island could only conquer half the known world with supernatural aid. Those absurd Victorian manners and ridiculous fashions were obviously dictated by vampires. And, without a doubt, the British army regimental system functions on werewolf pack dynamics.
Gail Carriger
Alexia wondered what it said about her character that Ivy had genuinely believed she would intentionally go climbing about the side of a floating dirigible.
Gail Carriger
Having delivered the expected daily miracle, Floote stood in his usual stance and warily watched the Templars work.
Gail Carriger
We're a team like tea and milk, or cake and custard, or pork and apple.
Gail Carriger
Ivy was particularly adept at being ignorant but could cause extensive havoc with the smallest scrap of information.
Gail Carriger
For you, it's gossip. For me, it's action.
Gail Carriger
Felicity was horrible and snide, but then Felicity had been a repulsive earwig ever since she first grew a vocabulary.
Gail Carriger
The Earl of Woolsey was indeed completely nude. He did not seem particularly perturbed by this fact, but Miss Tarabotti felt the sudden need to close her eyes tight and think about asparagus or something equally mundane.
Gail Carriger
He has been mad for you these many months, ever since you prodded him in the nether regions with a hedgehog.
Gail Carriger
Great, Alexia thought, I have gone from soul sucker to electrical ground. The epithets just get sweeter and sweeter.
Gail Carriger
Sophronia felt bound to object. "I, for one, should prefer not to shoot at someone I like.""Admirable scruples, Miss Temminnick. Get over them. For you will do it anyway.
Gail Carriger
I like fish," chirruped Tunstell."Really, Mr. Tunstell? What is your preferred breed?""Well"--Tunstell hesitated--"you know, the um, ones that"--he made a swooping motion with both hands--"uh, swim.
Gail Carriger
But I don't want to be a vampire drone.' Sophronia winced. 'They'll suck my blood and make me wear only the very latest fashions.
Gail Carriger
...you have been fraternizing with warewolves overmuch! Military men can be terribly bad for one's verbal concatenation!
Gail Carriger
Where were the scientific pamphlets that taught a woman how to listen to herself die?
Gail Carriger
Trust is a lot to ask of someone.
Gail Carriger
Oh, Major, you do so love to annoy, don't you?""It is the stuff of living, my lady.
Gail Carriger
The Rakshasa," said Percy pedantically, "are a different breed altogether from our vampires. Much in the same way that poodles and dachshunds are different breeds of dog. Rakshasas are reviled in India. Their position as tax collectors is an attempts by the crown to integrate them in a more progressive and mundane manner."Rue said, "Oh, how logical. Because we all know ordaining someone as a tax collector is the surest way to get them accepted by society.
Gail Carriger
We like the shadows. That's where all the power is.
Gail Carriger
Alexia figured, delightedly, that this meant he did, in fact, tend to traipse around his private apartments in the altogether. Marriage was becoming more and more of an attractive prospect.
Gail Carriger
Just because history says it isn't possible doesn't mean that there aren't exceptions.
Gail Carriger
There was a pleasantness to the air and a spirit about the town that did not come from its color, but from some inner, tasty citrus quality. It made Alexia wonder fancifully if cities could have souls.
Gail Carriger
And I find perfect beauty excessively boring, don't you?
Gail Carriger
Highland werewolves had a reputation for doing atrocious and highly unwarranted *things*, like wearing smoking jackets to the dinner table.
Gail Carriger
I mean to say, really, I am near to developing a neurosis - is there anyone around who doesn't want to study or kill me?"Floote raised a tentative hand."Ah, yes, thank you, Floote.""There is also Mrs Tunstell, madam," he offered hopefully, is if Ivy were some kind of consolation prize."I notice you don't mention my fair-weather husband.""I suspect, at this moment, madam, he probably wants to kill you."Alexia couldn't help smiling. "Good point.
Gail Carriger
I suspect it may be like the difference between a drinker and an alcoholic; the one merely reads books, the other needs books to make it through the
Gail Carriger
I think we seldom regret the risks we take as much as the times we did not try at all.
Gail Carriger
The ill-informed masses included her own family among their ranks, a family that specialized in being both inconvenient and asinine.
Gail Carriger