Susanna Clarke Quotes

If I were you, Mr Lascelles," said Childermass, softly, "I would speak more guardedly. You are in the north now. In John Uskglass's own country. Our towns and cities and abbeys were built by him. Our laws were made by him. He is in our minds and hearts andspeech. Were it summer you would see a carpet of tiny flowers beneath every hedgerow, of a bluish-white colour. We call them John's Farthings. When the weather is contrary and we have warm weather in winter or it rains in summer the country people say that JohnUskglass is in love again and neglects his business. And when we are sure of something we say it is as safe as a pebble in John Uskglass's pocket.
Susanna Clarke
Ah, but sir,' said Lascelles, 'it is precisely by passing judgments upon other people's work and pointing out their errors that readers can be made to understand your own opinions better. It is the easiest thing in the world to turn a review to one's own ends. One only need mention the book once or twice and for the rest of the article one may develop one's theme just as one chuses. It is, I assure you, what every body else does.
Susanna Clarke
The Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte had been banished to the island of Elba. However His Imperial Majesty had some doubts wheter a quiet island life would suit him - he was, after all, accustomed to governing a large proportion of the known world.
Susanna Clarke
For, though the room was silent, the silence of half a hundred cats is a peculiar thing, like fifty individual silences all piled one on top of another.
Susanna Clarke
Such nonsense!" declared Dr Greysteel. "Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful!""Except for staring at one in a supercilious manner," said Strange. "That has a sort of moral usefulness, I suppose, in making one feel uncomfortable and encouraging sober reflection upon one's imperfections.
Susanna Clarke
Besides,” said Mr Norrell, “I really have no desire to write reviews of other people's books. Modern publications upon magic are the most pernicious things in the world, full of misinformation and wrong opinions.” “Then sir, you may say so. The ruder you are, the more the editors will be delighted.” “But it is my own opinions which I wish to make better known, not other people's.” “Ah, but, sir,” said Lascelles, “it is precisely by passing judgements upon other people's work and pointing out their errors that readers can be made to understand your own opinions better. It is the easiest thing in the world to turn a review to one's own ends. One only need mention the book once or twice and for the rest of the article one may develop one's theme just as one chuses. It is, I assure you, what every body else does.” “Hmm,” said Mr Norrell thoughtfully, “you may be right. But, no. It would seem as if I were lending support to what ought never to have been published in the first place.
Susanna Clarke
I have been quite put out of temper this morning and someone ought to die for it.
Susanna Clarke
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.
Susanna Clarke
For there was nothing in his eyes but the black night and the cold stars.
Susanna Clarke
I was always amazed at Cambridge how quickly people appeared to take offence at everything I said, but now I see plainly that it was not my words they hated - it was this fairy face. The dark alchemy of this face turns all my gentle human emotions into fierce fairy vices. Inside I am all despair, but this face shows only fairy scorn. My remorse becomes fairy fury and my pensiveness is turned to fairy cunning.
Susanna Clarke
[A] smile is the most becomingornament that any lady can wear.
Susanna Clarke
It is the right of a traveller to vent their frustration at every minor inconvenience by writing of it to their friends.
Susanna Clarke
I have no cause to love Mr. Norrell- far from it. But I know this about him: he is a magician first and everything else second- and Jonathan is the same. Books and magic are all either of them really care about.
Susanna Clarke
For a moment or two before the spell took effect, he was aware of all the sounds around him: rain splashing on metal and leather, and running down canvas; horses shuffling and snorting; Englishmen singing and Scotsmen playing bagpipes; two Welsh soldiers arguing over the proper interpretation of a Bible passage; the Scottish captain, John Kincaid, entertaining the American savages and teaching them to drink tea (presumably with the idea that once a man had learnt to drink tea, the other habits and qualities that make up a Briton would naturally follow).Then silence. Men and horses began to disappear, few by few at first, and then more quickly – hundreds, thousands of them vanishing from sight. Great gaps appeared among the close-packed soldiers. A little further to the east an entire regiment was gone, leaving a hole the size of Hanover-square. Where, moments before, all had been life, conversation and activity, there was now nothing but the rain and the twilight and the waving stalks of rye. Strange wiped his mouth because he felt sick.
Susanna Clarke
He had discovered that it was easier – far easier than any one could have supposed – to make oneself mad, but like all magic it was full of obstacles and frustrations. Even if he succeeded in summoning the fairy (which did not seem very likely), he would be in nocondition to talk to him. Every book he had ever read on the subject urged magicians to be on their guard when dealing with fairies. Just when he needed all his wits, he would have scarcely any wits at all.
Susanna Clarke
That will teach me to meddle with magic meant for kings! Norrell is right. Some magic is not meant for ordinary magicians. Presumably John Uskglass knew what to do with this horrible knowledge. I do not.
Susanna Clarke
It was as if a door had opened somewhere. Or possibly a series of doors. There was a sensation as of a breeze blowing into the house and bringing with it the half-rememberedscents of childhood. There was a shift in the light which seemed to cause all the shadows in the room to fall differently. There was nothing more definite than that, and yet, as oftenhappens when some magic is occurring, both Drawlight and the lady had the strongest impression that nothing in the visible world could be relied upon any more. It was as if one might put out one's hand to touch any thing in the room and discover it was no longerthere.
Susanna Clarke
Ha!" he thought. “That will teach me to meddle with magic meant for kings! Norrell is right. Some magic is not meant for ordinary magicians. Presumably John Uskglass knew what to do with this horrible knowledge. I do not. Should I tell someone? The Duke? He will not thank me for it.
Susanna Clarke
Ha!" cried Dr John contemptuously. "Magic! That is chiefly used for killing Frenchmen, is it not?
Susanna Clarke
For the rest of the night he sat by himself under the elm-tree. Until this moment it had never seemed to him that his magicianship set him apart from other men. But now he had glimpsed the wrong side of something. He had the eeriest feeling - as if the world were growing older around him, and the best part of existence - laughter, love and innocence - were slipping irrevocably into the past.
Susanna Clarke
The pools had been written onto the fields by the rain. The pools were a magic worked by the rain, just as the tumbling of the black birds against the grey was a spell that the sky was working and the motion of grey-brown grasses was a spell that the wind made. Everything had meaning.
Susanna Clarke
Bright yellow leaves flowed swiftly upon the dark, almost-black water, making patterns as they went. To Mr. Segundus the patterns looked a little like magical writing. 'But then,' he thought, 'So many things do.
Susanna Clarke
Above all remember this: that magic belongs as much to the heart as to the head and everything which is done, should be done from love or joy or righteous anger.
Susanna Clarke
Captain Harcourt-Bruce was not only dashing, handsome, and brave, he was also rather romantic. The reappearance of magic in England thrilled him immensely. He was a great reader of the more exciting sort of history - and his head was full of ancient battles in which the English were outnumbered by the French and doomed to die, when all at once would be heard the sound of strange, unearthly music, and upon a hilltop would appear the Raven King in his tall, black helmet with it's mantling of raven-feathers streaming in the wind; he would gallop down the hillside on his tall, black horse with a hundred human knights and a hundred fairy knights at his back, and he would defeat the French by magic.That was Captain Harcourt-Bruce's idea of a magician. That was the sort of thing which he now expected to see reproduced on every battlefield on the Continent. So when he saw Mr Norrell in his drawing-room in Hanoversquare, and after he had sat and watched Mr Norrell peevishly complain to his footman, first that the cream in his tea was too creamy, and next that it was too watery - well, I shall not surprize you when I say he was somewhat disappointed. In fact he was so downcast by the whole undertaking that Admiral Paycocke, a bluff old gentleman, felt rather sorry for him and only had the heart to laugh at him and tease him very moderately about it.
Susanna Clarke
It seemed that it was not only live magicians which Mr. Norrell despised. He had taken the measure of all the dead ones too and found them wanting.
Susanna Clarke
When you're writing, you're creating something out of nothing ... A successful piece of writing is like doing a successful piece of m
Susanna Clarke
Beware Stephen! There will probably be a magical combat of some sort. I daresay I shall have to take on different forms – cockatrice, raw head and bloody bones, rains of fire, etc., etc. You may wish to stand back a little!
Susanna Clarke
Perhaps I am too tame, too domestic a magician. But how does one work up a little madness? I meet with mad people every day in the street, but I never thought before to wonder how they got mad. Perhaps I should go wandering on lonely moors and barren shores. That is always a popular place for lunatics - in novels and plays at any rate. Perhaps wild England will make me mad.
Susanna Clarke
But the other Ministers considered that to employ a magician was one thing, novelists were quite another and they would not stoop to it.
Susanna Clarke
Magic, madam, is like wine and, if you are not used to it, it will make you drunk.
Susanna Clarke
I am, as far as I can tell, about a month behind Lord Byron. In every town we stop at we discover innkeepers, postillions, officials, burghers, potboys, and all kinds and sorts of ladies whose brains still seem somewhat deranged from their brief exposure to his lordship. And though my companions are careful to tell people that I am that dreadful being, an English magician, I am clearly nothing in comparison to an English poet and everywhere I go I enjoy the reputation- quite new to me, I assure you- of the quiet, good Englishman, who makes no noise and is no trouble to any one...
Susanna Clarke
Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange.Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.
Susanna Clarke
It might well appear to Sir Walter that there had been no quarrel. It was often the case that gentlemen did not observe the signs.
Susanna Clarke
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.
Susanna Clarke
Where have they gone?" "Wherever magicians used to go. Behind the sky. On the other side of the rain.
Susanna Clarke
There is nothing else in magic but the wild thought of the bird as it casts itself into the void. There is no creature upon the earth with such potential for magic. Even the least of them may fly straight out of this world and come by chance to the Other Lands. Where does the wind come from that blows upon your face, that fans the pages of your book? Where the harum-scarum magic of small wild creatures meets the magic of Man, where the language of the wind and the rain and the trees can be understood, there we will find the Raven King.
Susanna Clarke
It may be laid down as a general rule that if a man begins to sing, no one will take any notice of his song except his fellow human beings. This is true even if his song is surpassingly beautiful. Other men may be in raptures at his skill, but the rest of creation is, by and large, unmoved. Perhaps a cat or a dog may look at him; his horse, if it is an exceptionally intelligent beast, may pause in cropping the grass, but that is the extent of it. 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.
Susanna Clarke
Oh! And they read English novels! David! Did you ever look into an English novel? Well, do not trouble yourself. It is nothing but a lot of nonsense about girls with fanciful names getting married.
Susanna Clarke
I was told once by some country people that a magician should never tell his dreams because the telling will make them come true. But I say that is great nonsense.
Susanna Clarke
Time and I have quarrelled. All hours are midnight now. I had a clock and a watch, but I destroyed them both. I could not bear the way they mocked me.
Susanna Clarke
When you're writing, you're creating something out of nothing ... A successful piece of writing is like doing a successful piece of magic.", 6 March 2012]
Susanna Clarke
Most of us are naturally inclined to struggle against the restrictions our friends and family impose upon us, but if we are so unfortunate as to lose a loved one, what a difference then! Then the restriction becomes a sacred trust.
Susanna Clarke
He said, "Were he only like his sister—what a difference that would make! For there never was such a sweet and gentle lady! I hear her footsteps, as she goes about the world. I hear the swish-swish-swish of her silken gown and the jingle-jangle of the silver chain about her neck. Her smile is full of comfort and her eyes are kind and happy! How I long to see her!" "Who, sir?" asked Paramore, puzzled. "Why, his sister, John. His sister.
Susanna Clarke