T. Kingfisher Quotes

Summer had never had a father, and wasn't entirely sure what you did with one.

Would you like some wine, or would you prefer to yell at me for a little longer?" asked the Beast pleasantly. "I could leave, if you prefer, but I generally hold that those who leave the room when you wish to yell at them are among the most despicable of beings.

It's a long drive. It's pretty, actually, if you go through West Virginia, but of course then you're in West Virginia.

I fear that I am not the best possible person for this, but I am the best possible person available at this time, which is much the same thing.

The carver had clearly heard of the golden ratio and wanted no truck with it.

Artists are odd," said Mousebones, walking around the man in blue. "Even for humans."

That the Beast was a person, Bryony did not even question, but then, she believed on some level that Fumblefoot was a person, and Blackie the goat, and the neighbor's large and grumpy tomcat. It was not that she was sentimental about animals. Chickens, for example, were not people. You looked into a chicken's eyes and you saw the back of their skulls.

Perhaps Welsh fairies stole children and confiscated their vowels.

If dogs had religion, Satan would be the UPS guy.

Ah,' said Zultan. 'I, too. I keep many books at my home.' He gestured to the books in the tent. 'These are only a few. Those I think might need on this trip, and those I have yet to read and might want, and those old friends that I cannot bear to leave behind.

She was still going somewhere terrible, but she had a hedgehog, damnit.

She had presumably decided that the problem was the village, and if everybody in the village was gone, they would have to bring John back to take care of her. It was the sort of plan a child would come up with - simple, self-centered, and utterly heartless.

She brutalized flour and butter, she visited wartime atrocities to milk and yeast. She committed acts of crumpet.

Saving a single wondrous thing is better than saving the world. For one thing, it's more achievable. The world is never content to stay saved.

She did not know many beautiful animals that had sweet tempers, except perhaps butterflies. Then again, there wasn't enough to a butterfly to properly be called a temper. That options did an angry butterfly have, anyway? Stamping eylashed-sized feet? Flapping its wings in a sarcastic manner?

- but the world is unfair, and sometimes we must use that unfairness to our advantage.

The problem with crying in the woods, by the side of a white road that leads somewhere terrible, is that the reason for crying isn't inside your head. You have a perfectly legitimate and pressing reason for crying, and it will still be there in five minutes, except that your throat will be raw and your eyes will itch and absolutely nothing else will have changed.

Oh. Yes. There would be someone, wouldn't there? Of course there would be a person. Ask at the farmhouse did not mean that you addressed your questions to the front porch. She had not thought it through.

What's going to happen?" asked Rhea. "I was a witch, not a fortune teller," said Maria testily. "No one knows what's going to happen.

You just didn't bring a pitchfork to a swan fight.

The hole in your heart is very large. Be careful what you allow to fill it.

Oh dear God, no, stop!"

Fumblefoot gave her a reproachful look. Stop what?

I have broken into an enchanted manor house and my pony has crapped on the floor. Oh God.

-Bryony and Roses by T. Kingfisher

That it was a wolf was somewhat comforting. Wolves talked occasionally. So did bears. Foxes talked all the time, particularly if you caught them in the hen house, where they would do their best to addle you with fine nonsense until they could slip out the door, and it was generally believed that all cats could talk and simply refused to do so for inscrutable reasons of their own.

Chickens, for example, were not people. You looked into a chicken's eyes and you saw the back of the chicken's eyeball.

Summer had read a great many books about magic and animals and changing your shape. Summer's mother believed that books were safe things that kept you inside, which only shows how little she knew about it, because books are one of the least safe things in the world.)

Don't stop me," said Bryony. "I'm pulling a weed. This is amazing.

That sort doesn't like to admit she's been reduced to stealing food, thought the cook. Poor soul! It's only a few apples. Lord, if you're watching, those apples are freely given. You don't hold them against her soul. (The cook was in the habit of lecturing the Lord, whom she considered a colleague.)

They pretended they weren't there as guards and Nessilka pretended her goblins weren't being guarded, and everyone was reasonably happy. Thumper

It was starting to get impatient. A hedgehog hopping irritably on its hind legs is a tragic sight.

Bob," I say, "a man who is no longer interested in the genetics of inbred hillbilly water unicorns is a man who is no longer interested in life. I am afraid for your priorities, son."

Oh no, a human feeling awkward. How terrible.

Words are like fish and you catch them and you get to keep them forever." "And

It was as if the words they spoke were weaving a kind of net, a net of normalcy and propriety and sanity, around a situation that was anything but. The

Oh deaf Gog, no, stop!"

Fumblefoot gave her a reproachful look. Stop what?

"I have broken into an enchanted manor house and my pony has crapped on the floor. Oh God.

Do you have a name?" asked Gerta. "I do," said the raven. Gerta waited. The raven fluffed its beard. "I am the Sound of Mouse Bones Crunching Under the Hooves of God."

Yes," agreed the Rain Wife. "That is the price your village paid. You will never love them with your whole heart again. The shadow of what they did in fear will lie between you forever. But they will be alive, nonetheless, and learning to bridge that shadowーor deciding not toーis the work of adulthood.

I'm suggesting that if you're going to bring hell down upon someone's head, you should dress for the occasion.

Nobody tortures people at home. It ruins the carpets.

Roses have thorns. That's the price of roses. When you start to forget that, that's when things go wrong.

What would you say if I tortured you?" asked the bandit leader conversationally.
Halla blinked at him. "Err, 'Ow,' probably. 'Stop, Stop, Stop,' something like that?" *What a bizarre question. What does he expect me to say?*

I don't know why I'm second-guessing Crevan's sanity - I'm sitting here talking to a hedgehog mime.

No matter how pale and pure and perfect you are, the moon is even more perfect.

She engaged in a few moments of recreational xenophobia, which didn't help at all but did pass the time. Someone

The Beast looked faintly alarmed.
"Don't worry, I never stab anyone twice in the same hour. I don't want them to think I'm unoriginal."
"I confess, I am more afraid you will clip me bald."
"Vain Beast.

Goblin tea resembles a nice cup of Earl Grey in much the same way that a catfish resembles the common tabby. They share a name, but one is a nice thing to curl up with on a rainy afternoon, and the other is found in the muck at the bottom of polluted rivers and has bits of debris sticking to it.

Bryony closed her eyes. I am making an enchanted house sad. God help me.

One of the grimmer realizations of Sarkis's youth had been the discovery that knowing you were being an ass did not actually stop you from continuing to be an ass.

The stone angel did not swoop down from the fountain to carry her off, although honestly, being carried off by an angel did not seem like too terrible a fate at the moment. She

I'm not supposed to be the reliable one here! I'm supposed to be the one who stabs people for money, and this lovesick bullshit of yours is seriously cramping my style!

I am a lawyer and a priest," said Zale. "There is probably someone on earth more bound to confidentiality, but I have yet to meet them.

Between one stride and the next, the herd of reindeer faded away. She felt a last few ghosts go with her, shoulder on shoulder, and then they too were gone and she was back, alone, in the world of humans and ravens.

People do the stupidest shit and you want to scream that it's against their own interests and you never know if they're playing some deep game you don't know about or if they're really just that stupid.

Really stupid people die all the time. And if they can manage it, I oughta have no problem.

Sorry, guys. We're not all tragic heroes. Some of us are just tragic.

But he's mad, completely mad, and he turns his wives into golems. He needs killing, not negotiation.

The Forester patted a log next to her. 'Come and sit, child. Tell me about your journey, and start a little before the beginning, because we are usually wrong about where things begin.

Unlike the mice, gremlins really were a problem. If you ground one into flour on accident, the bread had a tendency to explode in the oven, or bleed when you cut into it, or turn into a flock of starlings and tear around the cottage shrieking, and then people came around and had words with the miller, many of which had only four letters and involved hand gestures.

Oh good," said the Beast dryly. "Here I was afraid that I had kidnapped a sane person by mistake." "If you are going to kidnap travelers, you will simply have to take what you can get," snapped Bryony.