Naomi Novik Quotes

Laurence," Granby said at his shoulder, "in the hurry, the ammunition was all laid in its usual place on the left, though we are not carrying the bombs to balance it out; we ought to restow."
"Can you have it done before we engage? Oh, good Lord," Laurence said, realizing. "I do not even know the position of the convoy; do you?" Granby shook his head, embarrassed, and Laurence swallowed his pride and shouted, "Berkley, where are we going?"
A general explosion of mirth ran among the men on Maximus's back. Berkley called back, "Straight to Hell, ha ha!" More laughter, nearly drowning out the coordinates that he bellowed over. ~ Naomi Novik

Something about that whole process of building the structure of that game turned into a real kind of lightbulb moment for me as a writer. ~ Naomi Novik

... she didn't even have time to scream, just gave a startled "Oh!" and was gone, ~ Naomi Novik

I will tell you what we shall do: if ever you need to rescue Catherine, or you Berkley, Maximus, I will help you, and you will do as much for me. Then we do not need to worry, I do not suppose anyone could stop all three of us, at least not before we can escape ~ Naomi Novik

It is quite uninteresting; that is why one comes out.
- Temeraire, on being inside an egg ~ Naomi Novik

That Staryk wanted to take her for nothing. He made her give him gold just to live, as if she belonged to him because he was strong enough to kill her. My father was strong enough to kill me but that did not mean I belonged to him. He sold me for six kopeks, for three pigs, for a jug of krupnik. He tried to sell me again and again like I was still his no matter how many times he sold me. And that was how that Staryk thought. He wanted to keep her and make more gold out of her forever, and it did not matter what she wanted, because he was strong. ~ Naomi Novik

I glared down. "Do you want me to go?" His hands tightened on my arms. He didn't look me in the face. For a moment he didn't speak. Then harshly he said, "No. ~ Naomi Novik

Hollin was still sitting with Levitas's head in his lap, a bucket now beside him; he was squeezing water from a clean cloth into the dragon's open mouth. He looked at Rankin without bothering to hide his contempt, but then he bent over and said, "Levitas, come along now; look who's come."
Levitas's eyes opened, but they were milky and blind. "My captain?" he said uncertainly.

Laurence thrust Rankin forward and down onto his knees, none too gently; Rankin gasped and clutched at his thigh, but he said, "Yes, I am here." He looked up at Laurence and swallowed, then added awkwardly, "You have been very brave." There was nothing natural or sincere in the tone; it was as ungraceful as could be imagined.

But Levitas only said, very softly, "You came." He licked at a few drops of water at the corner of his mouth. The blood was still welling sluggishly from beneath the dressing, thick enough to slightly part the bandages one from the other, glistening and black. Rankin shifted uneasily; his breeches and stockings were being soaked through, but he looked up at Laurence and did not try to move away.

Levitas gave a low sigh, and then the shallow movement of his sides ceased. Hollin closed his eyes with one rough hand.

Laurence's hand was still heavy on the back of Rankin's neck; now he lifted it away, rage gone, and only tight-lipped disgust left. "Go," he said. "We who valued him will make the arrangements, not you." He did not even look ~ Naomi Novik

You've been inexpressibly lucky," he said finally. "And inexpressibly mad, although in your case the two seem to be the same thing ~ Naomi Novik

He slept once again in the small tent by his side, even though he thought Temeraire was well over his distress, and was rewarded in the morning by being woken early, Temeraire peering into the tent with one great eye and inquiring if perhaps Laurence would like to go to Dover and arrange for the concert today.
"I would like to sleep until a civilized hour, but as that is evidently not to be, perhaps I will ask leave of Lenton to go," Laurence said, yawning as he crawled from the tent. "May I have my breakfast first?"
"Oh, certainly," Temeraire said, with an air of generosity. ~ Naomi Novik

Her beautiful face was blank as an unwritten book. ~ Naomi Novik

Whatever was carrying me dropped me again with an ungraceful thump, and I lay gasping and throat-sore on the earth - the warm earth, lush with soft green grass, though it silvered with frost in a circle around where the Staryk knelt. ~ Naomi Novik

It felt like a war between two endless things, between a bottomless chasm and a running river. ~ Naomi Novik

And yet Praecursoris is not punished the same way, only because it is not practical, and he is needed for breeding? ~ Naomi Novik

The Dragon hissed under his breath with annoyance: how dare a chimaera inconvenience him, coming out of season. ~ Naomi Novik

My mother had enough magic to give me three blessings before she died," I said, and he instinctively bent in to hear it. "The first was wit; the second beauty, and the third - that fools should recognize neither." Irina ~ Naomi Novik

Did the tsar refuse to marry you?" I asked. I thought the duke might have been angry with her if he had: he hadn't seemed like a man to be satisfied if his plans went awry.

"No," she said. "I am tsarina. For as long as I live." She said it dryly, as if she didn't expect that to last long. "The tsar is a black sorcerer. He is possessed by a demon of flame that wants to devour me."

I laughed; I couldn't help it. It wasn't mirth, it was bitterness. "So the fairy silver brought you a monster of fire for a husband, and me a monster of ice. We should put them in a room together and let them make us both widows. ~ Naomi Novik

Lady, though you choose a home in the sunlit world, you are a Staryk queen indeed. ~ Naomi Novik

Didn't he come to - to ask you for some magic?"
"No, he came to enjoy the view of the Wood," the Dragon said. "Of course he came for magic, and I sent him about his business, which is hacking at enemy knights and not meddling in things he scarcely understands. ~ Naomi Novik

The Magicians brilliantly explores the hidden underbelly of fantasy and easy magic, taking what's simple on the surface and turning it over to show us the complicated writhing mess beneath. It's like seeing the worlds of Narnia and Harry Potter through a 3-D magnifying glass. ~ Naomi Novik

There were forest depths in her eyes, green and unending. ~ Naomi Novik

I [Miryem] went staggering to all the shelves in the room, looking for anything left to change, and when I didn't find anything after going round three times, I just stood there stupidly for a few more moments, and then I lay down on my mountain of gold like an improbable dragon and fell asleep without meaning to do so. ~ Naomi Novik

I do not care if Laurence tells me not to squash you ~ Naomi Novik

Laurence could make no real quarrel with the aims, which were natural and just; but England was at war, after all, and he was conscious, as Temeraire was not, of the impudence in demanding concessions from their own Government under such circumstances: very like mutiny. Yet ~ Naomi Novik

It wasn't that I wanted a husband and a baby; I didn't, or rather, I only wanted them the way I wanted to live to a hundred: someday, far off, never thinking about the particulars. ~ Naomi Novik

Magic was singing in me, through me; I felt the murmur of his power singing back that same song. ~ Naomi Novik

I am sick of the quarrels of nations and kings, and I would not give a ha'pence for any empire other than our valley, if that can content your ambition. ~ Naomi Novik

I should rather have you than a heap of gold, even if it were very comfortable to sleep on. ~ Naomi Novik

Darby, sir, but Janus they call me," the seaman said, "on account of a surgeon we shipped in the Sophie, a learned bloke, saying I saw both ways like some old Roman cut-up by that name. ~ Naomi Novik

Once we're out of the Wood ... , I said, but my voice died in my throat. I felt odd and sick. Did you ever get out of the Wood, if you'd been in it for twenty years? ~ Naomi Novik

It certainly went quicker to throw money away than to make it ~ Naomi Novik

But she hadn't been able to take root. She'd remembered the wrong things, and forgotten too much. She'd remembered how to kill and how to hate, and she'd forgotten how to grow. ~ Naomi Novik

And we must still try or we would be leaving our friends to fight without us. I think this is what you have meant by duty, all along; I do understand, at least this much of it. ~ Naomi Novik

Gentleness shown once is mercy, shown twice is folly. ~ Naomi Novik

Well, I would have struck him, but I would have had to get up. You have no notion how difficult it is to arrange skirts when sitting down; it took me five minutes together the first time. ~ Naomi Novik

If Napoleon can seek to ascend all the thrones of Europe, I suppose we may go dragging them out from under him ~ Naomi Novik

Truth didn't mean anything without someone to share it with; you could shout truth into the air forever, and spend your life doing it, if someone didn't come and listen. ~ Naomi Novik

Enough of that, you damned conspirators, you will have us hanged a great deal sooner than we will. ~ Naomi Novik

It seems to me after a fellow has been mutinied against three or four times, there is something to it besides bad luck. ~ Naomi Novik

They moved out of Jena early the next morning, with Prince Louis and the rest of the advance guard, for the town of Saalfeld, ~ Naomi Novik

I'm not your dear girl, Kasia said, with a bite in her tone that silenced him. ~ Naomi Novik

We leave tonight," he continued, very cold and calm, "and we take the eggs with us. ~ Naomi Novik

I had forgotten to fear him, from too much time spent too close. ~ Naomi Novik

The Dragon's tower is a long way in the other direction, a piece of chalk stuck in the base of the western mountains. ~ Naomi Novik

You learn to feel it less, child; or you learn to love other things. ~ Naomi Novik

Rankin put down his glass and stared at him coldly. "I beg your pardon?" he said. "I gather this is some more of your officious - "
Laurence paid no attention, but seized the back of his chair and heaved. Rankin fell forward, scrabbling to catch himself on the floor. Laurence took him by the scruff of his coat and dragged him up to his feet, ignoring his gasp of pain.
"Laurence, what in God's name - " Lenton said in astonishment, rising to his feet.
"Levitas is dying; Captain Rankin wishes to make his farewells," Laurence said, looking Lenton squarely in the eye and holding Rankin up by the collar and the arm. "He begs to be excused."
The other captains stared, half out of their chairs. Lenton looked at Rankin, then very deliberately sat back down. "Very good," he said, and reached for the bottle; the other captains slowly sank back down as well. ~ Naomi Novik

Four years! My heart was glad as birds. ~ Naomi Novik

And then finally the magic flowed, but not the same way as when the Dragon's spell-lessons dragged it in a rush out of me. Instead it seemed to me the sound of the chanting became a stream made to carry magic along, and I was standing by the water's edge with a pitcher that never ran dry, pouring a thin silver line into the rushing current. ~ Naomi Novik

Could have devoured the rest of the valley overnight. But a tree isn't a woman; it doesn't bear a single seed. It scatters as many of them as it can, and hopes for some of them to grow. ~ Naomi Novik

And listen to me: what you've done here carries power with it, of a different sort. Don't let Solya take all the credit, and don't be shy of using it. ~ Naomi Novik

I do not know that the Chinese system is any worse; there is a limit to the evil one despot alone can do, and if he is truly vicious he can be overthrown; a hundred corrupt members of Parliament may together do as much injustice or more, and be the less easy to uproot. ~ Naomi Novik

There are men who are wolves inside, and want to eat up other people to fill their bellies. That it what was in your house with you, all your life. But here you are with your brothers, and you are not eaten up, and there is not a wolf inside you. You have fed each other, and you kept the wolf away. That is all we can do for each other in the world, to keep the wolf away. And if there has been food in my house for you, then I am glad, glad with all my heart. I hope there will always be. ~ Naomi Novik

I was running wild through the forest of magic, pushing brambles out of my way, heedless of scratches and dirt, paying no attention where I was going. ~ Naomi Novik

I didn't really understand what mothers were, because mine was in a tree, but I knew they were very good things and you were very angry and sad if you lost them. ~ Naomi Novik

. . . though if Fanshawe had not spoken in so unbecoming a way, Laurence would have liked to keep Carver out of it, as he knew the boy had a poor head for heights, which struck him as a grave impediment for an aviator. ~ Naomi Novik

You speak in ignorant disdain of the foremost nation of the world," Yongxing said, growing angry himself, "like all your country-men, who show no respect for that which is superior, and insult our customs."
"For which I might consider myself as owing you some apology, sir, if you yourself had not so often insulted myself and my own country, or shown respect for any customs other than your own," Laurence said. ~ Naomi Novik

And on the wedding contract, before me and my parents and the rabbi, and Wanda and Sergey for our witnesses, in silver ink he signed his name.

But I won't ever tell you what it is. ~ Naomi Novik

For his part, Temeraire had been following this exchange with cocked head and increasing confusion; now he said, "I do not understand in the least, why ought it make any difference at all? Lily is female, and she can fight just as well as I can, or almost," he amended, with a touch of superiority.

Riley, still dissatisfied even after Laurence's reassurance looked after this remark very much as though he had been asked to justify the tide, or the phase of the moon; Laurence was by long experience better prepared for Temeraire's radical notions, and said, "Women are generally smaller and weaker than men, Temeraire, less able to endure the privations of service."

"I have never noticed that Captain Harcourt is much smaller than any of the rest of you," Temeraire said' well he might not, speaking from a height of some thirty feet and a weight topping eighteen tons. "Besides, I am smaller than Maximus, and Messoria is smaller than me; but that does not mean we cannot still fight."

"It is different for dragons than for people," Laurence said. "Among other things, women must bear children, and care for them through childhood, where your kind lay eggs and hatch ready to look to your own needs.

Temeraire blinked at this intelligence. "You do not hatch out of eggs?" he asked, in deep fascination. "How then--"

"I beg your pardon, I think I see Purbeck looking for me," Riley said, very hastily, and escaped at a speed remarkable, Laur ~ Naomi Novik

He could not help a certain resentment that a conscience seemed to be so very expensive, and yet had no substantial form which one might admire, and display to one's company. ~ Naomi Novik

She's been living alone with a man for ten years, so of course she's ruined, even though the girls all say he never puts a hand on them. ~ Naomi Novik

It's a lie that matches his desire. ~ Naomi Novik

I felt argument coiling in my belly. ~ Naomi Novik

I leaned against his side, his irritation oddly comforting. After a moment he grudgingly put his arm around me. The deep quiet was already settling back upon the grove, as if all the fire and rage we'd brought could make only a brief interruption in its peace. ~ Naomi Novik

With a demon wanting to devour me, I was feeling inclined to be devout . . . ~ Naomi Novik

Next you will cry about taxation without representation, and throw a basket of tea into the harbor. You are indeed a very Jacobin at heart, and I think I must give up trying to cure you of it; I can but wash my hands and deny responsibility ~ Naomi Novik

I wanted to rub handprints through his dust ~ Naomi Novik

I tried to make him a young court-wizard in my mind - he almost looked the part in his fine clothes, pursuing some lovely noblewoman - and there my imagination stumbled. He was a thing of books and alembics to me, library and laboratory. ~ Naomi Novik

The crew were all of them inclined to cough and sneeze, the boys particularly, and Keynes said, "We ought put them all in the water: to keep the chest warm must be the foremost concern."
Laurence agreed without thinking and was shortly appalled by the sight of Emily bathing with the rest of the young officers, innocent of both clothing and modesty.
"You must not bathe with the others," Laurence said to her urgently, having bundled her out and into a blanket.
"Mustn't I?" she said, gazing up at him damp and bewildered.
"Oh, Christ," Laurence said, under his breath. "No," he told her firmly, "it is not suitable; you are beginning to be a young lady."
"Oh," she said dismissively, "Mother has told me all about that, but I have not started bleeding yet, and anyway I would not like to go to bed with any of them," and a thoroughly routed Laurence feebly fell back on giving her some make-work, and fled to Temeraire's side. ~ Naomi Novik

How are you giving it magic?" he said, through his teeth.

"I already found the path!" I said. "I'm just staying on it. Can't you - feel it?" I asked abruptly, and held my hand cupping the flower out towards him; he frowned and put his hands around it, and then he said, "Vadiya rusha ilikad tuhi," and a second illusion laid itself over mine, two roses in the same space - his, predictably, had three rings of perfect petals, and a delicate fragrance.

"Try and match it," he said absently, his fingers moving slightly, and by lurching steps we brought our illusions closer together until it was nearly impossible to tell them one from another, and then he said, "Ah," suddenly, just as I began to glimpse his spell: almost exactly like that strange clockwork on the middle of his table, all shining moving parts. On an impulse I tried to align our workings: I envisioned his like the water-wheel of a mill, and mine the rushing stream driving it around. "What are you - " he began, and then abruptly we had only a single rose, and it began to grow.

And not only the rose: vines were climbing up the bookshelves in every direction, twining themselves around ancient tomes and reaching out the window; the tall slender columns that made the arch of the doorway were lost among rising birches, spreading out long finger-branches; moss and violets were springing up across the floor, delicate ferns unfurling. Flowers were blooming everywhere: flowers I had never seen, s ~ Naomi Novik

I looked at Lukas. He did not look very pleased, but he did not look very sad either. He was only giving me a considering eye. I was a pig at the market he had decided to buy. He was hoping I fattened up well and gave him many piglets before it was time to make bacon. ~ Naomi Novik

Feiglings!" Eroica bellowed after them at the top of his lungs as they clawed and scattered his wing dragons. ~ Naomi Novik

The only thing that had ever done me any good in my father's house was thinking: no one had cared what I wanted, or whether I was happy. I'd had to find my own way to anything I wanted. I'd never been grateful for that before now, when what I wanted was my life. ~ Naomi Novik

A power claimed and challenged and thrice carried out is true ~ Naomi Novik

One man can go where a group cannot, and manage on very little, particularly a rough adventurer such as he. More the point, he risks only himself when he goes: you much consider that in your charge is an inexpressibly valuable dragon, whose loss must be of greater importance than even this mission."

"Oh, pray, let us be gone at once," said the inexpressibly valuable dragon, when Laurence had carried the question, still unresolved, back to him. "It sounds very exciting to me. ~ Naomi Novik

They would have devoured my family and picked their teeth with the bones, and never been sorry at all. Better to be turned to ice by the Staryk, who didn't pretend to be a neighbor. ~ Naomi Novik

But none of that matters at all." His head raised to stare balefully at me, but I said, incoherent yet convinced, "It's just - a way to go. There isn't only one way to go." I waved at his notes. "You're trying to find a road where there isn't one. It's like - it's gleaning in the woods," I said abruptly. "You have to pick your way through the thickets and the trees, and it's different every time. ~ Naomi Novik

I don't want more sense!" I said loudly, beating against the silence of the room. "Not if sense means I'll stop loving anyone. What is there besides people that's worth holding on to? ~ Naomi Novik

He snorted. "He thinks killing a day-old hydra has made him a hero." None of the songs had ever mentioned the Vandalus Hydra being one day old: it diminished the story more than a little. ~ Naomi Novik

Trying to out-guess Bonaparte; the thought makes my blood run cold. ~ Naomi Novik

Let her out!" I screamed at the tree. I beat on its trunk with my muddy fists. "Let her out, or I'll bring you down! Fulmia!" I cried out in rage ... ~ Naomi Novik

Those men want to take Laurence from me, and put him in prison, and execute him, and I will not let them, ever, and I do not care if Laurence tells me not to squash you, he added, fiercely, to Lord Barham.
- Temeraire ~ Naomi Novik

I am not whimpering, at all," Temeraire muttered, and added, "ow!" There ~ Naomi Novik

A crowd of women around me doing the ocean of women's work that never subsided and never changed and always swallowed whatever time you gave it and wanted more, another hungry body of water. I submerged into it like a ritual bath and let it close over my head gladly. ~ Naomi Novik

I would have preferred it if she'd slapped me across the face, and laughed at me, so I could hate her. I didn't want to be the good fairy in her story, scattering blessings on her hearth. Where did all those fairies come from, and how rich could they be in joy to spend their days flitting around to more-or-less deserving girls and bestowing wishes on them? The lonely old woman next door who died unlamented and left an empty house to rob, with a flock of chickens and a linen chest full of dresses to make over: that's the only kind of fairy godmother I believed in. ~ Naomi Novik

There was a song in this forest, too, but it was a savage song, whispering of madness and tearing and rage. ~ Naomi Novik

No one had made her talk to me, or be in my company. I couldn't understand why she would have gone to the trouble just to be unpleasant. ~ Naomi Novik

He darted a look at the uncovered basket behind me, saw what I was eating, and glared at me. "That's appalling," he said.
"They're wonderful!" I said. "They're all coming ripe."
"All the better to turn you into a tree," he said.
"I don't want to be a tree yet," I said. ~ Naomi Novik

then he spluttered at me, "You impossible, wretched, nonsensical contradiction, what on earth have you done now?" I ~ Naomi Novik

As a novelist you have just unlimited budget, total creative control. You really get to have your cake - all the cake - and then you can have a second cake if you wanted to. ~ Naomi Novik

That was a story, too; they all had stories. ~ Naomi Novik

When they had dismounted, he indulged himself in a shudder of his whole body. "That is more than I undertake to do again!' --this to the admiral, in reproachful tones. "Those two monstrously large beasts! Going right up to them like that and dangling their captains in front of them just as if to say, look what I have got, ha ha! I am all astonishment they did not leap upon me at once. I hope they did not get a clear look at me. If they ever saw me again I am sure they would not let it pass."

"I beg you not to repine upon it," Laurence said. "Temeraire understands well that orders must be obeyed, and will not hold it against you; he knows it was not in your power to deliver us to him."

"Well, but it was," Souci said, not conciliated, and Granby said nothing reassuring at all. Iskierka allow of assurances of her behavior, good, evil, or otherwise. ~ Naomi Novik

I did not really need Magretta to tell me that love had caught my father like an unwilling fish, and having slipped the hook he had been glad to forget he had ever been on it in the first place. ~ Naomi Novik

he would not neglect what he considered his duty for the sake of being liked. ~ Naomi Novik

I ended up rooming in a dorm that was basically a solid wall of female scientists. And every Wednesday, we would all watch "Star Trek: Next Generation." ~ Naomi Novik

Listen, you impossible creature," he said, "I'm a century and more older than
"
"Oh, be quiet," I said impatiently. ~ Naomi Novik

You are not wrong," Laurence said. He had assumed as much himself, after all, in his Navy days: had thought the Corps full of wild, devil-may-care libertines, disregarding law and authority as far as they dared, barely kept in check-- to be used for their control over the beasts, and not respected.

"But if we have more liberty than we ought," Laurence said, after a moment, struggling through, "it is because they have not enough: the dragons. They have no stake in victory but our happiness; their daily bread and nation would give them just to have peace and quiet. We are given licence so long as we do what we ought not; so long as we use their affections to keep them obedient and quiet, to ends which serve them not at all-- or which harm."

"How else do you make them care?" Granby said. "If we left off, the French would only run right over us, and take our eggs themselves."

"They care in China," Laurence said, "and in Africa, and they care all the more, that their rational sense is not imposed on, and their hearts put into opposition with their minds. If they cannot be woken to a natural affection for their country, such as we feel, it is our fault, and not theirs. ~ Naomi Novik

Because my demon told me to" isn't a generally accepted reason, ~ Naomi Novik

I do not care if they do not like me," he said. "Maybe then they will let me alone, and I will not have to stay in China." The thought visibly struck him, and his head came up with sudden enthusiasm. "If I were very offensive, do you suppose they would go away now?" he asked. "Laurence, what would be particularly insulting"
Hammond looked like Pandora, the box open and horrors loose upon the world. Laurence was inclined to laugh, but he stifled it out of sympathy. ~ Naomi Novik

I had roots, too, but not like that. I could be carefully dug up, and shaken loose, and transplanted into a king's castle, or a tower built of marble - unhappily, perhaps, but I could survive. ~ Naomi Novik

I will see you bereft of all that you have, of home and happiness and beautiful things. I will see your nation cast down and your allies drawn away. I will see you as alone and friendless and wretched as am I; and then you may live as long as you like, in some dark and lonely corner of the earth, and I shall call myself content.
-Lien, Albino Celestial (Dragon) ~ Naomi Novik