Susanna Clarke Quotes

Childermass knew what games the children on street-corners are playing - games that all other grown-ups have long since forgotten. Childermass knew what old people by firesides are thinking of, though no one has asked them in years. Childermass knew what young men hear in the rattling of the drums and the tooting of the pipes that makes them leave their homes and go to be soldiers - and he knew the half-eggcupful of glory and the barrelful of misery that await them. And all that Childermass knew made him smile; and some of what he knew made him laugh out loud; and none of what he knew wrung from him so much as ha'pennyworth of pity. ~ Susanna Clarke

It was an old fashioned house
the sort of house in fact, as Strange expressed it, which a lady in a novel might like to be persecuted in. ~ Susanna Clarke

He did not feel as if he were inside a Pillar of Darkness in the middle of Yorkshire; he felt more as if the rest of the world had fallen away and he and Strange were left alone upon a solitary island or promontory. The idea distressed him a great deal less than one might have supposed. He had never much cared for the world and he bore its loss philosophically. ~ Susanna Clarke

Mr Norrell was very well pleased. Lord Liverpool was exactly the sort of guest he liked – one who admired the books but shewed no inclination to take them down from the shelves and read them. ~ Susanna Clarke

I have a scholar's love of silence and solitude. To sit and pass hour after hour in idle chatter with a roomful of strangers is to me the worst sort of torment. ~ Susanna Clarke

A piece of writing is like a piece of magic. You create something out of nothing. ~ Susanna Clarke

A Nottinghamshire man called Tubbs wished very much to see a fairy and, from thinking of fairies day and night, and from reading all sorts of odd books about them, he took it into his head that his coachman was a fairy. ~ Susanna Clarke

I have always heard that Italian women are rather fierce. ~ Susanna Clarke

The phone conversations about a possible TV series of 'Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell' stretch back years, but now that the moment has come, now that I am actually here at Wentworth Woodhouse, I lose my bearings. ~ Susanna Clarke

I first became an Alan Moore fan in Covent Garden on a Saturday afternoon in 1987, when I bought a copy of 'Watchmen,' his graphic novel about ageing superheroes and nuclear apocalypse. ~ Susanna Clarke

The man under the hedge, sir. He is a magician. Did you never hear that if you wake a magician before his time, you risk bringing his dreams out of his head into the world? ~ Susanna Clarke

[A] smile is the most becoming
ornament that any lady can wear. ~ Susanna Clarke

Mr. Lascelles whispered to Mr. Drawlight that he had not realized before that doing kind actions would lead to his being addressed in familiar terms by so many low people - it was most unpleasant - he would take care to do no more. ~ Susanna Clarke

Mr Norrell determined to establish himself in London with all possible haste. "You must get a house, Childermass," he said. "Get me a house that says to those that visit it that magic is a respectable profession - no less than Law and a great deal more so than Medicine."
Childermass inquired drily if Mr Norrell wished him to seek out architecture expressive of the proposition that magic was as respectable as the Church?
Mr Norrell (who knew there were such things as jokes in the world or people would not write about them in books, but who had never actually been introduced to a joke or shaken its hand) considered a while before replying at last that no, he did not think they could quite claim that. ~ 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 (from Ladies of Grace Adieu). ~ 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

The trees, the stones and the earth had taken him inside themselves, but in their shape it was possible still to discern something of the man he had once been. ~ Susanna Clarke

In some ways, 'Mansfield Park' is 'Pride and Prejudice' turned inside out. ~ Susanna Clarke

Then Mr. Norrell roused himself and took down five or six books in a great hurry and opened them up - presumably searching out those passages which were full of advice for magicians who wished to awaken dead young ladies. ~ Susanna Clarke

I am rather of the opinion that in England a gentleman's dreams are his own private concern. I fancy there is a law in that effect and, if there is not, why, Parliament should certainly be made to pass one immediately! It ill becomes another man to invite himself into them. ~ Susanna Clarke

She wore a gown the color of storms, shadows, and rain and a necklace of broken promises and regrets. ~ Susanna Clarke

Lascelles threw himself into the carriage, snorting with laughter and saying that he had never in his life heard of anything so ridiculous and comparing their snug drive through the London streets in Mr. Norrell's carriage to ancient French and Italian fables where fools set sail in milk-pails to fetch the moon's reflection from the bottom of a duckpond ... ~ Susanna Clarke

Without warning a lady appeared.
She came from the direction of Friday-street, for she had just been with Mr. Newbolt. She strode capably through the snow. She wore a black silk gown and something very queer swung from a silver chain about her neck. Her smile was full of comfort and her eyes were kind and happy. She was just as Mr. Newbolt had described.
And the name of this lady was Death. ~ 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

Even a magician must have relations, ~ Susanna Clarke

There are some things which have no business being put into books for all the world to read. ~ Susanna Clarke

It's not easy to convey to someone who doesn't read comics just how Alan Moore has dominated the field since 'Watchmen.' ~ Susanna Clarke

The old King is dead. The new King approaches! And at his approach the world sheds its sorrow. The sings of the old King dissolve like morning mist! The world assumes the character of the new. His virtues fill up the wood and world! ~ Susanna Clarke

She took a step forward, and so did the unknown woman. Suddenly realization and relief came upon her in equal measures; "It is a mirror! Oh! How foolish! How foolish! To be afraid of my own reflection!" She was so relieved she almost laughed out loud, but then she paused; it had not been foolish to be frightened, not foolish at all; there had been no mirror in that corner until now. ~ Susanna Clarke

It is impossible to say how many dinners Drawlight was invited to sit down to that day - and it is fortunate that he was never at any time much of an eater or he might have done some lasting damage to his digestion. ~ Susanna Clarke

A tragi-comedy, telling of an impoverished minister's desperate attempts to gain money by any means, beginning with a mercenary marriage and ending with sorcery. I should think it might be received very well. I believe I shall call it, ' Tis Pity She's a Corpse. ~ Susanna Clarke

I only wish he had not married," said Mr. Norell fretfully. "Magicians have no business marrying. ~ 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

Then Childermass related to Mr Norrell what he had discovered about Drawlight: how he belonged to a certain breed of gentlemen, only to be met with in London, whose main occupation is the wearing of expensive and fashionable clothes; how they pass their lives in ostentatious idleness, gambling and drinking to excess and spending months at a time in Brighton and other fashionable watering places; how in recent years this breed seemed to have reached a sort of perfection in Christopher Drawlight. Even his dearest friends would have admitted that he possessed not a single good quality. ~ Susanna Clarke

Country gentlemen who read in their newspapers the speeches of this or that Minister would mutter to themselves that he was certainly a clever fellow. But the country gentlemen were not made comfortable by this thought. The country gentlemen had a strong suspicion that cleverness was somehow unBritish. That sort of restless, unpredictable brilliance belonged most of all to Britain's arch-enemy, the Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte; the country gentlemen could not approve it. ~ Susanna Clarke

One way of grounding the magic is by putting in lots of stuff about street lamps, carriages, and how difficult it is to get good servants. ~ 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

The sky spoke to me," said Childermass. "If what I saw was true, then ... " He paused.
"Then what?" asked Mr Norrell.
In his weakened state Childermass had been thinking aloud. He had meant to say that if what he had seen was true, then everything that Strange and Norrell had ever done was child's-play and magic was a much stranger and more terrifying thing than any of them had thought of. Strange and Norrell had been merely throwing paper darts about a parlour, while real magic soared and swooped and twisted on great wings in a limitless sky far, far above them. ~ 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

I must confess that in my teens and twenties, I loved 'Mansfield Park' rather in spite of Fanny than because of her. Like Fanny's rich, sophisticated cousins, I didn't really get her. ~ Susanna Clarke

Beautiful flames, can destroy so many things - prison walls that hold you, stitches that bind you fast. ~ Susanna Clarke

But a soldier ought not to dwell too long on such matters. His life is full of hardship and he must take his pleasure where he can. Though he may take time to reflect upon the cruelties that he sees, place him among his comrades and it is almost impossible for his spirits not to rise. Strange ~ 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

Both had indulged in, if not Black Magic, then certainly magic of a darker hue than seemed desirable or legitimate. ~ Susanna Clarke

I know magicians and I know magic and I say this: all magicians lie and this one more than most. ~ Susanna Clarke

I suppose a magician might," he admitted, "but a gentleman never could. ~ 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

I had to restrain myself from buying a book on 19th-century fruit knives. ~ Susanna Clarke

He knew that there was a world of difference between these two notions: one was sane and the other was not, but he could not for the life of him remember which was which. ~ Susanna Clarke

It is the contention of Mr Norrell of Hanover-square that everything belonging to John Uskglass must be shaken out of modern magic, as one would shake moths and dust out of an old coat. What does he imagine he will have left? If you get rid of John Uskglass you will be left holding the empty air. ~ Susanna Clarke

It seemed off that anyone could live behind such a high hedge of thorns, and he began to think it would be no great surprize to discover that Mr. Wyvern had been asleep for a hundred years or so. 'Well, I shall not mind that so much,' he thought, 'so long as I am not expected to kiss him. ~ Susanna Clarke

I shall advise all the good-looking women of my acquaintance not to die ~ Susanna Clarke

To a magician there is very little difference between a mirror and a door. ~ Susanna Clarke

Mr. Norrell did not know a great deal about war, but he suspected that soldiers are not generally your great respecters of books. They might put their dirty fingers on them. They might tear them! They might- horror of horrors!- read them and try the spells! ~ 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

She had been a comet; and her blazing descent through dark skies had been plain for all to see. ~ Susanna Clarke

Lord Byron ! Of course!" cried Dr Greysteel. "I forgot all about him! I must go and warn him to be discreet." "I think it's a little late for that, sir," said Frank. ~ Susanna Clarke

And such a pinched-looking ruin of a thing now! I shall advice all the good-looking woman of my acquaintance not to die. ~ Susanna Clarke

No, indeed!" she cried, all indignation. "I have no notion of asking people to perform services for me which I can do perfectly well for myself. I do not intend to go, in the space of one hour, from the helplessness of enchantment to another sort of helplessness!" pg. 761 ~ Susanna Clarke

Drawing teaches habits of close observation that will always be useful. ~ Susanna Clarke

John Longridge, the cook at Harley-street, had suffered from low spirits for more than thirty years, and he was quick to welcome Stephen as a newcomer to the freemasonry of melancholy. ~ 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

​Immediately he became convinced that all the cupboards in the house were full of pineapples. ~ Susanna Clarke

He was one of those people whose ideas are too lively to be confined
in their brains and spill out into the world to the consternation of
passers-by. He talked to himself and the expression on his face
changed constantly. Within the space of a single moment he looked
surprized, insulted, resolute, and angry
emotions which were
presumably the consequences of the energetic conversation he was
holding with the ideal people inside his head. ~ Susanna Clarke

Well, I suppose one ought not to employ a magician and then complain that he does not behave like other people. ~ Susanna Clarke

Chaston wrote that a great many fairies harboured a vague sense of having been treated badly by the English. Though it was a mystery to Chaston - as it is to me - why they should have thought so. In the houses of the great English magicians fairies were the first among the servants and sat in the best places after the magician and his lady. ~ Susanna Clarke

After all," he thought, "what can a magician do against a lead ball? Between the pistol firing and his heart exploding, there is no time for magic. ~ Susanna Clarke

It would need someone very remarkable to recover your name, Stephen, someone of rare perspicacity, with extraordinary talents and incomparable nobility of character. Me, in fact. ~ Susanna Clarke

Some time later there was a knock at his door. He was surprised to find it was now evening and the room was quite dark. The knock sounded again. The landlord was at the door. The landlord began to talk, but Strange could not understand him. This was because the man had a pineapple in his mouth. How he had managed to cram the whole thing in there, Strange could not imagine. Green, spiky leaves emerged slowly out of his mouth and then were sucked back in again as he spoke. Strange wondered if perhaps he ought to go and fetch a knife or a hook and try and fish the pineapple out, in case the landlord should choke. But at the same time he did not care much about it. 'After all,' he thought with some irritation, 'it is his own fault. He put it there. ~ Susanna Clarke

Even the Raven King - who was not a fairy, but an Englishman - had a somewhat regrettable habit of abducting men and women and taking them to live with him in his castle in the Other Lands. Now, had you and I the power to seize by magic any human being that took our fancy and the power to keep that person by our side through all eternity, and had we all the world to chuse from, then I dare say our choice might fall on someone a little more captivating than a member of the Learned Society of York Magicians, but this comforting thought did not occur to the gentlemen inside York Cathedral ~ Susanna Clarke

Not long, not long my father said
Not long shall you be ours
The Raven King knows all too well
Which are the fairest flowers.
The priest was all too worldly
Though he prayed and rang his bell
The Raven King three candles lit
The priest said it was well
Her arms were all too feeble
Though she claimed to love me so
The Raven King stretched out his hand
She sighed and let me go
The land is all too shallow
It is painted on the sky
And trembles like the wind-shook rain
When the Raven King goes by
For always and for always
I pray remember me
Upon the moors, beneath the stars
With the King's wild company. ~ Susanna Clarke

She even learnt the language of a strange country which Senior Cosetti had been told some people believed still existed, although no-one in the world could say where it was. The name of this country was Wales. ~ Susanna Clarke

Well, Henry, you can cease frowning at me. If I am a magician, I am a very indifferent one. Other adepts summon up fairy-spirits and long-dead kings. I appear to have conjured the spirit of a banker. ~ Susanna Clarke

He muttered something of Mr. Norrell's honest countenance.

The York society did not think this very satisfactory (and had they actually been privileged to see Mr. Norrell's countenance they might have thought it even less so). ~ Susanna Clarke

Like many spells with unusual names, the Unrobed Ladies was a great deal less exciting than it sounded. ~ Susanna Clarke

It is these black clothes," said Strange. "I am like a leftover piece of funeral, condemned to walk about the Town, frightening people into thinking of their own mortality. ~ Susanna Clarke

Every man and woman present thought how the neatly drawn lines and words upon the maps were in truth ice-covered pools and rivers, silent woods, frozen ditches and high, bare hills and every one of them thought how many sheep and cattle and wild creatures died in this season. ~ Susanna Clarke

To Strange's unnautical eye, it looked very much as if the ship had simply lain down and gone to sleep. He felt that if he had been the Captain he would have spoken to her sternly and made her get up again. ~ Susanna Clarke

There is nothing in the world so easy to explain as failure - it is, after all, what everybody does all the time. ~ Susanna Clarke

May I ask you something?" Dr Greysteel nodded."Are you not afraid that it will go out?"
"What will go out?" asked Dr Greysteel.
"The candle," Strange gestured to Dr Greysteel's forehead. "The candle inside your head. ~ Susanna Clarke

David was the son of a famous Venetian rabbi. From his youth he had been accustomed to debate good principles and right conduct with all sorts of grave Jewish persons. These conversations had formed his own character and he naturally supposed that a small measure of the same could not help but improve other people's. In short he had come to believe that if only one talks long enough and expresses oneself properly, it is perfectly possible to argue people into being good and happy. With this aim in mind he generally took it upon himself to quarrel with Tom Brightwind several times a week -- all without noticeable effect. ~ Susanna Clarke

The Pillar of Darkness has been a horror confined to Venice, which seemed - to the Paduans at least - a natural setting for horrors. ~ 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

Many people nowadays have surnames that reveal their ancestors' fairy origins. Otherlander and Fairchild are two. ~ Susanna Clarke

I cannot recall an instance of anything very dreadful happening at half-past one ~ Susanna Clarke

Strange stared thoughtfully at her for several seconds, so that Arabella mistakenly supposed he must be considering what she had just said. But when he spoke it was only to say in a tone of gentle reproof, "My love, you are standing on my papers." He took her arm and moved her gently aside. ~ Susanna Clarke

'Pride and Prejudice' is often compared to 'Cinderella,' but Jane Austen's real 'Cinderella' tale is 'Mansfield Park.' ~ Susanna Clarke

It seemed to me that you make magic real by making it a little prosaic, a little difficult and disappointing - never quite as glamorous as the other characters imagine. ~ Susanna Clarke

O, wherever men of my sort used to go, long ago. Wandering on paths that other men have not seen. Behind the sky. On the other side of the rain. ~ Susanna Clarke

But that is not to say that there might not be someone in the world - I do not say I have seen him yet - whom I would be a little afraid to look at sometimes - for fear that he might be looking sad - or lost - or thoughtful, or - what, you know, might seem the worst of all - brooding on some private anger or hurt and so not knowing or caring if I looked at him at all. ~ 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.
[As quoted on WritersServices, 6 March 2012] ~ Susanna Clarke

Let us see," said Saint Oswald. "A man in black clothes, with powerful magic and ravens at his command, and the hunting rights of a king. This suggests nothing to you? No apparently it does not. Well, it so happens that I think I know the person you mean. He is indeed very arrogant and perhaps the time has come to humble him a little. If I understand you aright, you are angry because he does not speak to you?"
"Yes."
"Well then, I believe I shall loosen his tongue a little."
"What sort of punishment is that?" asked the Charcoal Burner. "I want you to make Blencathra [hill] fall on his head! ~ Susanna Clarke

Mr. Honeyfoot did not propose going quite so far
indeed he did not wish to go far at all because it was winter and the roads where very shocking. ~ Susanna Clarke

I am a Book," said Vinculus, stopping in mid-caper. "I am the Book. It is the task of the Book to bear the words. Which I do. It is the task of the Reader to know what they say. ~ Susanna Clarke

All these details took but a moment to apprehend yet the impression made upon Mr. Segundus by the two ladies was unusually vivid --almost supernaturally so-- like images in a delirium. A queer shock thrilled through his whole being his senses were overwhelmed and he fainted away. ~ Susanna Clarke

In a war one is either living like a prince or a vagabond. I ~ Susanna Clarke

I feel very much at home in the early nineteenth century and am not inclined to leave it. ~ Susanna Clarke

Soldiers, I am sorry to say, steal everything." He thought for a moment and then added, "Or at least ours do." How ~ Susanna Clarke

In the moonlight David saw that Thoresby had become very peculiar indeed. Figs nestled among the leaves of beech-trees. Elder-trees were bowed down with pomegranates. Ivy was almost torn from walls by the weight of ripe blackberries growing upon it. Anything which had ever possessed any sort of life had sprung fruitfulness. Ancient, dried up frames had become swollen with sap and we putting out twigs, leaves, blossoms and fruit. Door-frames and doors were so distorted that bricks had been pushed out of place and some houses were in danger of collapsing altogether. The cart in the middle of the high street was a grove of silver birches. Its broken wheels put forth briar roses and nightingales sang on it. ~ Susanna Clarke

In short they felt that they should like to have the pleasure of looking at Lady Pole again, and so they told Sir Walter - rather than asked him - that he missed his wife. He replied that he did not. But this was not allowed to be possible; it was well known that newly married gentlemen were never happy apart from their wives; the briefest of absences could depress a new husband's spirits and interfere with his digestion. ~ Susanna Clarke