Susanna Quotes

Our hospital was famous and housed many great poets and singers. Did the hospital specialize in poets and singers or was it that poets and singers specialized in madness? ~ Susanna Kaysen

I had no idea who I was. Neither did I know that I was living inside the world of dreams and illusions ~ Susanna Eun

And how is dear Patrick the Protester? What's he on about this week? Saving the dormice? Blocking the bypass?" "Battling the logging industry, actually. Chaining himself to trees. But only at the weekend," I explained. "He doesn't have so much free time, now he's married." "Ah. ~ Susanna Kearsley

If it is true that men have souls that do survive them," he went on, ignoring me, "and if those souls are born again to life, you need not worry that my ghost will haunt you. I'll haunt you in the flesh, instead. ~ Susanna Kearsley

Several minutes later, when I passed among the guests to fill their empty cups with wine, I found him standing at my shoulder. "You'll wound my pride," he warned me softly, "ignoring me so." I flicked him a look that was only half-impatient. "I must not speak with you, by my uncle's own instruction." "And when have you obeyed instructions?" He held out his own cup to be filled, his mouth curved in amusement. "Besides, your uncle is engaged at present, with a most serious gentleman. If he should look this way, I've only to duck my head." "You are impossible, my lord." "Ay. And your good humor is lacking, madam. What is it that has so offended you? ~ Susanna Kearsley

It's a mean world," she'd say. She was usually glad enough to be back. "There's nobody to take care of you out there. ~ Susanna Kaysen

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

Just to get through life was no ambition. It was the opposite of ambition. ~ Susanna Kaysen

Rob was always a gentleman. ~ Susanna Kearsley

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

I tasted the salt on my own lips, and the bitter taste of blood on his. It was a desperate kiss, the sort of kiss that marks a lovers' parting, a kiss of sorrow and regret and a kind of blind and wordless promise. I would have risen up when it was finished, but he held me close, his hand stroking my hair. "I'll hurt your chest," I protested, but he shook his head. "I am past pain," he lied, "and I've always had a fancy to die in my lover's arms. 'Tis most romantic. ~ Susanna Kearsley

Well." Vivien smiled, swinging her legs. "At least when Iain starts yelling, his accent gets thicker, so you usually can't understand a word he's ... No, don't pull that one," she stopped me suddenly. "That one I do recognize. It's some sort of a daisy, or something. ~ Susanna Kearsley

And it is easy to slip into a parallel universe. There are so many of them: worlds of the insane, the criminal, the crippled, the dying, perhaps of the dead as well. These worlds exist alongside this world and resemble it, but are not in it. ~ Susanna Kaysen

Tis emblematic, the rose of youth and health soon fades when watered by the tear of affliction. ~ Susanna Rowson

It never stopped, even at night, it was our lullaby. It was our metronome, our pulse. It was our lives measured out in doses slightly larger than those famous coffee spoons. Soup spoons, maybe? Dented tin spoons brimming with what should have been sweet but was sour, gone off, gone by without our savouring it: our lives ~ Susanna Kaysen

That's because the analysts are writing about a country they call Mind and the neuroscientists are reporting from a country they call Brain. ~ Susanna Kaysen

I think memories are like dreams. Not reliable proof of anything. I can't prove a memory any more than I can prove a dream. ~ Susanna Moore

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

And this was the main precondition, that anything might be something else. Once I'd accepted that, it followed that I might be mad, or that someone might think me mad. How could I say for certain that I wasn't, if I couldn't say for certain that a curtain wasn't a mountain range? ~ Susanna Kaysen

Even Austrian landladies recognise the hand of destiny at work. ~ Susanna Kearsley

But till then, I could wait – I was in no great hurry. Like the swans, I had mated for life. ~ Susanna Kearsley

The recent controversy over the portrayal of Ken Taylor and his embassy staff in the movie 'Argo' brought home to me the great responsibility we writers have when telling stories that involve real people. ~ Susanna Kearsley

Reality was getting too dense. ~ Susanna Kaysen

It was my misfortune-or salvation-to be at all times perfectly conscious of my misperceptions of reality. ~ Susanna Kaysen

Rodney Crowell says. "I went over, and we sat at the table, and Guy had a bottle of Johnny Walker Red, a quart, and he was hurting. He was drinking whiskey. When the pain is so deep, it's that moan, it's that timeless moan, and pain. Susanna was - that conversation was, 'You know, it's over.' She was just saying, 'It's over.' Guy was just trying to deal with the pain. Susanna surrendered something that night, as far as I could tell." Her ~ Tamara Saviano

Are you crazy? It's a common phrase, I know. But it means something particular to me: the tunnels, the security screens, the plastic forks, the shimmering, ever-shifting borderline that like all boundaries beckons and asks to be crossed. I do not want to cross it again. ~ Susanna Kaysen

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

Edmund had obviously never yet experienced the speed with which news traveled round the docklands. "Is there anyone who does not know him?" "All ~ Susanna Kearsley

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

Knowing that the battle will not end the way he wishes does not make it any less worthwhile the fight. ~ Susanna Kearsley

It's too easy, you see, to get trapped in the past. The past is very seductive. People always talk about the mists of time, you know, but really it's the present that's in a mist, uncertain. The past is quite clear, and warm, and comforting. That's why people often get stuck there. ~ Susanna Kearsley

I

Just as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the selfsame sounds
On my spirit make a music, too.

Music is feeling, then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you,

Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,
Is music. It is like the strain
Waked in the elders by Susanna:

Of a green evening, clear and warm,
She bathed in her still garden, while
The red-eyed elders, watching, felt

The basses of their beings throb
In witching chords, and their thin blood
Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.

from "Peter Quince at the Clavier ~ Wallace Stevens

'Calcutta is a pot of honey' means that in the first half of the nineteenth century, before the society became truly Victorian in feeling and tone, Bengal was a place to make money. The governor-generals returned to England rich men. It was a bountiful, lush, prosperous, easy place to make a fortune - in coal, in jute, and particularly cloth. ~ Susanna Moore

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

The years might change our outer selves, but underneath it all we stayed the same, we kept our patterns ... ~ Susanna Kearsley

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

He slid his hands to the back of her neck, fumbling for the necklace's clasp. He undid it and held the chain of rubies up, red and gold in the flickering candlelight. "No shackles for us," he said, "no matter how rich. ~ Susanna Fraser

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

In a strange way we were free. We'd reached the end of the line. We had nothing more to lose. Our privacy, our liberty, our dignity: all of this was gone and we were stripped down to the bare bones of our selves ~ Susanna Kaysen

Better to find out certain things by living them, not by reading them in a book. ~ Susanna Kearsley

And in the end, I lost him. I did it on purpose, the way Garance lost
Baptiste in the crowd. I needed to be alone, I felt. I wanted to be going on alone to my future. ~ Susanna Kaysen

Nature, reason, and Christianity recognize no other. Pride may say Nay; but Pride was always a liar, and a great hater of the truth. ~ Susanna Moodie

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

But in order to be strong, you have to love yourself, and in order to love yourself, you need thorough self-knowledge, you need to know everything about yourself, including your most hidden secrets, the ones most difficult to accept. ~ Susanna Tamaro

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

As far as I could see, life demanded skills I didn't have. ~ Susanna Kaysen

The secret to keeping one's actions concealed from the enemy is, in most cases, to learn what he thinks you will do, and then seem to be doing it, for that is what he'll believe ~ Susanna Kearsley

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

...he raised a hand to touch my face, a touch of promise, warm and sure, and as I struggled to smile back at him he kissed me. It felt so very right, so beautiful; tears pricked behind my lashes as life flowed through all my hollow limbs, and I lost all sense of place and time. It might have been a minute or an hour... ~ Susanna Kearsley

Want is the mistress of invention ~ Susanna Centlivre

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

What does the sign say?" " 'If you lived here, you'd be home now.' " She clenched her hands with excitement. "See, every day people will drive past and read that sign and think, 'Yeah, if I lived here I'd be home now,' and I will be home. Motherfuckers. ~ Susanna Kaysen

There are different chemistries you can have in different bands, and part of that's caused by the gender. ~ Susanna Hoffs

When they rolled to a stop, she found herself pinned by a tremendous, huffing weight. And pierced by an intense green gaze.
"Wh-?" Her breath rushed out in question.
Boom, the world answered.
Susanna ducked her head, burrowing into the protection of what she'd recognized to be an officer's coat. The knob of a brass button pressed into her cheek. The man's bulk formed a comforting shield as a shower of dirt clods rained down on them both. He smelled of whiskey and gunpowder.
After the dust cleared, she brushed the hair from his brow, searching his gaze for signs of confusion or pain. His eyes were alert and intelligent, and still that startling shade of green-as hard and richly hued as jade.
She asked, "Are you well?"
"Yes." His voice was a deep rasp. "Are you?"
She nodded, expecting him to release her at the confirmation. When he showed no signs of moving, she puzzled at it. Either he was gravely injured or seriously impertinent. "Sir, you're…er, you're rather heavy." Surely he could not fail to miss that hint.
He replied, "You're soft."
Good Lord. Who was this man? Where had he come from? And how was he still atop her?
"You have a small wound." With trembling fingers, she brushed a reddish knot high on his temple, near his hairline. "Here." She pressed her hand to his throat, feeling for his pulse. She found it, thumping strong and steady against her gloved fingertips.
"Ah. That's nice."
Her face blazed with heat. " ~ Tessa Dare

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

I'd always been puzzled when books about people with Asperger's claimed that we didn't have empathy. True, I might have trouble sometimes guessing how another person felt, but sadness was an obvious emotion and an easy one to spot most of the time. My problem wasn't that I didn't understand their feelings, only that I didn't have a clue how to respond to them. I never knew the proper thing to do or say. I wasn't good at comforting. He ~ Susanna Kearsley

'The Big Girls' has always seemed to me to be a story about different kinds of families - a divorced mother with a child; a father with his child and his girlfriend; a mother of three children, suffering from postpartum depression; and the rigid artificial families maintained by women in prison - all potentially perilous. ~ Susanna Moore

Brantford was the fixed point of my universe, growing up. Both sets of grandparents lived there, with various cousins and uncles and aunts, and no matter how far we'd moved off, we came back there for regular visits. In a way no other houses have ever been, my grandparents' houses were 'home,' and the sale of the last of those houses was hard. ~ Susanna Kearsley

Even a magician must have relations, ~ Susanna Clarke

I might have asked, figured her out, led her to open up. I was good at that. But I didn't inquire, a punishment. I didn't let anger go, habit from the dangerous family I'd left behind, from being leery of women. I was good at that, too, the guarded disappointment. ~ Susanna Sonnenberg

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

My first singing role was as Susanna in a school production in a shortened form of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. I loved to sing and I was given lots of encouragement by a wonderful music teacher Mrs Ann Hill and by my parents who suggested I go to drama school. ~ Elaine Paige

Love doesn't suit the lazy; sometimes it requires strong, precise actions. ~ Susanna Tamaro

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

He'd stolen a kiss, and been transported to heaven. "I won't say I'm sorry, Susanna. Even if you think I should."
Her lips looked kissed and a bit plump. "I didn't ask you to. ~ Caroline Fyffe

When I was supposed to be awake, I was asleep. When I was supposed to sleep, I was silent. When a pleasure offered itself to me, I avoided it. ~ Susanna Kaysen

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

Asa's smell (the fragrance of a beautiful man) is what I miss the most.
[…]
Like a virus his smell entered me and changed my cells,
slowly, over years, until they craved only that smell, which was their oxygen. ~ Susanna Kaysen

It was a spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of
warm earth. Suicide weather. ~ Susanna Kaysen

I like singing in harmony - I like not having to sing every song. ~ Susanna Hoffs

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

When I was eight years old, I knew I wanted to make films. ~ Susanna White

While I was writing 'The Big Girls,' I had to take a big breath each morning and calm myself sufficiently to once again enter that world. But friends tell me that it is the only thing that really interests me. They say that I like to be upset. ~ Susanna Moore

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

I think the biggest thing is just making sure that you do the work that you connect with, personally, and that you do work where you can really bring something to the table. It's just about being truthful to yourself. ~ Susanna White

My hair is naturally curly, and in the 80's, even though I experimented with different lengths, I generally wore it curly. Since then, I've learned how to use a blow dryer and flat iron. ~ Susanna Hoffs

Emptiness and boredom: what a complete understatement. What I felt was complete desolation. Desolation, despair and boredom. ~ Susanna Kaysen

Young writers reasonably say, 'I don't know what to write about,' so writing about yourself is a very literal way to begin. ~ Susanna Moore

I still wear minis and cardigans, but I think I'll steer away from shoulder pads. ~ Susanna Hoffs

No, Susanna, " he said. "I cannot love you just a little. If that's what you want, you must find a different man." His green eyes were breathtaking in their intensity. His thumb brushed her bottom lip. "Because I can only love you entirely. With everything I am, and everything I ever will be. Body, mind, heart, soul. ~ Tessa Dare

I always lov'd Precaution, and took care to avoid Dangers. But when a thing was past, I ever had Philosophy to be easie. ~ Susanna Centlivre

The face is a plain one," said Hugh, "but the workings inside will not fail ye. ~ Susanna Kearsley

I always got irritated when he told me he wasn't a doctor. Technically, he was a doctor. Being a doctor is like being a Jew; you can't get away from it. ~ Susanna Kaysen

When all the world is old, lad, And all the trees are brown; And all the sport is stale, lad, And all the wheels run down, Creep home and take your place there, The spent and maimed among: God grant you find one face there You loved when all was young. ~ Susanna Kearsley

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

I'm Ambivalent. In fact that's my new favorite word.
Do you know what it means ?
I don't care. ~ Susanna Kaysen

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