Top 120 Stuart Turton Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

— Stuart Turton

2. “We are never more ourselves than when we think people aren’t watching.”

— Stuart Turton

3. “I’m caught between the devil and the deep, blue sea, aren’t I?”

— Stuart Turton

4. “How lost do you have to be to let the devil lead you home?”

— Stuart Turton

5. “The Plague Doctor claimed Blackheath was meant to rehabilitate us, but bars can’t build better men and misery can only break what goodness remains. This place pinches out the hope in people, and without that hope, what use is love or compassion or kindness?”

— Stuart Turton

6. “I’ve been asked to dig a hole with a shovel made of sparrows.”

— Stuart Turton

7. “How lost do you have to be to let the devil lead you home? This lost, I decide. Precisely this lost.”

— Stuart Turton

8. “The downtrodden yearned for stories to explain their misfortunes, though what they really wanted was somebody to blame for their misery.”

— Stuart Turton

9. “Too little information and you’re blind, too much and you’re blinded.”

— Stuart Turton

10. “Was his offer just another torment, a sliver of hope to go mad chasing?”

— Stuart Turton

11. “Reason deserts me, rage pouring into the void. Every betrayal, every pain and sorrow, every regret, every disappointment, every humiliation, every anguish, every hurt... all of them, they’re filling me up.”

— Stuart Turton

12. “Everything seems to be a very great effort for them, as though the pale flush of youth were a burden, their energy exhausting.”

— Stuart Turton

13. “To Ada, Right now, you’re two years old, asleep in your cot. You’re very strange and you make us laugh a lot. By the time you read this, you’ll be somebody else entirely. I hope we’re still pals. I hope I’m a good dad. I hope I don’t make too many mistakes and you forgive the ones I do. Truth is, I have no idea what I’m doing. But I’m always trying hard. I love you, kid. This is for you. Whoever you’ve become.”

— Stuart Turton

14. “Power should be a burden, not a shield. It should be used to everybody’s betterment, not merely for the person who wielded it.”

— Stuart Turton

15. “Wealth is poisonous to the soul, and my parents have been wealthy a very long time – as have most of the guests who will be at this party. Their manners are a mask; you’d do well to remember that.”

— Stuart Turton

16. “Wrecks have been raised from the ocean bed with less effort, but I hobble toward the cascade of costumes shrouding my quarry.”

— Stuart Turton

17. “Questions are swords and answers are shields,” persisted Sammy, still staring at Sara. “I’m begging you, armor yourself.”

— Stuart Turton

18. “I have the sense of having stumbled upon something sleeping, that uncertain light the heartbeat of a creature vast and dangerous and still.”

— Stuart Turton

19. “So this is how men go to the devil, he thought bitterly. Cap in hand and short of hope, all their prayers gone unanswered.”

— Stuart Turton

20. “I grew up with the dirt for a pillow and the wind for a blanket.”

— Stuart Turton

21. “To even attempt it, liars must believe themselves to be cleverer than the person they’re lying to, an assumption he finds grotesquely insulting.”

— Stuart Turton

22. “Whatever darkness lurks inside Jonathan Derby, Millicent tucked it in at night.”

— Stuart Turton

23. “I meet his gaze, my host’s too. Dance is slipping apologies onto my tongue, urging me to flee the room. It’s a bloody nuisance. Every time I open my mouth to speak, I have to force aside another man’s embarrassment first.”

— Stuart Turton

24. “It was impossible to set fire to the blight that had ruined your crops, but a blight was easily summoned by a witch, at which point any poor woman would do.”

— Stuart Turton

25. “If this is hell, then it’s one of our making.”

— Stuart Turton

26. “I don’t have time. The hunt begins in half an hour and I can’t miss it. I have too many questions and most of the answers will be carrying shotguns.”

— Stuart Turton

27. “Mama says she’d rather be free than wealthy in a cage.’ ‘An argument we frequently enjoy,’ Creesjie snorted. ‘Unlike your mother, I don’t believe women can be free, not while men are stronger. What use is the freedom to be assaulted in the first dark alley we come across? We can’t fight, so we sing, we dance – and we survive. Cornelius Vos adores me, and, if he becomes wealthy, he would make for a fine marriage.”

— Stuart Turton

28. “My brother was murdered nineteen years ago tomorrow, Sebastian. I don’t know why, but my parents have decided to mark the occasion by reopening the house where it happened and inviting back the very same guests who were here that day.”

— Stuart Turton

29. “Such terror I hope never to see again.”

— Stuart Turton

30. “Some songs weren’t mere songs. They were memories curled tight and set alight. They made you heartsick.”

— Stuart Turton

31. “She’s soulless, conscienceless. I can barely believe she’s a person.”

— Stuart Turton

32. “Anger’s solid, it has weight. You can beat your fists against it. Pity’s a fog to become lost within.”

— Stuart Turton

33. “The world’s shrivelling beyond the windows, darkening at the edges and blackening at the centre.”

— Stuart Turton

34. “I can sense my memories just out of reach. They have weight and shape, like shrouded furniture in a darkened room. I’ve simply misplaced the light to see them by.”

— Stuart Turton

35. “Every word out of his mouth felt like it was being etched into history; every glance contained a subtle rebuke, an invitation for others to measure themselves against him and discover the ways in which they were wanting.”

— Stuart Turton

36. “Se Arent Hayes era un demone, si era camuffato talmente bene da essere accidentalmente diventato un brav’uomo.”

— Stuart Turton

37. “Oh, you truly are your mother’s daughter,’ said Creesjie, watching her affectionately. ‘Love can be feigned, dear heart. You can even convince yourself of it, if you try hard enough, but it’s impossible to spend an imaginary fortune. Marriage is an inconvenient convenience. It’s the shackle we accept for our safety.”

— Stuart Turton

38. “People didn’t matter to the Company. They were commodities like everything else: free to produce and cheap to replace. Only what they dug out of the ground had value.”

— Stuart Turton

39. “What use is rearranging the furniture if you burn the house down doing it?”

— Stuart Turton

40. “Beautiful heiresses commit suicide at balls.”

— Stuart Turton

41. “There’s a needle in every exchange, the air prickly and dangerous. Perhaps it’s nerves, or the hollow wisdom of foresight, but Blackheath seems fertile ground for tragedy.”

— Stuart Turton

42. “Poverty is the most dangerous thing for a woman. We’re not well suited to a life on the streets.”

— Stuart Turton

43. “Life doesn’t always leave you a choice in how you live it.”

— Stuart Turton

44. “The air is heavy, sweet with perfume, stirred only by a scratchy music that soars and glides and stuns itself against the walls.”

— Stuart Turton

45. “Seeing me, he grins broadly, the boy in the man appearing as if through a window.”

— Stuart Turton

46. “You’re as dense as the mountains you were carved out of.”

— Stuart Turton

47. “Too tired to hold on, I slip back into the dark.”

— Stuart Turton

48. “I’m no longer a man, I’m a chorus.”

— Stuart Turton

49. “Chairs and chaise longues have been gathered around the fire, young women draped over them like wilted orchids, smoking cigarettes and clinging to their drinks.”

— Stuart Turton

50. “You know what men are when there’s nobody ordering them to be better.”

— Stuart Turton