Top 300 Susanna Clarke Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Perhaps that is what it is like being with other people. Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the World in ways you would rather not. Perhaps that is what Raphael means.”

— Susanna Clarke

52. “I felt a surge of anger and for a moment I thought I would not tell him what I knew. But then I thought that it was unkind to punish him for something he cannot help. It is not his fault that he does not see things the way I do.”

— Susanna Clarke

53. “For there was nothing in his eyes but the black night and the cold stars.”

— Susanna Clarke

54. “Is it disrespectful to the House to love some Statues more than others? I sometimes ask Myself this question. It is my belief that the House itself loves and blesses equally everything that it has created. Should I try to do the same? Yet, at the same time, I can see that it is in the nature of men to prefer one thing to another, to find one thing more meaningful than another.”

— Susanna Clarke

55. “My last thought before I fell asleep was: He is dead. My only friend. My only enemy.”

— Susanna Clarke

56. “The House is valuable because it is the House. It is enough in and of Itself. It is not the means to an end.”

— Susanna Clarke

57. “Alexander of Whitby taught that the universe is like a tapestry only parts of which are visible to us at a time. After we are dead, we will see the whole and then it will be clear to us how the different parts relate to each other.”

— Susanna Clarke

58. “Which demomstrates the sad poverty of English launguage...”

— Susanna Clarke

59. “If other magicians think differently from you, then you must battle it out with them. You must prove the superiority of your opinions, as I do in politics. You must argue and publish and practise your magic and you must learn to live as I do – in the face of constant criticism, opposition and censure. That, sir, is the English way.”

— Susanna Clarke

60. “In accordance with the first system I have named two years 2011 and 2012. This strikes me as deeply pedestrian. Also I cannot remember what happened two thousand years ago which made me think that year a good starting point. According to the second system I have given the years names like ‘The Year I named the Constellations’ and ‘The Year I counted and named the Dead’. I like this much more. It gives each year a character of its own. This is the system I shall use going forward.”

— Susanna Clarke

61. “I mean that two of any thing is a most uncomfortable number. One may do as he pleases. Six may get along well enough. But two must always struggle for mastery. Two must always watch each other. The eyes of all the world will be on two, uncertain which of them to follow.”

— Susanna Clarke

62. “In my mind are all the tides, their seasons, their ebbs and their flows. In my mind are all the halls, the endless procession of them, the intricate pathways. When this world becomes too much for me, when I grow tired of the noise and the dirt and the people, I close my eyes and I name a particular vestibule to myself; then I name a hall.”

— Susanna Clarke

63. “He raised his arms and in sonorous tones he called on Addy Domarus several times and in several different ways to Come! Come!”

— Susanna Clarke

64. “My dear Lascelles,” cried Drawlight, “what nonsense you talk! Upon my word, there is nothing in the world so easy to explain as failure – it is, after all, what every body does all the time.”

— Susanna Clarke

65. “It is curious and we magicians collect curiosities, you know.”

— Susanna Clarke

66. “Fairies do not make a strong distinction between the animate and the inanimate. They believe that stones, doors, trees, fire, clouds and so forth all have souls and desires, and are either masculine or feminine. Perhaps this explains the extraordinary sympathy for madness which fairies exhibit. For example, it used to be well known that when fairies hid themselves from general sight, lunatics were often able to perceive them. The.”

— Susanna Clarke

67. “She lived quite alone and whether the fault was hers or whether the fault was theirs I do not know. And a great deal of time went by and she did not speak to a living soul and a great wind of madness howled through her and overturned all her languages. And she forgot Italian, forgot English, forgot Latin, forgot Basque, forgot Welsh, forgot every thing in the world except Cat – and that, it is said, she spoke marvellously well.”

— Susanna Clarke

68. “In his madness and his blindness he was Lear and Gloucester combined.”

— Susanna Clarke

69. “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

70. “I hope there may be bogs and that John McKenzie may drown in them.”

— Susanna Clarke

71. “Clegg began life as a tightrope walker at the northern fairs, but as tightrope-walking is not a trade that combines well with drinking – and Clegg was a famous drinker – he was obliged to give it up.”

— Susanna Clarke

72. “They were gentleman-magicians, which is to say they had never harmed any one by magic – nor ever done any one the slightest good. In fact, to own the truth, not one of these magicians had ever cast the smallest spell, nor by magic caused one leaf to tremble upon a tree, made one mote of dust to alter its course or changed a single hair upon any one’s head. But, with this one minor reservation, they enjoyed a reputation as some of the wisest and most magical gentlemen in Yorkshire.”

— Susanna Clarke

73. “He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to listen to him.”

— Susanna Clarke

74. “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

75. “The pigment must be mixed with the tears of spinsters of good family, who must live long lives of impeccable virtue and die without ever having had a day of true happiness.”

— Susanna Clarke

76. “But the veterans of the Peninsular War remarked approvingly that rain was always an Englishman’s friend in times of war. They told their comrades: “There is nothing so comforting or familiar to us, you see – whereas other nations it baffles.”

— Susanna Clarke

77. “Suddenly it seemed that all that had been learnt in every English childhood of the wildness of English magic might still be true, and even now on some long-forgotten paths, behind the sky, on the other side of the rain, John Uskglass might be riding still, with his company of men and fairies. Most.”

— Susanna Clarke

78. “Who was it that said a magician needs the subtlety of a Jesuit, the daring of a soldier and the wits of a thief? I believe it was meant for a insult, but it has some truth in it.”

— Susanna Clarke

79. “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

80. “Oh,” said the Duke of Wellington, not much interested, “they are still complaining about that, are they?”

— Susanna Clarke

81. “You must get me 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.”

— Susanna Clarke

82. “Where have they gone?” “Wherever magicians used to go. Behind the sky. On the other side of the rain.”

— Susanna Clarke

83. “The King’s Ministers had long treasured a plan to send the enemies of Britain bad dreams. The Foreign Secretary had first proposed it in January 1808 and for over a year Mr Norrell had industriously sent the Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte a bad dream each night, as a result of which nothing had happened.”

— Susanna Clarke

84. “But as to how the food is conveyed to her,” exclaimed Miss Greysteel, “no one knows for certain. Signor Tosetti believes that her cats carry it up to her.” “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

85. “After two hours it stopped raining and in the same moment the spell broke, which Peroquet and the Admiral and Captain Jumeau knew by a curious twist of their senses, as if they had tasted a string quartet, or been, for a moment, deafened by the sight of colour blue.”

— Susanna Clarke

86. “The World feels complete and whole, and I, its Child, fit into it seamlessly.”

— Susanna Clarke

87. “It is also true that his hair had a reddish tinge and, as everybody knows, no one with red hair can ever truly be said to be handsome.”

— Susanna Clarke

88. “Mr Norrell, it is not the duty of the court – any court – to exalt one person’s opinions above others! Not in magic nor in any other sphere of life. If other magicians think differently from you, then you must battle it out with them. You must prove the superiority of your opinions, as I do in politics. You must argue and publish and practise your magic and you must learn to live as I do – in the face of constant criticism, opposition and censure. That, sir, is the English way.”

— Susanna Clarke

89. “It is, after all, many centuries since clergymen distinguished themselves on the field of war, and lawyers never have.”

— Susanna Clarke

90. “Sometimes the pain in Childermass’s shoulder escaped from him and ran about the room and hid. When this happened he thought it became a small animal. No one else knew it was there. He supposed he ought to tell them so that they could chase it out. Once he caught sight of it; it had flame-coloured fur, brighter than a fox.”

— Susanna Clarke

91. “Bright yellow leaves flowed swiftly upon the dark, almost-black water, making patterns as they went. To Mr. Segundus the patterns looked a little like magical writing. ‘But then,’ he thought, ‘So many things do.”

— Susanna Clarke

92. “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

93. “Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.”

— Susanna Clarke

94. “Like the hero of a fairy-tale Mr Norrell had discovered that the power to do what he wished had been his own all along.”

— Susanna Clarke

95. “Unfortunately, Childermass’s French was so strongly accented by his native Yorkshire that Minervois did not understand and asked Strange if Childermass was Dutch.”

— Susanna Clarke

96. “The Duke of York remarked that King Ferdinand of Spain had sent a letter to the Prince Regent complaining that many parts of his kingdom had been rendered entirely unrecognizable by the English magician and demanding that Mr Strange return and restore the country to its original form.”

— Susanna Clarke

97. “Mr. Robinson was a polished sort of person. He was so clean and healthy and pleased about everything that he positively shone – which is only to be expected in a fairy or an angel, but is somewhat disconcerting in an attorney.”

— Susanna Clarke

98. “And being a man – and a clever one – and forty-two years old, he naturally had a great deal of information and a great many opinions upon almost every subject you care to mention, which he was eager to communicate to a lovely woman of nineteen – all of which, he thought, she could not fail but to find quite enthralling.”

— Susanna Clarke

99. “Many people nowadays have surnames that reveal their ancestors’ fairy origins. Otherlander and Fairchild are two.”

— Susanna Clarke

100. “Ha!” cried Dr John contemptuously. “Magic! That is chiefly used for killing Frenchmen, is it not?”

— Susanna Clarke