Top 300 Susanna Clarke Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “But these people were judged very stupid by their friends. Was not Jonathan Strange known to be precisely the sort of whimsical, contradictory person who would publish against himself?”

— Susanna Clarke

202. “Of all the tiresome situations in the world, thought the Prince Regent, the most tiresome was to rise from one’s bed in a state of uncertainty as to whether or not one was the ruler of Great Britain.”

— Susanna Clarke

203. “Saint Bridget said she was sorry to hear it. “But I do not think I am the proper person to help you. I look after milkmaids and dairymen. I encourage the butter to come and the cheeses to ripen. I have nothing to do with cheese that has been eaten by the wrong person. Saint Nicholas looks after thieves and stolen property. Or there is Saint Alexander of Comana who loves Charcoal Burners. Perhaps,” she added hopefully, “you would like to pray to one of them?”

— Susanna Clarke

204. “Treat this as a warning, I said. Be on your guard. 16 will not wear his ill intentions in his face. It is very likely he will be pleasing to the eyes. His manners will be friendly and insinuating. That is how he intends to destroy you.”

— Susanna Clarke

205. “I do not intend to go, in the space of one hour, from the helplessness of enchantment to another sort of helplessness!”

— Susanna Clarke

206. “I remember how the smell of the rain that pervaded the streets did not die away as I entered, but somehow intensified; inside the house there was a smell of rain, clouds and air, a smell of limitless space. A smell of the sea.”

— Susanna Clarke

207. “The first ten books Mr. Segundus looked at were worthless – books of sermons and moralizing from the last century, or descriptions of persons whom no one living cared about. The next fifty were very much the same. He began to think his task would soon be done. But then he stumbled upon some very interesting and unusual works of geology, philosophy and medicine. He began to feel more sanguine.”

— Susanna Clarke

208. “A man as talented and handsome as yourself ought not be a servant!” he said in a shocked tone. “He ought to be the ruler of a vast estate! What is beauty for, I should like to know, if not to stand as a visible sign of one’s superiority to everyone else? But I see how it is! Your enemies have conspired together to deprive you of all your possessions and to cast you down among the ignorant and lowly!”

— Susanna Clarke

209. “When night fell, I listened to the Songs that the Moon and Stars were singing and I sang with them.”

— Susanna Clarke

210. “In May 1976 Arne-Sayles wrote a letter to the director of the museum, asking to borrow the head so that he could perform a magical rite of his own invention, transfer the seer’s knowledge to himself and so usher in a New Age for Mankind. To Arne-Sayles’s astonishment, the director refused.”

— Susanna Clarke

211. “There was no one there. Which is to say there was someone there. Miss Wintertowne lay upon the bed, but it would have puzzled philosophy to say now whether she were someone or no one at all.”

— Susanna Clarke

212. “In general, London found him disappointing. He did no magic, cursed no one, foretold nothing. Once at Mrs Godesdone’s house he was heard to remark that he thought it might rain, but this, if a prophecy, was a disappointing one, for it did not rain – indeed no rain fell until the following Saturday.”

— Susanna Clarke

213. “What I’m trying to get at,’ he says, ‘is whether Dr Ketterley persuaded you to go anywhere. Whether he kept you anywhere against your will. Whether you were free to come and go.’ ‘Yes. I was free. I came and went. I did not remain in one place. I walked for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of kilometres.”

— Susanna Clarke

214. “And so I have to ask Myself: whose memory is at fault? Mine or his? Might he in fact be remembering conversations that never happened?”

— Susanna Clarke

215. “His mouth was long and mobile, red and oddly wet.”

— Susanna Clarke

216. “If magic does not have friends in Yorkshire where may we find them?”

— Susanna Clarke

217. “The intention of the French was to cruise about the Bay of Biscay looking for British ships to capture or, if they were unable to do that, to prevent the British from doing any thing which they appeared to want to do.”

— Susanna Clarke

218. “And yet, you know,” continued Lady Pole, scarcely attending to her, “battles have been fought at some time or other almost everywhere. I remember learning in my schoolroom how London was once the scene of a particularly fierce battle. The people were put to death in horrible ways and the city was burnt to the ground. We are surrounded by the shadows of violence and misery all the days of our life and it seems to me that it matters very little whether any material sign remains or not.”

— Susanna Clarke

219. “If I leave, then the House will have no Inhabitant and how will I bear the thought of it Empty? Yet the simple fact is that if I remain in these Halls I will be alone.”

— Susanna Clarke

220. “Perhaps I am too tame, too domestic a magician. But how does one work up a little madness? I meet with mad people every day in the street, but I never thought before to wonder how they got mad. Perhaps I should go wandering on lonely moors and barren shores. That is always a popular place for lunatics – in novels and plays at any rate. Perhaps wild England will make me mad.”

— Susanna Clarke

221. “Sir Doctor, we esteem very much the Hexenmeister of the Great Vellinton.”

— Susanna Clarke

222. “Ah, but, sir,” said Lascelles, “it is precisely by passing judgements 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

223. “Two days ago I gathered together supplies for the journey: food, blankets, a small saucepan in which to heat water and some rags.”

— Susanna Clarke

224. “The old man was as passionately fond of science as we were. He knew how the World was made and was eager to pass that knowledge on to me.”

— Susanna Clarke

225. “It is January and I am arriving at an English country house in Yorkshire. Fog and rain shroud the park. The interior is a dim labyrinth of splendid but desolate rooms, full of winter shadows and echoing footsteps.”

— Susanna Clarke

226. “It is not his fault that he does not see things the way I do.”

— Susanna Clarke

227. “The Waters covered me and for a moment I was surrounded by the strange silence that comes when the Sea sweeps over you and drowns it own sounds.”

— Susanna Clarke

228. “The walls were hung with a series of gigantic paintings in gilded frames of great complexity, all depicting the city of Venice, but the day was overcast, a cold stormy rain had set in, and Venice – that city built of equal parts of sunlit marble and sunlit sea – was drowned in a London gloom.”

— Susanna Clarke

229. “It was a dark day. A chill wind blew snowflakes against the window of Mr Norrell’s library where Childermass sat writing business letters. Though it was only ten o’clock in the morning the candles were already lit. The only sounds were the coals being consumed in the grate and the scratch of Childermass’s pen against the paper.”

— Susanna Clarke

230. “A blush rose to my face. I fixed my eyes on the Pavement. The Other was so neat, so elegant in his suit and his shining shoes. I, on the other hand, was not neat. My clothes were ragged and faded, rotten with the Sea Water I fished in. I hated drawing his attention to this contrast between us, but nevertheless he had asked me and so I must answer. I said, ‘What changed was that I used to have shoes. Now I have none.”

— Susanna Clarke

231. “I estimate that in six months’ time the bones will be white and clean. I will gather them up and take them to the empty niche in the third north-western hall. I will place Valentine Ketterley next to the biscuit-box man. In the middle I will place the long bones tied together with twine. On the right I will place the skull. On the left I will place a box containing all the small bones.”

— Susanna Clarke

232. “Even then I knew that the Tides were not random. I saw that if I could record and document them, I might be able to predict their appearance. That was the beginning of my Table.”

— Susanna Clarke

233. “Safe in his embrace, I wept for my lost Sanity.”

— Susanna Clarke

234. “Strange smiled. Or rather he twisted something in his face and Sir Walter supposed that he was smiling. Sir Walter could not really recall what his smile had looked like before.”

— Susanna Clarke

235. “Birds are not difficult to understand. Their behaviour tells me what they are thinking. Generally it runs along the lines of: Is this food? Is this? What about this? This might be food. I am almost certain that this is. Or occasionally: It is raining. I do not like it.”

— Susanna Clarke

236. “At the last moment the albatross swung over my left shoulder. I fell to the Pavement. He flapped his wings in a frantic, panicked sort of way, stuck out his wiry pink legs and tumbled out of the Air into a sort of heap on the Pavement. In the Air he was a miraculous being – a Heavenly Being – but on the Stones of the Pavement he was mortal and subject to the same embarrassments and clumsiness as other mortals.”

— Susanna Clarke

237. “This search that you and I are embarked on, it’s a truly great project. Momentous. One of the most important in humanity’s history. The knowledge we seek isn’t something new. It’s old. Really old. Once upon a time people possessed it and they used it to do great things, miraculous things. They should have held on to it. They should have respected it. But they didn’t. They abandoned it for the sake of something they called progress. And it’s up to us to get it back.”

— Susanna Clarke

238. “But I haven’t got his mind and I haven’t got his memories. I don’t mean that he’s not here. He is here.’ I touched my breast. ‘But I think he’s asleep. He’s fine. You mustn’t worry about him.”

— Susanna Clarke

239. “At that moment their conversation was interrupted by a most barbaric sound – a great horn was being blown. A number of men rushed forward and heaved the great town gates shut. Thinking that perhaps some danger threatened the town, Stephen looked round in alarm. “Sir, what is happening?” “Oh, it is these people’s custom to shut the gate every night against the wicked heathen,” said the gentleman, languidly, “by which they mean everyone except themselves. But.”

— Susanna Clarke

240. “And she was quite tolerable to look at, you say?” said Mr Lascelles. “You never saw her?” said Drawlight. “Oh! she was a heavenly creature. Quite divine. An angel.” “Indeed? And such a pinched-looking ruin of a thing now! I shall advise all the good-looking women of my acquaintance not to die,” said Mr Lascelles.”

— Susanna Clarke

241. “The idea of forty precious volumes being taken into a country in a state of war where they might get burnt, blown up, drowned or dusty was almost too horrible to contemplate. 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! Could soldiers read? Mr Norrell did not know.”

— Susanna Clarke

242. “Mr Norrell smiled for the first time – but it was an inward sort of smile.”

— Susanna Clarke

243. “It is my practice to index my Journal entries every other week or so. I find that this is more efficient than indexing them straight away. After some time has passed it is easier to separate the important from the ephemeral.”

— Susanna Clarke

244. “The Tides themselves are full of movement and power so that, while they may not exactly be alive, neither are they not-alive.”

— Susanna Clarke

245. “From the open window came the mingled odours of horse-sweat, peaches and sour milk.”

— Susanna Clarke

246. “This unsightly condition is only temporary. Don’t be sad. Don’t fear. I will place you somwhere where the fish and the birds can strip away all this broken flesh. It will soon be gone. Then you will be a handsome skull and handsome bones. I will put you in good order and you can rest in the Sunlight and Starlight.”

— Susanna Clarke

247. “I have never seen any indication that the World was coming to an End, but only the regular progression of Halls and Passageways into the Far Distance.”

— Susanna Clarke

248. “A heap of shining guineas was lying there. Mrs Brandy picked up one of the coins and examined it. It was as though she held a ball of soft yellow light with a coin at the bottom of it.”

— Susanna Clarke

249. “But if you are going to take up a profession – and I cannot see why you should want one at all, now that you have come into your property – surely you can chuse something better than magic! It has no practical application.”

— Susanna Clarke

250. “Napoleon Buonaparte, it was said, was scouring France to find a magician of his own – but with no success. In London the Ministers were quite astonished to find that, for once, they had done something the Nation approved.”

— Susanna Clarke