Top 300 Susanna Clarke Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “All around me doors into other worlds began appearing but I knew the one I wanted, the one into which everything forgotten flows. The edges of that door were frayed and worn by the passage of old ideas leaving the world.”

— Susanna Clarke

252. “But though he had no striking vices, his virtues were perhaps almost as hard to define.”

— Susanna Clarke

253. “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

254. “The little man was all smiling acquiescence.”

— Susanna Clarke

255. “I rained every time I moved.”

— Susanna Clarke

256. “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

257. “They believe that stones, doors, trees, fire, clouds and so forth all have souls and desires, and are either masculine or feminine.”

— Susanna Clarke

258. “Oh, quite!” agreed Byron. “I was with him again a few hours ago and could not get him to talk of any thing but his dead wife and how she is not really dead, but merely enchanted. And now he shrouds himself in Darkness and works Black Magic! There is something rather admirable in all this, do you not agree?”

— Susanna Clarke

259. “Several people seized Strange bodily. One man started shaking him vigorously, as though he thought that he might in this way dispel any magic before it took effect.”

— Susanna Clarke

260. “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

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

— Susanna Clarke

262. “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

263. “Nothing, I believe, inspires a man with such eagerness to begin his day’s work as the sight of his instruments neatly laid out.”

— Susanna Clarke

264. “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

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

— Susanna Clarke

266. “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

267. “But for the rest nothing amused him; nothing satisfied him. All was shadows, emptiness, echoes and dust.”

— Susanna Clarke

268. “Without the journals I would be all at sea.”

— Susanna Clarke

269. “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

270. “One should be patient with saints, I suppose. Though the trouble with being patient,” she said, “is that, generally speaking, there’s no one to see you doing it.”

— Susanna Clarke

271. “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

272. “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

273. “You have come here to build a nest. But you cannot find the materials you need. There is only cold, wet seaweed and you need something drier to make a cosy nest for your egg. Do not worry. I will help you. I have a supply of dry seaweed. Speaking as a non-avian, I feel sure that this would be a highly suitable building material. I will go and fetch it immediately.”

— Susanna Clarke

274. “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

275. “In familiar surroundings our manners are cheerful and easy, but only transport us to places where we know no one and no one knows us, and Lord! how uncomfortable we become!”

— Susanna Clarke

276. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.”

— Susanna Clarke

277. “Once again I took my Index and Journals to the Fifth Northern Hall and sat down opposite the Statue of the Gorilla. May his Strength and Resolution give me courage!”

— Susanna Clarke

278. “Sometimes new stories are just old stories badly remembered.”

— Susanna Clarke

279. “Byron!” exclaimed the little man. “Really? Dear me! Mad, and a friend of Lord Byron!” He sounded as if he did not know which was worse.”

— Susanna Clarke

280. “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

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

— Susanna Clarke

282. “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

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

— Susanna Clarke

284. “I have known for many years that The Other does not revere the House in the same way I do, but it still shocks me when he talks like this. How can a man as intelligent as him say there is nothing alive in this House?”

— Susanna Clarke

285. “Brilliant! Thank you! But what I value even more than the shoes themselves is the proof they give of our friendship! I consider the possession of such a friend as you to be one of the greatest happinesses of my Life!”

— Susanna Clarke

286. “In a war one is either living like a prince or a vagabond. I.”

— Susanna Clarke

287. “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

288. “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

289. “The wood said, All woods join up with all other woods. All are one wood. And in that wood all times join up with all other times. All is one moment.”

— Susanna Clarke

290. “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

291. “The House was particularly silent. No birds flew; no birds sang. Where had they all gone? It seemed they found the cloud-haunted World as oppressive as I did. In the Sixth Western Hall I found them at last. They were gathered there, perched on the Shoulders and Heads of every Statue, on Plinths and on Columns, sitting silently, waiting.”

— Susanna Clarke

292. “She had the sweetest way of saying my name and smiling at the same time, and every time she did so, my heart turned over.”

— Susanna Clarke

293. “I took his poor, broken head into my lap and cradled it. ‘Your good looks are gone,’ I told him. ‘But you mustn’t worry about it. This unsightly condition is only temporary. Don’t be sad. Don’t fear. I will place you somewhere 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.”

— Susanna Clarke

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

— Susanna Clarke

295. “Some halls are blocked, while others are flooded. And.”

— Susanna Clarke

296. “I have never seen a live monkey in the House.”

— Susanna Clarke

297. “In the fairy’s song the earth recognized the names by which it called itself.”

— Susanna Clarke

298. “But the sound that came out of his mouth was no sound at all; it was the emptied skin of sound without flesh or bones.”

— Susanna Clarke

299. “But according to the Essay on the Extraordinary Revival of English Magic we have no business even to wonder about such things. According to Mr NORRELL and Lord PORTISHEAD the Modern Magician ought not to meddle with things only half-understood. But I say that it is precisely because these things are only half-understood that we must study them.”

— Susanna Clarke

300. “We lapsed into silence again. There seemed nothing more to say. I was shocked by his description of 16’s wickedness. To be opposed to Reason itself!”

— Susanna Clarke