Top 300 Susanna Clarke Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “He has a most charming smile when he remembers to use it.”

— Susanna Clarke

252. “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

253. “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

254. “I am not home. I am here.”

— Susanna Clarke

255. “Immediately the Charcoal Burner began a long indignant speech describing the injuries that had been done to him, and in particular the part played by the solitary huntsman. “Well,” said Saint Kentigern, cheerfully. “Let me see what I can do. Saints, such as me, ought always to listen attentively to the prayers of poor, dirty, ragged men, such as you. No matter how offensively those prayers are phrased. You are our special care.”

— Susanna Clarke

256. “He was one of those people whose ideas are too lively to be confined in their brains and spill out into the world to the consternation of passers-by.”

— Susanna Clarke

257. “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

258. “Batter-Sea is not a word,’ I said at last. ‘It has no referent. There is nothing in the World corresponding to that combination of sounds.”

— Susanna Clarke

259. “A woman alone was in danger from all sorts of predatory creatures – bears, wolves, men.”

— Susanna Clarke

260. “Where in the world have you been?” demanded Strange. “Walking,” she said. Her voice was just as it had always been. “Walking! Arabella, are you quite mad? In three feet of snow? Where?” “In the dark woods,” she said, “among my soft-sleeping brothers and sisters. Across the high moors among the sweet-scented ghosts of my brothers and sisters long dead. Under the grey sky through the dreams and murmurs of my brothers and sisters yet to come.” Strange stared at her. “What?”

— Susanna Clarke

261. “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

262. “Strange a quite extraordinary number of books to read, and said that he expected him to have read them by the end of the week.”

— Susanna Clarke

263. “Ela usava um vestido da cor das tempestades, das sombras e da chuva, e um colar de promessas quebradas e arrependimentos.”

— Susanna Clarke

264. “Sir, please do not do that,’ I said. ‘The Other says that 16 is a malevolent person.’ ‘Malevolent? I wouldn’t say so. No more than most people.”

— Susanna Clarke

265. “Its surface repelled Water, like something meant to live in Air.”

— Susanna Clarke

266. “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

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

— Susanna Clarke

268. “There is a thing that I know but always forget: Winter is hard.”

— Susanna Clarke

269. “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

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

— Susanna Clarke

271. “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

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

— Susanna Clarke

273. “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

274. “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

275. “I rained every time I moved.”

— Susanna Clarke

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

— Susanna Clarke

277. “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

278. “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

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

— Susanna Clarke

280. “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

281. “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

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

— Susanna Clarke

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

— Susanna Clarke

284. “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

285. “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

286. “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

287. “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

288. “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

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

— Susanna Clarke

290. “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

291. “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

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

— Susanna Clarke

293. “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

294. “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

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

— Susanna Clarke

296. “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

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

— Susanna Clarke

298. “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

299. “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

300. “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