Top 300 Susanna Clarke Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “The world was constantly speaking to Ancient Man.”

— Susanna Clarke

302. “Mr Murray was sorry to find that his two authors could not agree better, but he reflected that it probably could not be helped since both men were famous for quarrelling: Strange with Norrell, and Byron with practically everybody.3 When.”

— Susanna Clarke

303. “Why do pretty women always have such herds of relatives?”

— Susanna Clarke

304. “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

305. “Saint Oswald put his head out of Heaven and cried, “Do you have to shout so loud? I am not deaf! What do you want? And put down that candlestick! It was expensive!” During their holy and blessed lives Saint Kentigern and Saint Bridget had been a monk and a nun respectively; they were full of mild, saintly patience. But Saint Oswald had been a king and a soldier, and he was a very different sort of person.”

— Susanna Clarke

306. “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

307. “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

308. “Let us examine the case of rings. Rings have long been considered peculiarly suitable for this sort of magic by virtue of their small size.”

— Susanna Clarke

309. “She preferred those occupations that require no companion. She walked alone, rad alone, sat alone in the sittingroom or in the ray of faint sunshine which sometimes penetrated the little courtyard ab about one o’clock. She was less open-hearted and confiding than before; it was as if someone – not necessarily Jonathan Strange – had disappointed her and she was determined to be more independent in future. pg. 675.”

— Susanna Clarke

310. “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

311. “I do not believe you have ever given your friends a moment’s anxiety – except for worrying that this wicked world would quickly take advantage of someone so honest.”

— Susanna Clarke

312. “Today the subject of my research is’ – at this point he looked up from what he was doing and smiled at me – ‘you.’ He has a most charming smile when he remembers to use it. ‘Really?’ I said. ‘What are you trying to find out? Do you have a hypothesis about me?’ ‘I do.’ ‘What is it?’ ‘I can’t tell you that. It might influence the data.’ ‘Oh! Yes. That is true. Sorry.’ ‘That’s OK,’ he said. ‘It’s natural to be curious.”

— Susanna Clarke

313. “The dialogue that happened between the ancients and the world was not simply something that happened in their heads; it was something that happened in the actual world. The way the Ancients perceived the world was the way the world truly was. This gave them extraordinary influence and power. Reality was not only capable of taking part in a dialogue – intelligible and articulate – it was also persuadable.”

— Susanna Clarke

314. “It seemed that it was not only live magicians which Mr. Norrell despised. He had taken the measure of all the dead ones too and found them wanting.”

— Susanna Clarke

315. “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

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

— Susanna Clarke

317. “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

318. “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

319. “I no longer feel quite so alarmed when a nonsensical word in my Journal gives rise to a mental image that I cannot account for. Do not be anxious, I tell Myself. It is the House. It is the House enlarging your understanding.”

— Susanna Clarke

320. “Strange finished: “People have such odd notions about magicians. They wanted me to tell them about vampyres.”

— Susanna Clarke

321. “Perhaps the wisdom of birds resides, not in the individual, but in the flock, the congregation.”

— Susanna Clarke

322. “I thought that it was unkind to punish him for something he can’t help. It is not his fault that he does not see things the way I do.”

— Susanna Clarke

323. “He had a very young man’s belief in the absolute rightness of his own cause and the absolute wrongness of everyone else’s.”

— Susanna Clarke

324. “There are some things which have no business being put into books for all the world to read.”

— Susanna Clarke

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

— Susanna Clarke

326. “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

327. “Raphael left, disappearing into the Shadowy Space between the two Minotaurs in the South-Eastern Corner of the Vestibule.”

— Susanna Clarke

328. “It contained a spell for turning Members of Parliament into useful members of society and now, just when Uncle Auberon thought he had a use for it, he could not find it.”

— Susanna Clarke

329. “This is what I call a Distributary World – it was created by ideas flowing out of another world. This world could not have existed unless that other world had existed first. Whether this world is still dependent on.”

— Susanna Clarke

330. “Saints!’ said Merowdis, rather alarmed at this. ‘I never thought of Papa as a saint before!’ ‘I meant you,’ said Ysolde. ‘Me!’ ‘You have visions. You can’t see any difference between animals and people. You can’t see any difference between spiders and people. And you’re really only happy when you’re in church. Or in a wood.”

— Susanna Clarke

331. “I left the Embrace of the Faun and wandered miserably through the House. I believed that I was mad – or that I had been mad – or else that I was becoming mad now. Whichever way it was, it was a terrifying prospect. After a while I decided that this way of going on did no good at all.”

— Susanna Clarke

332. “A well-informed mind, nice manners and a gentle nature – all of these are much more likely to contribute to a husband’s happiness than mere transient beauty.”

— Susanna Clarke