Top 300 T. Kingfisher Quotes (2026 Update)

1. “Well... I have this... thing”. Saying I have a homicidal sourdough starter sounded much too bizarre.”

— T. Kingfisher

2. “A bird with feathers made of fire watched over them, in a cage with bars that shone like moonlight.”

— T. Kingfisher

3. “He fixed her with a thoughtful look, and it occurred to her that his eyes were the colour of sun-warmed earth, and she did not quite know what to do about it.”

— T. Kingfisher

4. “Relief feels like happiness, if you don’t know the difference.”

— T. Kingfisher

5. “The hole in your heart is very large. Be careful what you allow to fill it.”

— T. Kingfisher

6. “It was really very sweet, and so if someone asked me about Thornhedge, I would probably say that it is a sweet book, and then presumably someone would point out that the heroine is raised by child-eating fish monsters and the villain is torturing people and animating the dead, and I would be left flailing my hands around and saying, “But it’s sweet! Really!”

— T. Kingfisher

7. “I would know you anywhere. I would recognize you at the bottom of a mineshaft on a moonless light, if I were deaf and blind.”

— T. Kingfisher

8. “Same thing.” He took a deep breath, clearly choosing his words carefully. “A gnole’s compassion does not require fur.”

— T. Kingfisher

9. “His voice had that light veneer of humor that we all get, because if we don’t pretend we’re laughing, we might have to admit just how broken we are. It’s like telling stories at the bar about the worst pain you’ve ever been in. You laugh and you brag about it, and it turns the pain into something that will buy you a drink.”

— T. Kingfisher

10. “Fairy tales,” said the dust-wife heavily, “are very hard on bystanders. Particularly old women. I’d rather not dance myself to death in iron shoes, if it’s all the same to you.”

— T. Kingfisher

11. “My hair is a comb-eating monster that is technically “curly,” in the same way that a cassowary is technically a bird.”

— T. Kingfisher

12. “Look, if you don’t make a fool of yourself over animals, at least in private, you aren’t to be trusted.”

— T. Kingfisher

13. “But when I think of desecrating a grave, I do not feel dread but revulsion. I am not afraid of what lies in the grave, but it would be dishonorable. Disgusting, even. I do not fear retribution; I fear what sort of person I would become by doing it.”

— T. Kingfisher

14. “I can’t wait for you to meet him. You’ll say such horrible things to each other. I’m sure you’ll be friends.”

— T. Kingfisher

15. “Waffle House at four in the morning is a liminal space occupied by long-haul truckers, bleary-eyed shift workers, and teenagers so high they can smell God’s breath.”

— T. Kingfisher

16. “Really stupid people die all the time. And if they can manage it, I oughta have no problem.”

— T. Kingfisher

17. “The dead don’t walk. Except, sometimes, when they do.”

— T. Kingfisher

18. “There was a doily on the chest of drawers. I eyed it warily. I have nothing against doilies, but they’re a slippery slope. You start with doilies, then pretty soon it’s crocheted table runners and then it’s a short step to antimacassars.”

— T. Kingfisher

19. “No. I cannot believe that. I must believe that the gods do not send us trials that we cannot endure. It would have been easier to believe that if he hadn’t seen so many people broken by the trials they had endured.”

— T. Kingfisher

20. “She wasn’t stupid, though. There was a sharp, glittering intelligence inside the insanity that had learned early on that it was much easier to get away with being insane if you were also useful and had a little bit of money, and if people were just a little bit scared of you.”

— T. Kingfisher

21. “You are not a failure, you know,” he said, “simply because you can’t endure something unendurable.”

— T. Kingfisher

22. “You didn’t fail,” I said. “They wouldn’t let you succeed. It’s different.”

— T. Kingfisher

23. “This comes of always being the practical one, she thought, a bit wearily. Nobody will comfort you, so you learn to do it yourself.”

— T. Kingfisher

24. “If we don’t pretend we’re laughing, we might have to admit just how broken we are.”

— T. Kingfisher

25. “As writers say to each other, “Yes, it’s been done, but you haven’t done it yet.”

— T. Kingfisher

26. “The Forester patted a log next to her. ‘Come and sit, child. Tell me about your journey, and start a little before the beginning, because we are usually wrong about where things begin.”

— T. Kingfisher

27. “Oh, come on, if your friends aren’t willing to strangle you, what kind of friends are they?”

— T. Kingfisher

28. “His last relationship had ended less than a month ago. Given that the Bishop Beartongue, highest ranked of the priests of the Temple of the White Rat in Archenhold, had nearly run him into the ground, he’d been looking forward to a few months of celibacy to recuperate. The bishop was a marvelous woman, but she had a great many aggressions to work out and limited free time to do it in.”

— T. Kingfisher

29. “Hours passed, like a kidney stone.”

— T. Kingfisher

30. “You got tired of waiting around for a worthy husband to present himself,” continued Gran Aischa, “so you went out, with your trusted raven, to find the prince wise enough to speak to you without fear.” She brought her hands together. “And you are still looking, but one day, I’m sure, you’ll find him.”

— T. Kingfisher

31. “That our own flaws infuriate us in other people?”

— T. Kingfisher

32. “The thing that no one warned you about insanity was how incredibly tedious it was. You were always having to explain yourself and apologize, over and over, and you got so tired of being crazy.”

— T. Kingfisher

33. “Slate and Brenner sang rounds of dirty songs together. Brenner had a surprisingly good voice. Slate didn’t. She did get to enjoy watching Learned Edmund twitch when she went for the high notes.”

— T. Kingfisher

34. “Some people just want the apocalypse in their lifetime.”

— T. Kingfisher

35. “Three tasks the dust-wife had given her. Sew a cloak of owlcloth and nettles, build a dog of cursed bones, and catch moonlight in a jar of clay.”

— T. Kingfisher

36. “This is normal, I told myself. This is totally normal. The world completely turned upside down and you were scared and you had to be competent and not freak out. Now you can freak out again and it’s just taking a while to all break loose. You’re fine. This is normal.”

— T. Kingfisher

37. “Headache is always preferable to heartache, and if you’re focusing on not throwing up, you aren’t thinking about how the friends of your youth are dying around you.”

— T. Kingfisher

38. “I’d been tired of it a decade ago. Now I’d moved to some other state entirely. Transcendent exhaustion, perhaps.”

— T. Kingfisher

39. “The boutique clothing store goes out of business approximately once a year, whereupon someone buys it, changes out the name and the scented candles, and proceeds to gently lose money for another year.”

— T. Kingfisher

40. “Mules were worse. Mules were like horses who could plan.”

— T. Kingfisher

41. “I am a lawyer and a priest,” said Zale. “There is probably someone on earth more bound to confidentiality, but I have yet to meet them.”

— T. Kingfisher

42. “But I understood wanting to go home. I had been trapped on the other side of the hole, in an alien world, and I would have sold my hope of heaven to go home again.”

— T. Kingfisher

43. “She had a strong urge to kiss him, and then perhaps beat him about the head and shoulders with his own sword.”

— T. Kingfisher

44. “All women are beautiful,” said Istvhan, dismissing this. “It is the job of their lovers to make them feel that way if they do not already.”

— T. Kingfisher

45. “The larger part of power was understanding the power you had over others, even if you would rather not have had that much power in the first place.”

— T. Kingfisher

46. “I am never sure what to think of Americans. Their brashness can be charming, but just when I decide that I rather like them, I meet one that I wish would go back to America, and then perhaps keep going off the far edge, into the sea.”

— T. Kingfisher

47. “So their leader looks pretty dead,” said Istvhan, who was at the point where a corpse was a welcome break in the tension.”

— T. Kingfisher

48. “He likes me best, maybe because I feed him the most often. He tolerates Aunt Tabitha. My uncle won’t go into the basement any more, he claims Bob actually hissed at him once. It would have been a belching sort of hiss, I imagine.”

— T. Kingfisher

49. “Well, if I live through this, my nightmares will be amazing.”

— T. Kingfisher

50. “White ravens aren’t really white, they’re just an absence of black. But they’re very good at it.”

— T. Kingfisher