Top 300 T. Kingfisher Quotes (2024 Update)

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

— T. Kingfisher

2. “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

3. “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

4. “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

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

— T. Kingfisher

6. “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

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

— T. Kingfisher

8. “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

9. “She wondered if the outside crows hated the crows of the blistered land the way that the villagers outside hated the people inside.”

— T. Kingfisher

10. “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

11. “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

12. “It is somehow easier to face things when one is not alone. Courage still does most of the heavy lifting, but Pride gets its shoulder in there, too, just to keep you from embarrassing yourself in front of the other person... or hedgehog, as the case may be.”

— T. Kingfisher

13. “Oh, relax. It’s not like the stick up his ass can get any stickier.”

— T. Kingfisher

14. “Rosa thought she might be getting a headache. Maybe it was because she was rolling her eyes so hard.”

— T. Kingfisher

15. “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

16. “The perfect gentle knight. She had a strong urge to kick him in the shins. Which would do precisely nothing and he’d look confused at me. And then probably offer to take his shin armor off so I could try again without hurting my foot.”

— T. Kingfisher

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

— T. Kingfisher

18. “Someone seemed to be drinking Caliban’s beer at a shocking rate. He wasn’t sure why, since it did not improve at all upon repeated exposure.”

— T. Kingfisher

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

— T. Kingfisher

20. “Look, if it’s gonna come to life and take a chunk out of me, I’d rather it did now than when my back was turned.” There was a certain logic to this position. The dead twisted one did not take a chunk out of her, despite several solid pokes with the stick. I think Foxy might have been slightly disappointed.”

— T. Kingfisher

21. “Gail told amusing stories about wildlife rescue and trying to bandage up an injured great blue heron. “I had to wear a welding face mask,” she said. “And if I’d had a riot shield, I’d have used it. Those beaks are like a spring-loaded javelin, and they’re never grateful.” She smiled fondly at the memory of a bird trying to put its beak through her eye.”

— T. Kingfisher

22. “Every time I went over there, she was snipping at him – snip, snip, snip, like her tongue was pruning shears and she was slicing off bits for fun.”

— T. Kingfisher

23. “She’s at peace now,” said Fenris. Agnes gave him an ironic glance. “She’s been at peace for centuries, I think. I still get to cry about it.”

— T. Kingfisher

24. “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

25. “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

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

— T. Kingfisher

27. “The man in white cleared his throat. “You’re not a swan,” she said. He raised both eyebrows. “I’ve been accused of many things, but never that.”

— T. Kingfisher

28. “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

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

— T. Kingfisher

30. “I am the servant of the sword,” he said. “I obey the will of the – great god, woman, put on some clothes!”

— T. Kingfisher

31. “Everybody makes up a story about their sins. Sometimes to make them less, sometimes to make them the worst thing a mortal’s ever done.”

— T. Kingfisher

32. “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

33. “Well, he’s a dog. They don’t have an idea how the world’s supposed to be, so it doesn’t bother them when it isn’t.” Agnes frowned. “Except herding dogs, I think. They have a pretty clear idea in their heads, so they’re always nipping and worrying and trying to get it to fit.”

— T. Kingfisher

34. “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

35. “Evil, Roderick had said. But it wasn’t evil that I was seeing here. It was alien, a monstrous alienness so far removed from what I understood that every fiber of my being screamed to reject it, so run, to get away.”

— T. Kingfisher

36. “Smart goblins became mechanics. Dumb goblins became soldiers. Really dumb goblins became officers.”

— T. Kingfisher

37. “If dogs had religion, Satan would be the UPS guy.”

— T. Kingfisher

38. “Summer had read a great many books about magic and animals and changing your shape. Summer’s mother believed that books were safe things that kept you inside, which only shows how little she knew about it, because books are one of the least safe things in the world.”

— T. Kingfisher

39. “Hell, if I kissed him, he’d probably apologize for getting in the way of my lips. That might be an interesting apology.”

— T. Kingfisher

40. “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

41. “There could not be a manor house. There had never been a manor house anywhere near Lostfarthing. Nobles did not come to Lostfarthing. It was not possible for a noble to disgrace themselves badly enough to be exiled this far east. The Duke of Entwood had been convicted of black magic, cannibalism, and high treason, and while he’d been burned at the stake, his heirs had only been sent as far east as Blue Lady, which was still two day’s travel west of Skypepper.”

— T. Kingfisher

42. “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

43. “One of the grimmer realizations of Sarkis’s youth had been the discovery that knowing you were being an ass did not actually stop you from continuing to be an ass.”

— T. Kingfisher

44. “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

45. “Caliban had a brief, vivid memory of one of the older nuns saying: “Maybe their god could use one of those arms to pull his followers’ heads out of their own asses!”

— T. Kingfisher

46. “But I shouldn’t have had to do any of it. There should have been so many grown-ups who should have fixed things before it got down to me and Spindle. It doesn’t make you a hero just because everybody else didn’t do their job.”

— T. Kingfisher

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

— T. Kingfisher

48. “There was something about poverty that was a little like war. Either you had been there or you hadn’t, and it wasn’t really possible to explain it to anyone who hadn’t.”

— T. Kingfisher

49. “I swear, I am not usually a person who looks up medical conditions online. I lived without health insurance long enough that I am far more likely to try to sleep off anything short of decapitation.”

— T. Kingfisher

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

— T. Kingfisher