Top 300 T. Kingfisher Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “I bet real pirates don’t worry about lint. They worry about other things, like privateers and scurvy.”

— T. Kingfisher

52. “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

53. “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

54. “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

55. “Perhaps Welsh fairies stole children and confiscated their vowels.”

— T. Kingfisher

56. “Civettes were not known for their empathy. Tab hooked his claws into her trousers and climbed up, demanding petting, unconcerned that his human was making strange face noises. Humans always made strange face noises; a weasel learned to deal with it.”

— T. Kingfisher

57. “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

58. “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

59. “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

60. “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

61. “You’re bringing the hen?” “She’s got a demon in her,” said the dust-wife. “It’d be rude to leave her for the neighbors to deal with.”

— T. Kingfisher

62. “It was starting to get impatient. A hedgehog hopping irritably on its hind legs is a tragic sight.”

— T. Kingfisher

63. “There’s many a man who’ll not think twice to mistreat a woman but who lives in fear of a habit and a holy symbol.”

— T. Kingfisher

64. “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

65. “I’m suggesting that if you’re going to bring hell down upon someone’s head, you should dress for the occasion.”

— T. Kingfisher

66. “Saving a single wondrous thing is better than saving the world. For one thing, it’s more achievable. The world is never content to stay saved.”

— T. Kingfisher

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

— T. Kingfisher

68. “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

69. “Other people’s horrible relatives are remarkably soothing. You can be comfortably appalled without having to deal with them yourself.”

— T. Kingfisher

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

— T. Kingfisher

71. “That shouldn’t be possible. Caliban, however, took the view that when something impossible was going on, it was best to deal with it as you found it, and not stand around claiming it wasn’t happening.”

— T. Kingfisher

72. “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

73. “I fear that I am not the best possible person for this, but I am the best possible person available at this time, which is much the same thing.”

— T. Kingfisher

74. “You cannot help people who do not want help,” rumbled Fenris. “You can’t force someone to do what you think is best for them.” He paused, then added, somewhat reluctantly, “Well, you can. But they don’t appreciate it and most of the time it turns out that you were wrong.” “But – ” “We can only save people who want to be saved,” said the dust-wife. “If it’s still bothering you, we’ll come back afterward, assuming any of us are alive to do so.”

— T. Kingfisher

75. “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

76. “Ah. American. That explained the clothes and the way he stood with his legs wide and his elbows out, as if he had a great deal more space than was actually available.”

— T. Kingfisher

77. “Justice seemed so little, so late.”

— T. Kingfisher

78. “Do you think I don’t know how to act around thieves and ruffians?” “The fact that you even use a word like ‘ruffians’ is not filling me with confidence, no.”

— T. Kingfisher

79. “The old woman snorted. “Knives aren’t magic, girl. All they are is sharp. Cut or don’t, but don’t dither over it. It only makes it worse for both of you.” Janna.”

— T. Kingfisher

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

— T. Kingfisher

81. “The problem with crying in the woods, by the side of a white road that leads somewhere terrible, is that the reason for crying isn’t inside your head. You have a perfectly legitimate and pressing reason for crying, and it will still be there in five minutes, except that your throat will be raw and your eyes will itch and absolutely nothing else will have changed.”

— T. Kingfisher

82. “We weren’t big on funerals in my family. I know some families have these massive orgies of grief, where all the third cousins come back and sob over the casket, but we’re not like that.”

— T. Kingfisher

83. “Then she smiled and it was terrible. Madeline’s lips pulled up at the corners in a terrible parody of good humor, her mouth stretching painfully wide, her jaw dropped so far that it looked almost like a scream. Above that awful grin, her eyes were as flat and dead as stones. I do not delude.”

— T. Kingfisher

84. “The mountains in the background loomed like swords, but the city loomed higher, as if it had been made to stand against the mountains.”

— T. Kingfisher

85. “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

86. “The miller back home was like that,′ she said. ‘He had a little bit of power and he lorded it over everyone. Although there’s less damage you can do with a mill than with a religious order.”

— T. Kingfisher

87. “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

88. “People get hung up on happiness and joy, but fun will take you at least as far and it’s generally cheaper to obtain.”

— T. Kingfisher

89. “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

90. “I took my leave of Miss Potter, pausing to compliment her painting. She turned the compliment aside with a practiced air. “I’m well enough. You should see my niece Beatrix. Twice the talent, and an artist’s eye.”

— T. Kingfisher

91. “It doesn’t make you a hero just because everybody else didn’t do their job.”

— T. Kingfisher

92. “Mom is tough. It’s easy to think that sweet people are weak, but if you look at all the stuff mom’s lived through; she’s nearly indestructable.”

— T. Kingfisher

93. “Come on, let’s go back to the coffee shop and I’ll make us Irish coffees and we’ll discuss this like people who don’t die in the first five minutes of a horror movie.”

— T. Kingfisher

94. “There was little honor among thieves, but there was a great deal of practicality.”

— T. Kingfisher

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

— T. Kingfisher

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

— T. Kingfisher

97. “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

98. “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

99. “There is nothing in the world so patient as a plant awaiting spring.”

— T. Kingfisher

100. “My phone informed me that it was absolutely talking to the internet, it was happy to talk to the internet, it loved talking to the internet, then as soon as I tried to check my email, it told me it had never heard of the internet and wasn’t entirely sure it existed.”

— T. Kingfisher