Top 300 T. Kingfisher Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “She’d have been thrilled if he’d vanished. She’d have decided that he ran away to spite her, probably with another woman. She’d have milked that so hard that she’d have lived another thirty years on pure hate.”

— T. Kingfisher

202. “Rage shivered through her, a rage that seemed like it could topple the halls of heaven, then vanished under the knowledge of her own helplessness. Rage was only useful if you were allowed to do anything with it.”

— T. Kingfisher

203. “In the course of all that wandering around losing fights, we developed our own language, Gallacian. I am told it is worse than Finnish, which is impressive.”

— T. Kingfisher

204. “The Good Lord looks out for fools. In your case, apparently He sends the occasional Englishwoman.”

— T. Kingfisher

205. “The trees were full of crows and the woods were full of madmen.”

— T. Kingfisher

206. “No matter how pale and pure and perfect you are, the moon is even more perfect.”

— T. Kingfisher

207. “Doctor Piper dealt with corpses and for the most part, he preferred them to the living. He didn’t mind living people, he was perfectly happy to meet them and talk to them and even work with them, but corpses never, ever asked stupid questions.”

— T. Kingfisher

208. “You have been released to the Temple for discipline, you are forbidden from carrying arms in the presence of the Archon for a year and a day, Judge Guicciard wants a personal apology, and I am supposed to dock your pay to cover the statue, but since I don’t actually pay you, we’ll just let that bit pass.” She waved a hand. “Consider yourself disciplined. No dessert for a week. Etc.”

— T. Kingfisher

209. “And then, of course, there are the other sort. They ask questions, but what they really want to know is what’s in your pants and, by extension, who’s in your bed.”

— T. Kingfisher

210. “Summer had never had a father, and wasn’t entirely sure what you did with one.”

— T. Kingfisher

211. “What options did an angry butterfly have, anyway? Stamping eyelash-sized feet? Flapping its wings in a sarcastic manner? In.”

— T. Kingfisher

212. “Also, the wizard’s response to having a skeletal deer leap in front of him and a bruised and whimpering elf fall off its back was to say, “Oh.” That.”

— T. Kingfisher

213. “Slate stepped in, her face as cool and detached as a woman doing long division.”

— T. Kingfisher

214. “It is not wise to hurt the house’s feelings.”

— T. Kingfisher

215. “It was a cruel spirit that would punish starving people for what they had been forced to eat, but the spirits had never pretended to be kind.”

— T. Kingfisher

216. “When she is not writing, she is probably out in the garden, trying to make eye contact with butterflies.”

— T. Kingfisher

217. “Bongo is an excellent watchdog, by which I mean that he will watch very alertly as the serial killer breaks into the house and skins me.”

— T. Kingfisher

218. “It’s because you’re too much alike. What did the abbess used to say? That our own flaws infuriate us in other people?”

— T. Kingfisher

219. “Oh gods, if any of you are listening, please grant that we don’t make things worse.”

— T. Kingfisher

220. “There was a brief silence while we all tried to recover from Foxy’s metaphor.”

— T. Kingfisher

221. “The bear not only had a set of stripes sewn on his arm, it was possibly the first teddy-bear in history to have received a medal for service to the elven nation.”

— T. Kingfisher

222. “The humming noise chimed, coming closed again. Something moving behind the world, looking for us.”

— T. Kingfisher

223. “All you had were pigs and enthusiasm. It’s not your fault.”

— T. Kingfisher

224. “We had passed close in space, but separated by far too much time to make a difference.”

— T. Kingfisher

225. “Sonofabitch is patronizing me. Sonofabitch thinks I’m weak. Even Learned-bloody-Edmund is at least scared I’ll fry his genitals off.”

— T. Kingfisher

226. “There is a person in this world who feels safe in my arms. It felt like grace.”

— T. Kingfisher

227. “Then again, few humans were truly worth the love of a living dog. Some gifts you could never deserve.”

— T. Kingfisher

228. “The goats watched her suspiciously, but that did not mean anything, because goats watched everyone suspiciously.”

— T. Kingfisher

229. “Besides, what do you have to offer any woman? “I will make sure you always have warm socks,” is not a line to set anyone’s heart aglow.”

— T. Kingfisher

230. “I hope your dogs are all loyal and goofy and good-natured and that your chickens remain free of demons.”

— T. Kingfisher

231. “But he’s mad, completely mad, and he turns his wives into golems. He needs killing, not negotiation.”

— T. Kingfisher

232. “She made dramatic plans in the darkness and discarded them in daylight.”

— T. Kingfisher

233. “If you’re looking for a way to break the contract, I do not know. You’d need a demon or a barrister to answer that.”

— T. Kingfisher

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

— T. Kingfisher

235. “Run and be free. They cannot use what they cannot find.”

— T. Kingfisher

236. “The road itself was as clear as heartbreak.”

— T. Kingfisher

237. “I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. It was all so ridiculous. Gran Mae thought she could get me about my weight? I’d come out of academia. If she wanted to tear me apart, she should have commented on my doctoral thesis.”

— T. Kingfisher

238. “Have you ever considered giving up killing people and becoming a tailor?” “Oh, yes.” “And?” “I don’t like people unless I’m stabbing them.”

— T. Kingfisher

239. “They always say that when you lose weight,” I said grimly. “You could be shooting heroin twice a day and if you lost weight, it’d be ‘Just keep doing whatever you’re doing!”

— T. Kingfisher

240. “Learn what you can. Use what you learn. You have not failed yet.”

— T. Kingfisher

241. “You just didn’t bring a pitchfork to a swan fight.”

— T. Kingfisher

242. “Everyone have their souls still? Shadows still attached? Then let’s go before that changes.”

— T. Kingfisher

243. “I suspect if I had owned a border collie, this story would have a very different ending, and I probably would not have been around to type it up. But I had Bongo, and he saved our lives because he is simple and made of nose.”

— T. Kingfisher

244. “It seemed like once you agreed that the government could put you on a list because of something you were born with, you were asking for trouble.”

— T. Kingfisher

245. “Normal people flirt. I think. Apparently we just exchange terrible life stories.”

— T. Kingfisher

246. “Perhaps it was a toad. Perhaps the whole world was a toad. It was no stupider than anyone else’s cosmology. Clara would leave the order of St. Ursa and found the order of St. Toad. They would sleep a lot. Yes. Sleeping seemed like a good commandment for the order. Sleep and hot tea. Yes. She was working out the various ranks and the secondary rules for St. Toad’s worship when Galen said, “There’s smoke rising ahead. We’re nearly there.”

— T. Kingfisher

247. “Don’t ask me where the cookies get the dances they do – this batch had been doing hornpipes. The last batch did waltzes, and the one before that hade performed a decidedly lewd little number that had even made Aunt Tabitha blush. A little too much spice in those, I think.”

— T. Kingfisher

248. “God forgives a lot,” said Uncle Earl. “He has to. We all do a lot that needs forgiving.”

— T. Kingfisher

249. “I could hop into an ER carrying my severed leg and squirting blood from the stump and the doctor would congratulate me on having dropped all that leg weight and tell me to keep up the good work.”

— T. Kingfisher

250. “It’s a long drive. It’s pretty, actually, if you go through West Virginia, but of course then you’re in West Virginia.”

— T. Kingfisher