Top 200 Tamsyn Muir Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “Nothing particularly interesting happened, until Camilla burst into flames.”

— Tamsyn Muir

102. “Oh, this is boring,” Gideon had said in disappointment. “I wanted one with a skull puking another, smaller skull, and other skulls flying all around. But tasteful, you know?”

— Tamsyn Muir

103. “What do Marta the Second, Naberius the Third, Jeannemary the Fourth, Magnus the Fifth, Camilla the Sixth, Protesilaus the Seventh, Colum the Eighth, and Gideon the Ninth all have in common?” You could have heard a hair flutter to the floor. Everyone stared, poker-faced, in the thick ensuing silence. Magnus looked pleased with himself. “The same middle name,” he said.”

— Tamsyn Muir

104. “The Ninth didn’t think anyone was in anything together, or if they were, they all had to disperse as soon as humanly possible to avoid splash damage.”

— Tamsyn Muir

105. “Every so often she wondered if she had, in fact, kicked the bucket and this was her afterlife: wandering empty halls with a half-naked, chastened Harrowhark Nonagesimus who had no recourse but to be gentle with her, handling her as though at any moment she would explode into wet confetti giblets.”

— Tamsyn Muir

106. “This won’t work,” she said. “I’ve never had to work with something so small before.” “That’s what she said,” murmured Gideon, sotto voce.”

— Tamsyn Muir

107. “Stop that. I need you listening, not racking your brain for rare negatives.”

— Tamsyn Muir

108. “She did not know what made Ortus Ortus. He was a mystery too boring to solve.”

— Tamsyn Muir

109. “It’s all right,” someone was saying, over the noise. “You’re all right. Gideon, Gideon... you’re so young. Don’t give yourself away. Do you know, it’s not worth it... none of this is worth it, at all. It’s cruel. It’s so cruel. You are so young – and vital – and alive. Gideon, you’re all right... remember this, and don’t let anyone do it to you ever again. I’m sorry. We take so much. I’m so sorry.”

— Tamsyn Muir

110. “You were an unfilled hole, but even a hole might be content in its emptiness.”

— Tamsyn Muir

111. “She was consumed. She was the kindling for the arson taking place in her heart, her brain dry wadding for the flames, her soul so much incandescent gas. She could not do this. She absolutely and fundamentally could not do this.”

— Tamsyn Muir

112. “They all looked to Harrow, as though on fatal cue: legends, soldiers, poets, Magnus.”

— Tamsyn Muir

113. “The grey and putrid heart of Drearburh. The greyer and more putrid heart of its lady.”

— Tamsyn Muir

114. “Why are you not appeased? That is how meat loves meat.”

— Tamsyn Muir

115. “You didn’t have your original thumb and I’d touched your intestines, which is usually what, fourth date, but you were fine.”

— Tamsyn Muir

116. “It is a drawing of the letter S” said the deep, solemn voice from over her shoulder, and she realized she had stopped midstride. “The letter in question is constructed from six short marks stacked vertically three by three. There are two triangles on the top and bottom. which, along with some diagonal strokes, form a calligraphic S.”

— Tamsyn Muir

117. “Crown was really very nearly pretty enough for Camilla.”

— Tamsyn Muir

118. “As Harrow smouldered with hatred, Gideon began to enjoy herself.”

— Tamsyn Muir

119. “Hail to the Lady of the Ninth House,” warbled a voice delightedly, bringing the count of people who had ever been happy to see Harrow up to three.”

— Tamsyn Muir

120. “If any of the other Houses knew of what we’d done they would destroy us from orbit without a second’s thought.”

— Tamsyn Muir

121. “The message has two parts left, and you are looking at one of those parts. The name for this part of the message was ‘Aim’ when the message was passed to us through my forebear Emma Sen.”

— Tamsyn Muir

122. “Gideon was lolling behind Harrow, picking at her fingernails and staring at the pieces of paper, which had handwriting that was more like cryptography.”

— Tamsyn Muir

123. “Nona leant into her and said, “Thanks. I love you too, Camilla,” and: “Do you know who I am yet?”

— Tamsyn Muir

124. “As befits a Ninth House metre, enneameter is long, ponderous, clunky, and sucks.”

— Tamsyn Muir

125. “Don’t worry, kiddie, she said tiredly. I’ll keep loving you – my problem is I don’t know how to stop.”

— Tamsyn Muir

126. “A head start,” said her necromancer, “is the only advantage one can claim by choice.”

— Tamsyn Muir

127. “I could never stop you from loving anything. I don’t have the right. Nobody has the right to tell you who to love or who not to love, and equally nobody’s obliged to love you. If you were forced into loving them, it wouldn’t be love...”

— Tamsyn Muir

128. “They only intervened if it looked like you might choke to death on your own vomit, a mercy that you always vaguely thought a shame.”

— Tamsyn Muir

129. “Come on, love. Guys as careful as me don’t have accidents.”

— Tamsyn Muir

130. “The skeletons aren’t reanimations, Ninth, they’re revenants: ghosts inhabiting a physical shell.”

— Tamsyn Muir

131. “A Tupperware container is only as good as it’s lid.”

— Tamsyn Muir

132. “Menudo alivio debieron de sentir tus padres cuando murieron – dijo Gideon en voz alta.”

— Tamsyn Muir

133. “The Master Warden found the idea of dying inconvenient.”

— Tamsyn Muir

134. “I find the idea comforting... that thousands of years after you’re gone... is when you really live. That your echo is louder than your voice.”

— Tamsyn Muir

135. “We’re all in this together,’ she said, which was a typically Fifth assumption. The Ninth didn’t think anyone was in anything together, or, if they were, they all had to disperse as soon as humanly possible to avoid splash damage.”

— Tamsyn Muir

136. “You’re not waiting for her resurrection; you’ve made yourself her mausoleum.”

— Tamsyn Muir

137. “So what is the training, then – how to attain Lyctorhood?” The little priest looked at them again. “Well, I don’t know,” he said.”

— Tamsyn Muir

138. “Nona had kept giggling, and that got her told off because Harrowhark Nonagesimus didn’t giggle.”

— Tamsyn Muir

139. “Bones are mediocre.”

— Tamsyn Muir

140. “They held out a lavender silk handkerchief.”

— Tamsyn Muir

141. “A tableau of magicians and their guardians revolved around the corpses.”

— Tamsyn Muir

142. “Now we kick her ass until candy comes out,” said Gideon. “Oh, damn, Nonagesimus, don’t cry, we can’t fight her if you’re crying.”

— Tamsyn Muir

143. “Harrowhark was pleased because everything was coming up Harrowhark.”

— Tamsyn Muir

144. “Her going full atria was perfectly over-the-top. The crew on your horrible flagships are always trying to martyr themselves whenever you so much as ask for an orange juice.”

— Tamsyn Muir

145. “But maybe we shouldn’t,” she said, holding the eyelids to that little slit-watching the widening white crack, watching the river water pound it into the place where it wanted to be even if the River itself didn’t. “If we end here, it’ll be just like... a bad dream, won’t it? And maybe we’ll wake up somewhere else. I know we won’t,” she explained, “but we don’t have to know that... maybe if we all go, it’ll be quick.”

— Tamsyn Muir

146. “Gideon rolled her eyes so hard that she felt in danger of twisting the optic nerve.”

— Tamsyn Muir

147. “I intend to take on the habit myself! Cigarettes! On a space station! What a power play.”

— Tamsyn Muir

148. “You cut up an onion, burn it at the bottom of the pot, put in a few vegetables, and then some meat. It won’t taste like anything, so put in a few teaspoons of salt, and then it’ll taste like a few teaspoons of salt.”

— Tamsyn Muir

149. “Your only settings were power-vomit and murder.”

— Tamsyn Muir

150. “Evidence,” he said, “outweighs testimony.”

— Tamsyn Muir