Top 200 Tamsyn Muir Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “As I’ve been told tiresomely often, a half-cocked version of something is significantly worse than not being cocked at all.”

— Tamsyn Muir

102. “Unexpectedly, this did not kill her; and what did not kill her made her curious.”

— Tamsyn Muir

103. “He say anything?” Gideon wavered. “He said to tell you he loved you,” she said. “What? No, he didn’t.” “Okay, no, sorry. He said – he said you knew what to do?”

— Tamsyn Muir

104. “In the myriadic year of Our Lord – the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death! – Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth.”

— Tamsyn Muir

105. “I am – so I won’t,” he said. “I swear. I mean, I could make a killing, so you’ve got me by the balls here.” “Please never say that again,” said the Angel.”

— Tamsyn Muir

106. “He was narrow shouldered with long, long arms, and she was beginning to believe that he was not simply a douchebag who used lip balm, but a douchebag who used lip balm and had a very long reach.”

— Tamsyn Muir

107. “Someone’s been having fun in here,” said Gideon. Harrow shot her a look but did not enforce the vow of silence. “Yes,” she said. “Me.”

— Tamsyn Muir

108. “Don’t start the ‘I was toying with her, mwa ha ha’ noise, because I won’t believe it. Your plan backfired, Tridentarius. You’ve got the sickness. I know the signs of Nonagesimitis. You were all lined up for a big hot injection of vitamin H.”

— Tamsyn Muir

109. “Love between a necromancer and cavalier is vital to differentiate them from a soldier’s love of the Emperor: they are carrying out a personal devotion that beautifies both types of adoration.”

— Tamsyn Muir

110. “I mean it, If Camilla wants someone dead,” he said, “then far be it from me to stand in her way. All I can do at that point is watch the bloodshed and look for a mop. One flesh, one end, and all that.”

— Tamsyn Muir

111. “They do not have to enjoy each other’s society; they must simply take their togetherness as assumed. The cavalier who will not sleep in the same room as their necromancer must question themselves as to why. Their love is the love that fears only for the other: the love of service on both sides.”

— Tamsyn Muir

112. “I might lie down and see if this fixes itself,” I suggested.”

— Tamsyn Muir

113. “The ashes in the incinerator had been raked out and combed over, and the confirmation that they were human remains was not illuminating. The surviving necromancers had gathered around a bowl of them, and they had all pounced on it like a bowl of peanuts at a party.”

— Tamsyn Muir

114. “Then she said, ‘When you don’t have it too badly – when you can live to maybe fifty years – when your body’s dying from the inside out, when your blood cells are eating you alive the whole time... it makes for such a necromancer, Gideon the Ninth. A walking thanergy generator. If they could figure out someway to stop you when you’re mostly cancer and just a little bit woman, they would!”

— Tamsyn Muir

115. “Certainly not. Like everything else in this ridiculous conglomeration of cooling gas, it’s perfectly explicable, I just need to explic-it.”

— Tamsyn Muir

116. “While we were developing common sense, she studied the blade.”

— Tamsyn Muir

117. “Gideon had never had the opportunity to study Camilla’s two short swords before: they were more like very long daggers, slightly curved at each end, wholly utilitarian. They glittered clean and hot beneath the soggy light of the kitchen; she marched back toward the door to the dining hall.”

— Tamsyn Muir

118. “My body is ready.”

— Tamsyn Muir

119. “I must no longer accept,” she said slowly, “being a stranger to you.”

— Tamsyn Muir

120. “I think ‘bone frenzy’ might be a term open to coarse misinterpretation, personally.”

— Tamsyn Muir

121. “As for your instruction here, this is what the First House asks of you.” The room drew breath together – or at least, all the necromancers did, alongside a goodly proportion of their cavaliers. Harrow’s knuckles whitened. Gideon wished that she could flop into a seat or take a sly nap. Everybody was poised in readiness for the outlined syllabus, and scholarship made her want to die.”

— Tamsyn Muir

122. “But now this benighted vision stood before its natural predator, the Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House.”

— Tamsyn Muir

123. “What a waste of a woman, to have ended her life at the bottom of a ladder.”

— Tamsyn Muir

124. “Through a window somewhere high up, the sunbeams poured down dust in golden torrents.”

— Tamsyn Muir

125. “I’ve got a perfectly baseless assumption, and every scholar knows that this is where you begin.”

— Tamsyn Muir

126. “The nuns tried their best, but a few minutes later it was confirmed that one of the hermits had died of shock, and everyone around him celebrated his sacred good fortune.”

— Tamsyn Muir

127. “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

128. “Fear doesn’t help us achieve a state of grace; it deafens the heart.”

— Tamsyn Muir

129. “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

130. “She more correctly climbed down into love, picked its locks, opened its gates, and breached its inner chamber.”

— Tamsyn Muir

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

— Tamsyn Muir

132. “Harrowhark smiled. This smile was unusual too: it betokened conspiracy, which was normal, except that this one invited Gideon to be part of it. Her eyes glowed like coals with sheer collusion. Gideon didn’t know if she could handle all these new expressions on Harrow: she needed a lie down.”

— Tamsyn Muir

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

— Tamsyn Muir

134. “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

135. “He said: When they called me up and said the cryo project was over she looked at me and she just said, There they go, John.”

— Tamsyn Muir

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

— Tamsyn Muir

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

— Tamsyn Muir

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

— Tamsyn Muir

139. “His frailty made his unearthly handsomeness all the more ephemeral,’ et cetera, et cetera, the word mewled fifteen pages later, the word nipple one page after that?”

— Tamsyn Muir

140. “We press down the hand of a clock, to try to stop it from ticking the last second.”

— Tamsyn Muir

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

— Tamsyn Muir

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

— Tamsyn Muir

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

— Tamsyn Muir

144. “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

145. “She applied to the Vatican to argue about whether or not it was a miracle because I’d been baptised. Didn’t mention that I’d only gone to Parachute ’cause of the underage drinking.”

— Tamsyn Muir

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

— Tamsyn Muir

147. “And in the dream he rubbed his temple with his thumb and said: “You always say that, Harrowhark.”

— Tamsyn Muir

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

— Tamsyn Muir

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

— Tamsyn Muir

150. “She got the depression. She lay in her cell, picking at life like it was a meal she didn’t want to eat.”

— Tamsyn Muir