Top 200 Tamsyn Muir Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 4 of 5

151. “Paul, practical, clasped one of her hands between them, and used the other to rub a rough section of black frieze over her sides to try to warm her up. “Okay. Don’t worry,” they said. Nona felt hot and cross. “I’ve just told you why I’m worried, in detail, and I think that matters quite a lot.”

— Tamsyn Muir

152. “If they want to make you into a bad wizard, be a bad wizard. We can write the history books to say you were a good wizard. Or at least an okay wizard.”

— Tamsyn Muir

153. “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

154. “You’re a smart girl, Harrowhark. You might turn some of that brain to the toughest lesson: that of grief.”

— Tamsyn Muir

155. “Sie dachte daran, Silas noch ein paar Mal den Stinkefinger zu zeigen, aber manchmal gibt man sich besser damit zufrieden, dass man gerade einen moralischen Sieg davongetragen hat.”

— Tamsyn Muir

156. “Not even one of the Emperor’s fists and gestures could give Harrowhark Nonagesimus a sexy makeover. Sometimes I think you look like a twig’s funeral.”

— Tamsyn Muir

157. “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

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

— Tamsyn Muir

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

— Tamsyn Muir

160. “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

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

— Tamsyn Muir

162. “If you think in black and white your brain can’t be agile.”

— Tamsyn Muir

163. “She couldn’t believe she was being held at bay by someone who had eaten every cavalier manual and chewed dutifully twenty-five times.”

— Tamsyn Muir

164. “Ortus would never rhyme melancholy with my mortal folly again.”

— Tamsyn Muir

165. “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

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

— Tamsyn Muir

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

— Tamsyn Muir

168. “But have a go. Surprise me. My body is ready.”

— Tamsyn Muir

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

— Tamsyn Muir

170. “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

171. “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

172. “I guess I might as well die,” he concluded, something he now suggested hopefully at least three times a day.”

— Tamsyn Muir

173. “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

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

— Tamsyn Muir

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

— Tamsyn Muir

176. “She had long since ascended to the rank of double douchebag.”

— Tamsyn Muir

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

— Tamsyn Muir

178. “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

179. “My body is ready.”

— Tamsyn Muir

180. “It felt so easy to be good when you were happy.”

— Tamsyn Muir

181. “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

182. “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

183. “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

184. “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

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

— Tamsyn Muir

186. “Don’t hypothetically shove stuff up my butt again,” said Gideon, “it never does any good.”

— Tamsyn Muir

187. “I know how hard it is for you to kick against the goad,” said the new person. “But there are more worlds than this. Come with us. We are the love that is perfected by death – but even death will be no more, death can also die.”

— Tamsyn Muir

188. “They all agreed that whatever made Nona happy at school made Nona happy at school, but the bottom line remained that she shouldn’t buy anybody drugs.”

— Tamsyn Muir

189. “You don’t have to read these. Put your thumb over them if you like.”

— Tamsyn Muir

190. “Gideon marvelled that someone could live in the universe only seventeen years and yet wear black and sneer with such ancient self-assurance.”

— Tamsyn Muir

191. “Next cult, let’s go for teenage girls instead.”

— Tamsyn Muir

192. “The House continued on in grand and grisly majesty because you were always looking at it; it continued because you watched it continue, changeless and black, before your eyes.”

— Tamsyn Muir

193. “She was the calmest she had ever been in her entire life. It was just her body that was frightened.”

— Tamsyn Muir

194. “If you don’t, it’s fine, nobody cares, it’s a random name in a novel about bonermancy.”

— Tamsyn Muir

195. “In her comic books, necromancers kissed the gloved palms of their front-liner comrades in blessed thanks for all that they did. In the comic books none of these adepts had heart disease, and a lot of them had necromantically uncharacteristic cleavage.”

— Tamsyn Muir

196. “As though the universe could withstand more holes; as though the fabric of the universe had not become a series of lacework cut-outs linked by the thin, snappable joins of those who remained. Could the pattern sustain itself, with such absences? Could she, who had once thought herself well-versed in absence, endure alone? The answer was so obviously no; she was not even ready to have the question put to her.”

— Tamsyn Muir

197. “Colum blinked. His necromancer did not. “I had heard that you were speaking now,” he said. “It seems a pity.”

— Tamsyn Muir

198. “You are banned from squatting in my lobes and my hippocampus. I don’t want you pushing all the furniture around in there.”

— Tamsyn Muir

199. “Once you turn your back on something, you have no more right to act as though you own it.”

— Tamsyn Muir

200. “Blessed Sister Lachrimorta and Blessed Sister Aisamorta were unaltered. They were still tiny, their faces still tight, grey-painted dribbles, and as the Ninth was free from miracles, they were still blind.”

— Tamsyn Muir