Alan Bradley Biography

“It was quite wrong of me Had I heard what I thought I’d heard or were my ears playing hob with me It was more likely that the sun and the moon should suddenly dance a jolly jig in the heavens than that one of my sisters should apologize. It was simply unheard of.”

Source: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Sisters Funny Humor Flavia

“As anybody with two older sisters can tell you, a closed door is like a red rag to a bull. It cannot go unchallenged.”

Source: A Red Herring Without Mustard

Family Sisters

“Kun nyt katselin silmänsä ummistanutta, polvistunutta Feelyä, jonka taivaaseen suunnatut sormenpäät koskettivat toisiaan, muodostamassa huulillaan hartaita, suloisia sanoja, minun täytyi muistuttaa itseäni siitä, että vieressäni oli paholaisen yökkäämä karvapallo.”

Source: Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd

Sisters Sisterhood Sisterly Love

“I could tell he was becoming sulky, as boys and men do when they're caught bluffing. And I ignored him, as girls and women do when they catch them out.”

Source: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Boys Girls Detective

“I did not elaborate, nor did I need to. The human imagination is capable of anything when left on its own to fill in the blanks.”

Source: Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd

Imagination

Book:Speaking from Among the Bones

Source: Speaking from Among the Bones

“...silence is sometimes the most costly of commodities.”

Silence

“Magic is hard on our world. Pulling it in is really violent and damaging. The more we use it, the more we stretch out the membrane between this world and the one we draw it in from. And the other side…' She looked at Maldonado and he nodded. 'Well, it’s toxic.”

Source: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Fear Conflict Murder Profound Deception Fast Paced Explore Action Packed Emotionally Charged Plot Turns

Book:The Sixth Borough

Source: The Sixth Borough

“The world is going to Hell in a linguistic handbag.”

World Hell

“Alone in my room, I pondered the evidence. A perfect phrase. I would jot it down for future use. Like it or not, there are times when you need to be alone; times when you need to be lonely; times when you need to need other people.”

Source: Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd

Loneliness Alone

“The vicar's organized a snow-shoveling party." "But why?" I asked. It didn't make sense. If all the roads were closed, what use was it clearing a way to the front door? "Because," said Aunt Felicity's voice behind me, "it is a well-known fact that more than two men shut up together in an enclosed space for more than an hour constitute a hazard to society. If unpleasantness is to be avoided, they must be made to go outdoors and work off their animal spirits.”

Source: The Golden Tresses of the Dead

Men

Book:I Am Half-Sick of Shadows

Source: I Am Half-Sick of Shadows

“It’s things like this that really shake me: sudden terrifying glimpses into the world of being an adult, and they are sometimes things that I am not sure I really want to know.”

Growing Up

Book:The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches

Source: The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches

“Growing up is like that, I suppose. The strings fall away and you're left standing on your own.”

Family Growing Up

“How very kind of her, ' I said. 'I must remember to send her a card.' I'd send her a card alright. It would be the Ace of Spades, and I'd mail it anonymously from somewhere other than Bishop's Lacey.”

Source: Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd

Revenge Manners

“Think about it this way—if we die together, you won’t have to mourn me.”

Source: A Red Herring Without Mustard

War Culture Emotional New York City Conspiracy Vicious Dark Side Power Struggle Vibrant Occult Power

Book:The Sixth Borough

Source: The Sixth Borough

“While you've been gadding about the countryside, we've held a meeting, and we've all of us decided that you must go.' In short, we've voted you out of the family,' Daffy said. 'It was unanimous.”

Humor Family

“They seem nice, though, your sisters, really,' Porcelain remarked. 'Ha!' I said. 'Shows what little you know! I hate them!' 'Hate them? I should have thought you'd love them.' 'Of course I love them,' I said.... 'That's why I'm so good at hating them.”

Source: The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

Humor Family Mystery

“I remembered that Beethoven's symphonies had sometimes been given names... they should have call [the Fifth] the Vampire, because it simply refused to lie down and die.”

Source: A Red Herring Without Mustard

Humor Music Humour Beethoven Symphonies

“How can I help?” I asked, as Anglicans have been taught to do—and in spite of the fact that our family have been Roman Catholics since St. Peter was a sailor.”

Source: The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

Metaphor Comparison

“...I found my eyes repelled by hers as if they were the like poles of a pair of magnets.”

Source: The Golden Tresses of the Dead

Metaphor

“Books are like oxygen to a deep-sea diver," she had once said. "Take them away and you might as well begin counting the bubbles.”

Source: As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust

Reading Books

Book:I Am Half-Sick of Shadows

Source: I Am Half-Sick of Shadows

“There are choices in life which you are aware, even as you make them, cannot be undone; choices after which, once made, things will never be the same. There is that moment when you can still walk away, but if you do, you will never know what might have been.”

Choices

“I felt a pang -- a strange and inexplicable pang that I had never felt before. It was homesickness. Now, even more than I had earlier when I'd first glimpsed it, I longed to be transported into that quiet little landscape, to walk up the path, to take a key from my pocket and open the cottage door, to sit down by the fireplace, to wrap my arms around myself, and to stay there forever and ever.”

Source: As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust

Nostalgia Dreaming Homesickness Cottage

“Humility is a most excellent barometer," he said, "and ought to be looked for in all those we are made to look up to.”

Source: The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

Leadership Humility

“I have no fear of the dead. Indeed in my own limited experience I have found them to produce in me a feeling that is quite the opposite of fear. A dead body is much more fascinating than a live one and I have learned that most corpses tell better stories. I’d had the good fortune of seeing several of them in my time.”

Source: The Golden Tresses of the Dead

Death Excitement Flavia

“Vaporized by the sun! Wasn't that what the universe had in store for all of us? There would come a day when the sun exploded like a red balloon, and everyone on earth would be reduced in less than a camera flash to carbon. Didn't Genesis say as much? For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. This was far more than dull old theology: It was precise scientific observation! Carbon was the Great Leveler--the Grim Reaper. Diamonds were nothing more than carbon, but carbon in a crystal lattice that made it the hardest known mineral in nature. That was the way we all were headed. I was sure of it. We were destined to be diamonds!”

Source: A Red Herring Without Mustard

Death Carbon Diamonds

“We raced around, drinking and shouting out the windows into the night, finding parties to sneak into or bars that never closed. We wandered the night without fear, went skinny dipping in Central Park Lake at 3 a.m., and found dark clubs playing deafening EDM to dance to until we collapsed.”

Source: The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

Action Fiction Magic Mystery Trauma Thriller Secrets Facade Haunted Suspense Action Fiction

Book:The Sixth Borough

Source: The Sixth Borough

“Cheese!" I exclaimed. It was a secret prayer, whose meaning was known only to God and to me.”

Prayer Humour

“But what he said was true enough: I had recently destroyed a perfectly good set of wire braces by straightening them to pick a lock. Father had grumbled, of course, but had made another appointment to have me netted and dragged back up to London, to that third-floor ironmonger's shop in Farringdon Street, where I would be strapped to a board like Boris Karloff as various bits of ironmongery were shoved into my mouth, screwed in, and bolted to my gums.”

Source: The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

Humour

“Mother Goose! I have never much cared for flippant remarks, especially when others make them, and in particular, I don't give a frog's fundament for them when they come from an adult.”

Source: The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

Humour

“When you’re in The System, like after being arrested, you’re no longer a participant. You’re being processed. Instead of an easy to ignore, well-greased cog, you become a sharp edge that needs to be ground down.”

Source: The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

Culture Dark Tragedy Betrayal New York City Twists City Plots Vibrant Ny

Book:The Sixth Borough

Source: The Sixth Borough

“To each of the mourners outside in the lane, I would be no more than a pale face glimpsed for a moment behind the glass. I wished I could smile at each of them, but I knew I must not, since a grinning mug would spoil their memories of this sad occasion. We were all of us mourners overtaken by the moment: It was not ours to shape. We must give ourselves over to being the Grieving Family, upon whom others must be permitted to shower sympathy. All of this I knew without ever having been told. It had somehow been born in my blood.”

Death Mourning

Book:The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches

Source: The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches

“…because I was only eleven years old, I was wrapped in the best cloak of invisibility in the world.”

Attention Attitude Childhood Invisibility Noticeable

“What are we going to do, Dogger?' It seemed a reasonable question. After all he had been through, surely Dogger knew something of hopeless situations. 'We shall wait upon tomorrow,' he said. 'But--what if tomorrow is worse than today?' 'Then we shall wait upon the day after tomorrow.' 'And so forth?' I asked. 'And so forth,' Dogger said.”

Source: A Red Herring Without Mustard

Hope

Book:The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches

Source: The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches

“You can sometimes camouflage the hand, but you cannot camouflage the man behind it.”

Camouflage

“I had concocted the gunpowder myself from niter, sulfur, charcoal, and a happy heart. When working with explosives, I've found that attitude is everything.”

Source: The Golden Tresses of the Dead

Humor Explosives

Book:I Am Half-Sick of Shadows

Source: I Am Half-Sick of Shadows

“Do you want to live, Sander?”

Dangerous Battle Unpredictable Intriguing Wild Harmful Suspenseful Deadly Dark Realm Deadly Powers

Book:The Sixth Borough

Source: The Sixth Borough

“No sooner was I safely among the gravestones than a great feeling of warmth and calm contentment came sweeping over me. Life among the dead. This was where I was meant to be! What a revelation! And what a place to have it! I could succeed at whatever I chose. I could, for instance, become an undertaker. Or a pathologist. A detective, a gravedigger, a tombstone maker, or even the world's greatest murderer. Suddenly the world was my oyster—even if it was a dead one.”

Inspiration Cemeteries

“How could I tell Clarence that finding another dead body was anything but dreadful? On the contrary: it was thrilling; it was exciting; it was exhilarating, it was invigorating; to say nothing of electrifying and above all, satisfying. How could I tell the dear man that murder made me feel so gloriously alive?”

Source: As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust

Mystery Murder Detective Precocious Dead Body

“Now, glancing over...as she knelt with her eyes closed, her fingertips touching and pointed to Heaven, and her lips shaping soft words of devotion, I had to pinch myself to keep in mind that I was sitting next to the Devil's Hairball.”

Source: Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd

Sisters Sibling Rivalry

“I had once remarked to Feely that, because of the oxygen, breathing fresh air was like breathing God, but she had slapped my face and told me I was being blasphemous.”

Source: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

God Breathing Oxygen Fresh Air

Book:Speaking from Among the Bones

Source: Speaking from Among the Bones

“Sorry, old girl," I said to [my bicycle] Gladys in the gray dishwater light of early morning, "but I have to leave you at home." I could see that she was disappointed, even though she managed to put on a brave face. "I need you to stay here as a decoy," I whispered. "When they see you leaning against the greenhouse, they'll think I'm still in bed." Gladys brightened considerably at the thought of a conspiracy. [...] At the corner of the garden, I turned, and mouthed the words, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," and Gladys signaled that she wouldn't. I was off like a shot.”

Bicycle Gladys

“She always said she'd prefer to die on her way to the moon than under a runaway bus.”

Source: A Red Herring Without Mustard

Inspirational Death Adventure Moon Dying Well Adventuress

“How could tickling, even though it causes laughter, be at the same time such a vicious form of torture? Sitting on the edge of my bed, I thought it through. I came to the conclusion, at last, that it was like this: Tickling and learning were much the same thing. When you tickle yourself—ecstasy; but when anyone else tickles you—agony.”

Source: Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd

Learning Torture Tickling

“Oxidation, I never tire of reminding myself, is what happens when oxygen attacks.”

Source: As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust

Oxidation

“But when oxidation nibbles more slowly - more delicately, like a tortoise - at the world around us, without a flame, we call it rust and we sometimes scarcely notice as it goes about its business consuming everything from hairpins to whole civilizations.”

Source: A Red Herring Without Mustard

Science Rust Oxidation

“The possibilities seemed endless, which made it all the more exciting, since possibilities are so much more thrilling than certainties -- or so I've always thought.”

Source: A Red Herring Without Mustard

Possibilites

Book:The Grave's a Fine and Private Place

Source: The Grave's a Fine and Private Place

“It was a lie and I detected it at once. As an accomplished fibber myself, I spotted the telltale signs of an untruth before they were halfway out of his mouth: the excessive detail, the offhand delivery, and the wrapping-up of it all in casual chitchat.”

Lie Fibber

“Her voice hung shrill in the air like a shot partridge.”

Source: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Bad Singing