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Susanna Clarke

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Famous Susanna Clarke Quotes

“Childermass knew what games the children on street-corners are playing - games that all other grown-ups have long since forgotten. Childermass knew what old people by firesides are thinking of, though no one has asked them in years. Childermass knew what young men hear in the rattling of the drums and the tooting of the pipes that makes them leave their homes and go to be soldiers - and he knew the half-eggcupful of glory and the barrelful of misery that await them. And all that Childermass knew made him smile; and some of what he knew made him laugh out loud; and none of what he knew wrung from him so much as ha'pennyworth of pity.”

MagicSlyClever ManSusanna ClarkeJonathan Strange And Mr NorrellChildermass
Book:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
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“For the rest of the night he sat by himself under the elm-tree. Until this moment it had never seemed to him that his magicianship set him apart from other men. But now he had glimpsed the wrong side of something. He had the eeriest feeling - as if the world were growing older around him, and the best part of existence - laughter, love and innocence - were slipping irrevocably into the past.”

MagicMagicianWaterloo
Book:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
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“Then Childermass related to Mr Norrell what he had discovered about Drawlight: how he belonged to a certain breed of gentlemen, only to be met with in London, whose main occupation is the wearing of expensive and fashionable clothes; how they pass their lives in ostentatious idleness, gambling and drinking to excess and spending months at a time in Brighton and other fashionable watering places; how in recent years this breed seemed to have reached a sort of perfection in Christopher Drawlight. Even his dearest friends would have admitted that he possessed not a single good quality.”

ChildermassDrawlight
Book:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
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“I realized that the search for the Knowledge has encouraged us to think of the House as if it were a sort of riddle to be unravelled, a text to be interpreted, and that if ever we discover the Knowledge, then it will be as if the Value has been wrested from the House and all that remains will be mere scenery. The sight of the One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Second Western Hall in the Moonlight made me see how ridiculous that is. The House is valuable because it is the House. It is enough in and of itself. It is not the means to an end.”

RealityPerspectiveMeaningHubris
Book:Piranesi
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“But when the fairy sang the whole world listened to him. Stephen felt clouds pause in their passing; he felt sleeping hills shift and murmur; he felt cold mists dance. He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands. In the fairy’s song the earth recognized the names by which it called itself.”

WorldFirstsWholeEarthSongNamesSpeakLanguageFeltWaitingSleepColdUnderstoodFirst TimeCloudsWhole WorldPassingPassingsHillsDumbFairyPausesMist
Book:Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
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“He had once found himself in a room with Lady Bessborough's long-haired white cat. He happened to be dressed in an immaculate black coat and trousers, and was there thoroughly alarmed by the cat's stalking round and round and making motions as if it proposed to sit upon him. He waited until he believed himself to be unobserved, then he picked it up, opened a window, and tossed it out. Despite falling three storeys to the ground, the cat survived, but one of its legs was never quite right afterward and it always evinced the greatest dislike of gentlemen in black clothes.”

IfsLongFallThreeFoundBlackWhiteRoomsHappenedClothesCatWindowRoundsLegsDespiteGentlemanDislikeSurvivedCoatsStalkingTrousersImmaculateBlack Clothes
Author:Susanna Clarke
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“There is nothing else in magic but the wild thought of the bird as it casts itself into the void. There is no creature upon the earth with such potential for magic. Even the least of them may fly straight out of this world and come by chance to the Other Lands. Where does the wind come from that blows upon your face, that fans the pages of your book? Where the harum-scarum magic of small wild creatures meets the magic of Man, where the language of the wind and the rain and the trees can be understood, there we will find the Raven King.”

MenWorldMayDoeBookEarthFacesLanguageChanceMagicTreeFansLandThis WorldWindKingsCreaturesPagesBirdUnderstoodRainCastsBlowYour FaceVoidRavensWild Creatures
Author:Susanna Clarke
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