Susanna Clarke

“...hatching his poems..”

“It [Ashfair House] was an old fashioned house—the sort of house in fact, as Strange expressed it, which a lady in a novel might like to be persecuted in.”

“Mr. Segundus began to suspect that they had an uneventful morning, and that when a strange gentleman had walked into the room and dropt down in a swoon, they were rather pleased than otherwise.”

“All these details took but a moment to apprehend yet the impression made upon Mr. Segundus by the two ladies was unusually vivid --almost supernaturally so-- like images in a delirium. A queer shock thrilled through his whole being his senses were overwhelmed and he fainted away.”

“One of them is married and another is engaged and the third cannot make up her mind.”

“He screamed.Mmm?' inquired the gentleman.I...I would never presume to interrupt you, sir. But the ground appears to be swallowing me up.'It is a bog,' said the gentleman, helpfully.It is certainly a most terrifying substance.”

“Sometimes you my graciously permit all the most beautiful ladies in the land to wait in line to kiss your hands and fall in love with you.”

“This is a very grave matter, punishable by...well, I do not exactly know what, but something rather severe, I should imagine.”

“There was no one there. Which is to say there was someone there. Miss Wintertowne lay upon the bed, but it would have puzzled philosophy to say now whether she were someone or no one at all.”

“Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.”

“He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to listen to him.”

“Of course, as a model for my magician Strange is far from perfect --he lacks the true heroic nature; for that I shall be obliged to put in something of myself.”

“..The argument he was conducting with his neighbor as to whether the English magician had gone mad because he was a magician, or because he was English.”

“And the name of the one shall be Fearfulness. And the name of the other shall be Arrogance... Well, clearly you are not Fearfulness, so I suppose you must be Arrogance.'This was not very polite.”

“To be more precise it was the color of heartache.”

“..(As to what they might be resting upon, Stephen was determined not to consider).”

“You mean to say he became mad deliberately?'...Nothing is more likely,' said the duke.”

“Byron tilted his head to a very odd angle, half-closed his eyes and composed his features to suggest that he was about to expire from chronic indigestion.”

“Mr. Honeyfoot did not propose going quite so far --indeed he did not wish to go far at all because it was winter and the roads where very shocking.”

“It seemed off that anyone could live behind such a high hedge of thorns, and he began to think it would be no great surprize to discover that Mr. Wyvern had been asleep for a hundred years or so. 'Well, I shall not mind that so much,' he thought, 'so long as I am not expected to kiss him.”

“And such a pinched-looking ruin of a thing now! I shall advice all the good-looking woman of my acquaintance not to die.”

“A Nottinghamshire man called Tubbs wished very much to see a fairy and, from thinking of fairies day and night, and from reading all sorts of odd books about them, he took it into his head that his coachman was a fairy.”

“Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange.Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.”

“Mr. Robinson was a polished sort of person. He was so clean and healthy and pleased about everything that he positively shone - which is only to be expected in a fairy or an angel, but is somewhat disconcerting in an attorney.”

“It may be laid down as a general rule that if a man begins to sing, no one will take any notice of his song except his fellow human beings. This is true even if his song is surpassingly beautiful. Other men may be in raptures at his skill, but the rest of creation is, by and large, unmoved. Perhaps a cat or a dog may look at him; his horse, if it is an exceptionally intelligent beast, may pause in cropping the grass, but that is the extent of it. 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.”