“Lascelles threw himself into the carriage, snorting with laughter and saying that he had never in his life heard of anything so ridiculous and comparing their snug drive through the London streets in Mr. Norrell's carriage to ancient French and Italian fables where fools set sail in milk-pails to fetch the moon's reflection from the bottom of a duckpond...”
“Where they couldn't pick holes in our arguments they would drive horses and carriages through my character.”
“Mr Norrell determined to establish himself in London with all possible haste. "You must get a house, Childermass," he said. "Get me a house that says to those that visit it that magic is a respectable profession - no less than Law and a great deal more so than Medicine."Childermass inquired drily if Mr Norrell wished him to seek out architecture expressive of the proposition that magic was as respectable as the Church?Mr Norrell (who knew there were such things as jokes in the world or people would not write about them in books, but who had never actually been introduced to a joke or shaken its hand) considered a while before replying at last that no, he did not think they could quite claim that.”
“Alex's gaze bore her through like an icicle. He was tempted to shove her back into the ornate carriage and tell the driver to head straight for London. Or a far hotter place.”
“I suppose you heard him yelling as the doctor set his leg.""I never knew there were so many rude words in the English language. Or French, German, Italian, Latin,or....there was another language I didn't quite recognize.""Greek.”
“He had felt proud and happy then, happy that she was his, proud of her grace and wifely carriage.”