Samantha Shannon Quotes & Sayings

We like to think we're brave, but in the end, we're only human. — Samantha Shannon

I fell even more deeply in love with Tolkien's legendarium after studying Old English literature at uni, as I got a sense of the historical events and cultures that Tolkien used to create his world. My favourite of his imaginary locations is Lothlorien. — Samantha Shannon

Jokes are the declarations of fools. — Samantha Shannon

You told me once that freedom was my right." I held his gaze. "Maybe you should do something with it. — Samantha Shannon

I was a hacker of sorts. Not a mind 'reader,' exactly; more a mind 'radar,' in tune with the workings of the aether. I could sense the nuances of dreamscapes and rogue spirits. Things outside myself. Things the average voyant wouldn't feel. — Samantha Shannon

I often look at places and kind of mentally convert them to fantasy versions of themselves. — Samantha Shannon

I looked at him and he looked at me. A moment. A choice. My choice. His choice. — Samantha Shannon

All will go to plan, Paige. You should not give up hope." He looked at the stage. "Hope is the one thing that might still save us all." I followed his gaze. The bell jar and the lifeless flowers stood on a covered plinth. "Hope for what?" "Change. — Samantha Shannon

Money. The dark obsession of the human race. — Samantha Shannon

You seem to attract injuries in the manner that a flower attracts bees. — Samantha Shannon

His touch had felt strange. Warmer. It was only when I saw his hands that I realized.
He wasn't wearing gloves. — Samantha Shannon

Permission to disregard your orders, Underqueen."
"Permission not granted. Permission categorically denied. — Samantha Shannon

Rowling is a luminous storyteller. I love her sense of humor and the intricate wizarding world she built around Hogwarts. I think all writers aspire to be like her, to capture readers like she does. But I didn't think about 'Harry Potter' when I wrote 'The Bone Season.' — Samantha Shannon

No life lived is lost. — Samantha Shannon

Perhaps I feel safest when I think of nothing. — Samantha Shannon

Never allow yourself to believe you should be silent. — Samantha Shannon

Words are everything. Words give wings even to those who have been stamped upon, broken beyond all hope of repair. — Samantha Shannon

I don't know. I just want you with me.' I had never said those words aloud. Now that I could taste my freedom I wanted him to share it with me. But he couldn't change his life for me. And I couldn't sacrifice my life to be with him. — Samantha Shannon

They'd branded me like some kind of animal.
Lower than an animal.
A number. — Samantha Shannon

I felt the thick beat of him. His rhythm. My rhythm. — Samantha Shannon

I was born in 1991, and 'Harry Potter' came out in '97, so, you know, I was really obsessed. I used to read them in one night. — Samantha Shannon

Knowledge is dangerous. Once you know something, you can't get rid of it. You have to carry it. Always. — Samantha Shannon

She was adamant that any organization that labelled one group of people as evil would eventually do the same to others. That to treat any one person as less than human was to cheapen the very substance of humanity. — Samantha Shannon

People question what I thought of Oxford. Students used to talk about the 'Oxford bubble' because the place can make you feel cut off from the rest of the world. I would forget there were places like London that were not centred round libraries and essays. — Samantha Shannon

I had lived in that part of London that used to be called Islington since I was eight. I attended a private school for girls, leaving at sixteen to work. That was in the year 2056. AS 127, if you use the Scion calendar. — Samantha Shannon

She was adamant that any organisation that labelled one group of people as evil would eventually do the same to others. That to treat any one person as less than human was to cheapen the very substance of humanity.' Sorrow — Samantha Shannon

I always felt that sci-fi and fantasy were my thing. Bit of a geek, I'm afraid. But I like creating worlds, and I felt it was a genre that gave me more freedom. It just seemed like I belonged there. — Samantha Shannon

There was no normal. There never had been. "Normal" and "natural" were the biggest lies we'd ever created. — Samantha Shannon

His thumbs ran over my cheeks. Our foreheads touched. My dreamscape scorched. He set fire to the poppies — Samantha Shannon

I'm often daydreaming, and it's because I've always liked the idea of there being something more than the normal world. — Samantha Shannon

We sat with our arms around each other, holding too tightly and not tightly enough. — Samantha Shannon

I am the first one to go to university in my family. I am the first writer as well. My dad is a retired policeman, and my mom works for a glass-processing company. She is health-and-safety manager, and my stepfather is a plumber. I have four half siblings, one from my mom's marriage and three from my dad's marriage, so we are kind of scattered. — Samantha Shannon

Every revolution begins with breakfast,' I quoted as they left. 'Is this your revolution, Jaxon? — Samantha Shannon

My father thought I would lead a simple life; that I was bright but unambitious, complacant with whatever work life threw at me.
My father, as usual, was wrong. — Samantha Shannon

What I will tell you is that you cannot force yourself to mourn. Sometimes, the best way to honour the dead is to simply keep living. — Samantha Shannon

I've been writing since I was about thirteen but didn't start a book until 2007. I spent four years writing a sci-fi novel before I wrote 'The Bone Season' at nineteen. — Samantha Shannon

'The Bone Season' is violent. There's sex. My little brother keeps asking to read it, and he's 9, so I'm like, 'No, it's not happening.' — Samantha Shannon

You cannot kill death. What fire can scald the sun? Who can drown the ocean? — Samantha Shannon

I've never had a supernatural experience. I've been tempted to maybe have a tarot-card reading, but I don't know if I'd necessarily want to know. — Samantha Shannon

We canna grieve for those who've gone. Not before we've fought to change the world that took them. — Samantha Shannon

Just going outside put me at risk of winding up dead or captured. If I let that daunt me, I'd never do anything. — Samantha Shannon

Our lifelines will meet only when the aether sees fit. That may not be often. It can never to always. — Samantha Shannon

It is not that I do not want you. Only that I might want you too much. And for too long — Samantha Shannon

Whenever anyone calls me 'The new J..K. Rowling,' I think, 'What's wrong with the old one?' — Samantha Shannon

Madness is a matter of perspective, little dreamer. — Samantha Shannon

You have risen from the ashes before. The only way to survive, " he said, "is to believe you always will. — Samantha Shannon

Hope is the lifeblood of revolution. Without it, we are nothing but ash, waiting for the wind to take us. — Samantha Shannon

This was what my spirit longed to do, to wander in strange lands. It couldn't stand being trapped in one body all the time. It had wanderlust. — Samantha Shannon

Because I don't know whether honesty is better than happiness. Do we sacrifice honesty in order to be happy? — Samantha Shannon

But if there was a heaven this is what it would have felt like. Touching the aether with my bare hands I could never have anticipated this, not from him — Samantha Shannon

Then there was that awful slogan: no safer place. More like no safe place. Not for us. — Samantha Shannon

His dreamscape sent a tongue of fire across my flowers — Samantha Shannon

It's rare that a story begins at the beginning. In the grand scheme of things, I really turned up at the beginning of the end of this one. After all, the story of the Rephaim and Scion started almost two hundred years before I was born - and human lives, to Rephaim, are as fleeting as a single heartbeat.
Some revolutions change the world in a day. Others take decades or centuries or more, and others still never come to fruition. Mine began with a moment and a choice. Mine began with the blooming of a flower in a secret city on the border between worlds.
You'll have to wait and see how it ends.
Welcome back to Scion. — Samantha Shannon

I have committed myself to developing your gift- but for you, Paige. Not for her. — Samantha Shannon

The room was an hourglass that hadn't yet turned. — Samantha Shannon

My silver cord - the link between my body and my spirit - was extremely sensitive. It was what allowed me to sense dreamscapes at a distance. It could also snap me back into my skin. — Samantha Shannon

Dance and fall.
Like a puppet. All those years of dancing. — Samantha Shannon

I was not really aware of the dystopian genre before I read 'The Handmaid's Tale.' Many poets as well, like John Donne and Emily Dickinson, would be the influences; I specialized in Emily Dickinson at university. Both of those poets have really interesting ways of looking at life and death. — Samantha Shannon

It is a strange world, Oxford - quite claustrophobic. I was often glad I was only there for eight weeks at a time. — Samantha Shannon

It was raining that day. My last day at work. — Samantha Shannon

I was so sure I wanted to be a novelist. I would spend hours and hours every day writing. Little stories about nothing in particular. I recall one about someone with an illness. But my dedication wasn't really healthy, and it reached the point where I wasn't sleeping. My mum would tell me, 'You need to go outside to get some fresh air.' — Samantha Shannon

London - beautiful, immortal London - has never been a 'city' in the simplest sense of the word. It was, and is, a living, breathing thing, a stone leviathan that harbours secrets underneath its scales. It guards them covetously, hiding them deep within its body; only the mad or the worthy can find them. — Samantha Shannon

I was a shy child, and when I was 13, I started wearing braces on my teeth. I used to be acutely self-conscious, and I think writing was a way of withdrawing into my own imagination. — Samantha Shannon

I am sure you know what an angel is: a soul that returns to this plane to protect the person they died to save, — Samantha Shannon

Paige, you will have two tasks tonight,' he said, turning to face me. 'Both will test the limits of your sanity. Will you believe me if I tell you that they will help you?'
'Not likely,' I said 'but let's get on with it. — Samantha Shannon

I worry that people think you have to go to a university to be a good writer, which is categorically untrue. I don't think I learned how to write at Oxford. I did not go to any creative writing classes or anything. — Samantha Shannon

The only way to survive is to believe you always will. — Samantha Shannon

Some revolutions change the world in a day. Others take decades or centuries or more, and others still never come to fruition. Mine began with a moment and a choice. — Samantha Shannon

I do not pity you. But I do know what it feels like. To be wanted only for what you are. — Samantha Shannon

You may not believe it, but it is what I desire the most in the world. This place has afflicted me with a terrible wanderlust. I long for the fire, for the sights you have seen. Yet here I am, two hundred years after I arrived. Still a prisoner, though I masquerade as a king. — Samantha Shannon

In 2011, I did an internship in Seven Dials, a junction in London where seven roads come together. I'd given up on writing after multiple rejections for my first novel, and I was starting to consider a career in publishing instead, but Seven Dials gave me such a strong idea for a setting that I couldn't resist picking up my pen again. — Samantha Shannon

Change a word or two, even a single letter, and you change the entire story. — Samantha Shannon

We call these decadal harvests Bone Seasons. This is Bone Season XX. — Samantha Shannon

I do take this insane pleasure in world-building. I get the world in my head, but I have to make sure everyone else gets it. — Samantha Shannon

Some people believe that if they keep their heads down and stick to their safe routine and trust that nothing bad will befall them, then it won't. They see things happening to others, but they think they're different; they're special; it could never happen to them. They believe that nothing can get better, but also that nothing can get worse. They're cowards, in one way, because they won't fight, but they're also brave, because they're willing to accept their lot in life. Glupava smelost, we called it. Foolish courage. — Samantha Shannon

What I like about Oxford is how small it is; it's really more of a big town than a city. — Samantha Shannon

For me, just being published feels like success. — Samantha Shannon

With the right reasons, at the right moment, even the most beaten and broken of people could rise up and reclaim themselves. — Samantha Shannon

That's delusional, isn't it?'
'Definitely. But if you're both delusional together, you'll be fine. — Samantha Shannon

You saved me, Nick. Sooner or later I would have lost my mind. I had to know, or I would have always felt like an outsider. You made me feel like I was part of something, part of a lot of things actually. I'll never be able to repay you for that. — Samantha Shannon

Run, little dreamer. — Samantha Shannon

Perhaps this is for the best,' Warden said. 'You already dwell too deep in shadows.'
'I would have gone into the shadows for you. — Samantha Shannon

But one day, you will be faced with a choice, as we all are. One day you will have to choose between your own desires, your own darkest impulses, and what you know to be right . . . and it will harden you. You will understand that all of us are devils in the skins of men. — Samantha Shannon

I do not know what I can do for this world but I will not let any harm come to you — Samantha Shannon

Truth looks different in every lens. — Samantha Shannon

I have studied many books on human history, and if there is one thing I have learned from them, it is that it is not always possible to find reason in tradition. It is the same for Rephaim. — Samantha Shannon

I was always more interested in my books and my writing than going out. It's OK to say I'm a nerd. That's me. — Samantha Shannon

Don't you dare," he said. "Don't you dare let her see it. You are more than that. You are more than what she wants to do to you. — Samantha Shannon

I have always been driven; I've always wanted to be published, and I wanted to make that happen, so I worked very hard. 'Perfectionist' would be a word to describe me. — Samantha Shannon

I'm not going to give it the big 'I am' now that I'm a New York Times bestseller. — Samantha Shannon

How did you get here, then?'
'We walked,' Maria said, 'hence the "dejected snowman" look we're all modelling. — Samantha Shannon

One day,' was the dark reply, 'I will find the Ripper, and you will prove it with your life.'
'I hope that is not a threat against my person, sir, verily I do.' The auctioneer was all of a quiver. 'I shall not endure that sort of talk in my wife's very own auction house, sir. Judith would never have allowed such wanton verbal abuse, sir.'
'Where's you wife's spirit?' a medium shouted. 'Shall we auction her off, too?'
Didion purpled like a bruise. You knew things were getting serious when Didion Waite ran out of sirs. — Samantha Shannon

I brought you back," he said, "because I could not find the strength to fight her without you. — Samantha Shannon

I was not a rebellious teenager. I was a sit-in-your-room teenager. — Samantha Shannon

I wanted to write a sci-fi story that would appeal to young women. Loads of girls like sci-fi, but it's more culturally associated with guys. — Samantha Shannon

Nothing's worse than a story without an end. — Samantha Shannon

Sleep well, little dreamer. — Samantha Shannon

I do." He was clearly amused by my disdain. "We have only been speaking for two minutes, Paige. Try not to waste all your sarcasm in one breath."
I wanted to kill him. As it happened, I couldn't. — Samantha Shannon

Writing a novel is like knocking on a door that will never open. You are so desperate to get in, you will say or do anything. You feel: please take my novel. — Samantha Shannon

London had so much death in its history, it was hard to find a spot without spirits. They formed a safety net. Still, you had to hope the ones you got were good. — Samantha Shannon