Sarah Monette Quotes & Sayings

Jonak says to say he send congratulations and well-wishes and all the things he ought - he was so pleased with himself for being an uncle he couldn't sit still to think them out. — Sarah Monette

Isolfr," Frithulf said, "you weigh a hundred stone."
"Do I? Sorry," and he tried to straighten, but nothing was working.
Frithulf swore and said,"Kari, I think I'm going to need you to get his feet."
Are they running away? Isolfr wanted to ask. — Sarah Monette

He's not my lover," Isolfr said.
She raised an eyebrow, a long feathery, shaggy sweep. "You're his beloved. Both of them. I saw enough on the war-trail to know." Then she laughed, and took her hand off his and pushed his chest like a wolf-cub nudging playfully. "We don't get to pick who loves us, you know. And better to get him to write the song than be remembered forever as 'fair Isolfr, the cold.'"
He scrubbed a hand across his face, roughness of beard and scars and the smooth skin of the unmarked cheek. "Is that really what they call me?"
She smiled. "You frighten them, Viradechtisbrother. You went down under the mountain and came out again, twice, and the alfar call you friend. They'll have you among the heroes before you know it. And you can seem quite untouchable - 'ice-eyes, and ice-heart, and ice-hard, his will.'"
"Othinn help me. It is a song already. — Sarah Monette

Life on Mars would be awesome! Even single-celled life, although I admit that in my heart of hearts, I want it to be the barge-people of the canals. — Sarah Monette

Well fuck me sideways 'til I cry — Sarah Monette

And killed a trellsow, one of the ones he'd learned to recognize as a smith. And thought of Thorlot, who might be a better blacksmith than her father or brother or dead husband, or more than her son would be, but who would never be anything more than wife, sister, daughter, mother. At least she was honored, he thought, wrenching his axe free of the trellsmith's ribs. He didn't mean Thorlot, and he did not know whether he was angry at his own kind for their blindness or angry at the trolls for making him see how blind they were. — Sarah Monette

The ritual worked. That is the most ghastly thing. I hold no particular brief for the rationality of the world, but that this vile obscenity should actually have the power to bring back the dead seems to me not merely a sign that the world is not rational, but that it is in fact entirely insane, a murderous lunatic gibbering in the corner of a padded cell. — Sarah Monette

You know how sometimes you can be going along and do something or say something, and suddenly you *know* yourself? I mean, it's like you're looking at somebody else, and it's just so fucking clear you want to hit something. — Sarah Monette

Felix just sat there, not smirking exactly - or not so as you could call him on it - but clearly happy with how unhappy he'd managed to make all of us. — Sarah Monette

I would love with all my heart to be able to speak Greek, classical or modern or both. It is a beautiful language, both aurally and in terms of the intricacy of its construction. I took four semesters of Ancient Greek in college, but it's all rusted away now - and I never learned to speak it anyway. — Sarah Monette

It occurred to me that it said something very unpleasant about both of us that we saw concern and kindness as attacks. — Sarah Monette

I have mild albinism, which means I am very sensitive to light, so the animal representation of my spirit would have to be a mole. I am particularly fond of that most Lovecraftian of mammals, the star-nosed mole, and tend to choose it for online icons and avatars. — Sarah Monette

If I was really, really lucky, Felix might throw a fireball at me, and I'd get out of the rest of this freakshow. — Sarah Monette

What makes a story a story is that something changes. Internal, external, small or large, trivial or of earth-shattering importance. Doesn't matter. — Sarah Monette

The river runs through the heart of the city, and braiding around and over and under the river, the city's rail system is a welter of tarnished silver ribbons. — Sarah Monette

Beyond the window, snow fell like frozen drops of poison. — Sarah Monette

I'm a cat burglar. — Sarah Monette

The fountain of youth is like the monkey's paw in the W. W. Jacobs story. It never ends well. — Sarah Monette

I gave up on cussing - I'd run out of words filthy enough - and just started praying. — Sarah Monette

Sacred bleeding fuck, I said, because, I mean its one thing to know your crazy hocus brother sees ghosts, and a whole different thing when you find out they're telling him bedtime stories. — Sarah Monette

'So what happens next?'
'Everybody dies, and the people who don't get married.'
'Like any other story, then.' — Sarah Monette

There ain't nothing worse than getting fired by somebody you hate, because it means they — Sarah Monette

The dead person is not truly dead until the last person who rememebers them dies. — Sarah Monette

'You like jealousy. You like knowing people want you.'
He wasn't talking about sex, and my heart slowed a little. 'Is it not natural to want to be liked?'
'That ain't what you want. It's like you got to have everybody's heart, and if they don't give it, you rip it out and watch it bleed.' — Sarah Monette

It is a rose planted in your heart, and as it's thorns tear you, so does it thrive and flower — Sarah Monette

He fell away into the column before Isolfr could blink the thought of thanking him into his bleary mind, and Isolfr looked up at Frithulf in supplication. "What was that about?"
"Stay pretty," Frithulf advised, through a mouthful of meat.
Isolfr would have kicked him if he hadn't been out of reach on the horse. — Sarah Monette

The rats we met the size of small dogs and they watched us go by like they'd figured out that what People were for was feeding rats. — Sarah Monette

Although Mar would be quite pleased to be consort, Skjaldwulf didn't want to be wolfjarl.
He wanted Isolfr, and he would take the damned job that went with it, if he could win it, if that was what it took. — Sarah Monette

I am a huge fan of world-building. I love doing it in my own books, and I love reading it done well. — Sarah Monette

I catch a flash of red-gold beneath the surface of the water, and realize that there are koi in the pond, massive, serene, and I wonder: are they dreams of fish, or fish who dream? — Sarah Monette

I miss my fox-headed brother. Keeper — Sarah Monette

Was you born this fucking dumb, Milly-Fox, or do you practice every Dixieme? — Sarah Monette

And besides, the thing about committing yourself to a lie is that mostly you end up in twice the trouble, 'cause truth is like a whirlwind and you can't keep it in a box. — Sarah Monette

Consider the stars. Among them are no passions, no wars. They know neither love nor hatred. Did man but emulate the stars, would not his soul become clear and radiant as they are? But man's spirit draws him like a moth to the ephemera of this world, and in their heat he is consumed entire. — Sarah Monette