Harkness Quotes & Sayings

Yes, I see that you are behaving like a prince but that doesn't mean you won't behave like a devil at the first opportunity. — Deborah Harkness

Prayer is essentially a process by which ideals are enabled to become operative in our lives. It may be more than this, but it is at least this. — Georgia Harkness

If we are at war, we're not fighting for a bewitched alchemical manuscript, or for my safety, or for our right to marry and have children. This is about the future of all of us." I saw that future for just a moment, its bright potential spooling away in a thousand different directions. "If our children don't take the next evolutionary steps, it will be someone else's children. And whiskey isn't going to make it possible for me to close my eyes and forget that. No one else will go through this kind of hell because they love someone they're not supposed to love. I won't allow it. — Deborah Harkness

Change is the only reliable thing in the world. — Deborah Harkness

Decide what to do to survive, and do it. — Deborah Harkness

The first requirement of war: allies must not kill each other. — Deborah Harkness

For us to be together, we needed to decide which secrets to share and then let the others go. — Deborah Harkness

Like all parents, they were just doing their best from moment to moment. — Deborah Harkness

The wolf who wins is the wolf you feed. The evil wolf feeds on anger, guilt, sorrow, lies, and regret. The good wolf needs a diet of love and honesty, spiced up with big spoonfuls of compassion and faith. So if you want the good wolf to win, you're going to have to starve the other one. — Deborah Harkness

are you always like this, all dressed up in adrenaline, and no place to go? — Deborah Harkness

Life is a continual alternation of rest and action, of the need of comfort and the need of power. — Georgia Harkness

Memories were short and history unkind. It was the way of the world. — Deborah Harkness

Mature? Widow? I had just turned thirty-three. — Deborah Harkness

Do not fear me because I am dark and shadowed — Deborah Harkness

And then you weave a forspell that called forth a rowan tree simply to tame a firedrake. Had — Deborah Harkness

His full name is Matthew Gabriel Philippe Bertrand Sebastien de Clermont. He was also a very good Sebastien, and a passable Gabriel. He hates Bertrand and will not answer to Philippe. — Deborah Harkness

Within days they'd formed an unholy alliance with a foppish young French vampire in the Garden District who had implausibly golden hair and a streak of ruthlessness as wide as the Mississippi — Deborah Harkness

Once upon a time, about 10 years ago, I thought maybe I could write a mystery series about a midwife in Elizabethan England. I had an elaborately convoluted title and an elaborately convoluted plotline, and at that point I got stupendously bored. — Deborah Harkness

One can be coerced to church, but not to worship. — Georgia Harkness

All you have to do is be a good listener. Nobody really wants to keep secrets, not even the dead. People leave clues everywhere, and if you pay attention, you can piece them together. — Deborah Harkness

In every moment, for the rest of my life, I will be choosing you. — Deborah Harkness

Stop trying to be perfect. Try being real for a change. — Deborah Harkness

To keep God at the center of one's life requires frequent renewal of power through prayer. — Georgia Harkness

The truth is seldom found in extremes. Central truths can be revolutionary if put to work. — Georgia Harkness

Somewhere in the center of my soul, a rusty chain began to unwind. It freed itself, link by link, from where it had rested, unobserved, waiting for him. My hands, which had been balled up and pressed against his chest, unfurled with it. The chain continued to drop, to an unfathomable depth where there was nothing but darkness and Matthew. At last it snapped to its full length, anchoring me to a vampire. Despite the manuscript, despite the fact that my hands contained enough voltage to run a microwave, and despite the photograph, as long as I was connected to him, I was safe. — Deborah Harkness

The principal sources of human misery may fairly be said to lie in the over-possession, under-possession, and the unwise use of economic goods. — Georgia Harkness

One should find wholeness in marriage, Gabriel, but it should not be a prison for either party, said Rabbi Loew. — Deborah Harkness

These days vampires gravitated toward particle accelerators, projects to decode the genome, and molecular biology. Once they had flocked to alchemy, anatomy, and electricity. If it went bang, involved blood, or promised to unlock the secrets of the universe, there was sure to be a vampire around. — Deborah Harkness

And happiness is always louder than sadness. — Deborah Harkness

While religion is ethical, it by no means follows that ethics is religion. — Georgia Harkness

Matthew kept hinting that his desire - for blood, chiefly- was so strong that it put everything else at risk. But vampires weren't the only creatures who had to manage such strong impulses. Much of what qualified as magic was simply desire in action. Witchcraft was different- that took spells and rituals. But magic? A wish, a need, a hunger too strong to be denied- these could turn into deeds when they cross a witch's mind. — Deborah Harkness

Be yourself
Matthew Clairmont. Complete with your sharp vampire teeth and your scary mother, your test tubes full of blood and your DNA, your infuriating bossiness and your maddening sense of smell. — Deborah Harkness

Elias Ashmole, a seventeenth-century book collector and alchemist whose books and papers had come to the Bodleian from the Ashmolean Museum in the nineteenth century, along with the number 782. — Deborah Harkness

Daleks: [simultaneously] Exterminate! Exterminate!
[They fire their weapons, none of which so much as touch the Doctor]
The Doctor: Is that it? Useless! Nul points! [to Rose and Jack] It's all right, you can come out; that forcefield can hold back anything!
Jack Harkness: Almost anything. [pause]
The Doctor: Yes, but I wasn't going to tell them that. Thanks. — Russell T. Davies

It's doubtful we're the first creatures to love those we should not, and we surely won't be the last. — Deborah Harkness

Why do today's women think it's important to open a door themselves?" he said sharply. "Do you believe it's a testament to your physical power? — Deborah Harkness

To pleasant songs my work was once given, and bright were all my labors then; / But now in tears to sad refrains I must return. — Deborah Harkness

Whoever can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead. — Deborah Harkness

All that children need is love, a grown-up to take responsibility for them, and a soft place to land. — Deborah Harkness

Sometimes my pagan background was a serious professional liability. — Deborah Harkness

The sooner the doctrine of original sin disappears, the better it is for theology. — Georgia Harkness

Opportunity is fleeting, experiment dangerous, and judgement difficult. — Deborah Harkness

A lot of our assumptions of the world are fairly cynical, fairly negative, and assume the worst. What our reading tastes show - in this rush to fantasy, romance, whatever - is that we actually still want to believe in a world of possibility, in a world of mystery. — Deborah Harkness

You persist in this romantic vision of what it is to be a vampire, but despite my best efforts to curb it I have a taste for blood. — Deborah Harkness

Nightmares are like Master Harriot's star glass. They are a trick of the light, one that makes something distant seem closer and larger than it really is." "Oh." Jack considered Matthew's response. "So even if I see a monster in my dreams, it cannot reach me?" Matthew nodded. "But I will tell you a secret. A dream is a nightmare in reverse. If you dream of someone you love, that person will seem closer, even if far away. — Deborah Harkness

fine initium novum,'" Matthew said, gazing upon the land of his father as though he had, at last, come home. "'In every ending there is a new beginning. — Deborah Harkness

Here's Fernando, Sarah said in a tone suggesting that deliverance had come at last. — Deborah Harkness

I don't expect you to have no regrets about who you've lost along the way. How could you not have been loved before, when I love you so much? — Deborah Harkness

No, I'm a vampire." Matthew stepped forward, joining Chris under the projector's light. "And before you ask, I can go outside during the day and my hair won't catch fire in the sunlight. I'm Catholic and have a crucifix. When I sleep, which is not often, I prefer a bed to a coffin. If you try to stake me, the wood will likely splinter before it enters my skin." He bared his teeth. "No fangs either. And one last thing: I do not, nor have I ever, sparkled." Matthew's face darkened to emphasize the point. I — Deborah Harkness

I have come to serve you with a warning, Diana Bishop. Relationships between witches and vampires are forbidden. You must leave this house and no longer associate with Matthew de Clermont or any of his family. If you don't, the Congregation will take whatever steps are necessary to preserve the covenant. — Deborah Harkness

Baldwin had never grasped the concept of atonement. His view of Matthew's faith was purely transactional - you went to church, confessed, and walked out a clean man. But salvation was more complicated. Philippe had come to understand that in the end, although he had long found Matthew's constant search for forgiveness irritating and irrational. — Deborah Harkness

The primary battle which religion must fight today is the battle to justify its own existence. — Georgia Harkness

Remember the past - and await the future. — Deborah Harkness

Witches see the truth plainly - even if their husbands are full of nonsense. — Deborah Harkness

Do not refuse me because I am dark and shadowed,' I whispered, remembering — Deborah Harkness

A wave of undergraduates arrived to disrupt the city's tranquillity. — Deborah Harkness

To discover, or recover, the sense of religious certainty one must worship. — Georgia Harkness

Sir. My lord. Master Roydon." The young man blurted out most available titles except for "Your Majesty" and "Prince of Darkness." These were implied nonetheless. — Deborah Harkness

We face a dark future if children stop asking questions, Susanna, Goody Alsop remarked. — Deborah Harkness

The king just sits there, moving one square at a time. The queen can move so freely. I suppose I'd rather lose the game than forfeit her freedom. — Deborah Harkness

Malachi Smith. Crispin Jones. Suzette Boudrot. Claude Le Breton." Matthew paused as Ransome searched the ledger's entries for the names. "You should have kept them in chronological order instead of alphabetical. That's how I remember them." Ransome — Deborah Harkness

Prayer is the opening of the soul to God so that he can speak to us. — Georgia Harkness

A man like Matthew never frees himself of the shadows completely. But perhaps it is necessary to embrace the darkness in order to love him, Philippe continued. — Deborah Harkness

The great danger is that in the confession of any collective sin, one shall confess the sins of others and forget our own. — Georgia Harkness

I want what I shouldn't want, and I crave someone I can never have. — Deborah Harkness

All men are fools, Your Majesty," Matthew said swiftly. — Deborah Harkness

Her bark is worse than her bite. — Deborah Harkness

What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary — Richard Harkness

You're impossible. Stop worrying about what other women do. Be your own extraordinary self. — Deborah Harkness

I saw the logic that they used, and the death of a thousand cuts as experimental scientists slowly chipped away at the belief that the world was an inexplicably powerful, magical place. Ultimately they failed, though. The magic never really went away. It waited, quietly, for people to return to it when they found the science wanting. — Deborah Harkness

I know. You were nervous before you opened your eyes. — Deborah Harkness

The tendency to turn human judgments into divine commands makes religion one of the most dangerous forces in the world. — Georgia Harkness

I really love helping students and helping them empathize with people who lived a really long time ago. That's one of the highlights of working in fiction. — Deborah Harkness

It begins with absence and desire.
It begins with blood and fear.
It begins with a discovery of witches. — Deborah Harkness

Matthew had been accumulating secrets ... My life might be too brief to hear them all, never mind understand them. — Deborah Harkness

Fear had also choked out any desire to work magic. It had been my crutch and my cloak, keeping me from exercising my power. Fear had sheltered me from the curiosity of others and provided an oubliette where I could forget who I really was: a witch. I'd — Deborah Harkness

Wordlessly I looked back at him, astonished that a kiss on the palm could be so intimate. — Deborah Harkness

I watched in silence as the parts of Matthew I knew and loved - the poet and the scientist, the warrior and the spy, the Renaissance prince and the father - fell away until only the darkest, most forbidding part of him remained. He was only the assassin now. But he was still the man I loved. — Deborah Harkness

To pray well one must pray much. — Georgia Harkness

I could still feel the chain that anchored me to Matthew, witch to vampire. — Deborah Harkness

Be careful, daughter ... You are a creature of the crossroads, neither here nor there. 'Tis a dangerous place to be. — Deborah Harkness

There were no vampires of note in Western literature until about the 18th century. But they tell us where we park our anxieties, whether its over-powerful women, death or damnation. We make our own monsters. — Deborah Harkness

Now I have you. One day you will be gone, and my life will be over. — Deborah Harkness

I was planning on starting a new file on my computer with the title Phrases That Sound One Way to Witches but Mean Something Else to Vampires. — Deborah Harkness

As far as I can tell, there are only two emotions that keep the world spinning, year after year." He hesitated, then continued. "One is fear. The other is desire. That's what I wrote about." Love — Deborah Harkness

That evening, rowing on the quiet river as sunset turned to dusk, I saw an occasional smoky smudge on the towpath, always slightly ahead of me, like a dark star guiding me home. — Deborah Harkness

And if we all did what we should, we would wake to find ourselves in paradise — Deborah Harkness

I want a simple, ordinary life ... like humans enjoy. — Deborah Harkness

Do you wonder what it would be like for me to taste you? — Deborah Harkness

Mark me well, Diana: Lives will be lost because of your love for my son ... What does it matter who deals the deathblow? If you do not do it, then Matthew will. — Deborah Harkness

Witches have their share of nasty legends to contend with, I said, thinking of the witch-hunts and the executions that followed. — Deborah Harkness

That will save me from me breaking the window or picking her lock, he thought. — Deborah Harkness

It was a brutal picture, a tug-of-war between two equal but opposing impulses. It had the ring of truth, however, — Deborah Harkness

Persons who would never think of announcing boldly to the world, 'I am a scholar,' 'I am a great artist,' 'I am a beautiful woman,' nevertheless seem to think it wholly within the bounds of good taste to announce that they are Christians! — Georgia Harkness

Gallowglass returned to Sporrengasse with two vampires and a pretzel. — Deborah Harkness

If the thirsty stag runs to the brook, it's only because he isn't aware of the cruel bow ... If the unicorn runs to its chaste nest, it's only because he doesn't see the noose prepared for him. — Deborah Harkness

With knot of one, the spell's begun.
With knot of two, the spell be true.
With knot of three, the spell is free.
With knot of four, the power is stored.
With knot of five, the spell with thrive.
With knot of six, this spell I fix. — Deborah Harkness

For your wedding gift, I wish I had a spell that could make you see yourself as others do.' 'Based — Deborah Harkness

Goddess does not want us to imitate some ideal of perfection, but to be our true selves. — Deborah Harkness

Sex and dominance. It's what modern humans think vampire relationships are all about," I said. "Their stories are full of crazed alpha-male vampires throwing women over their shoulders before dragging them off for dinner and a date." "Dinner and a date?" Matthew was aghast. "Do you mean . . . ?" "Uh-huh. You should see what Sarah's friends in the Madison coven read. Vampire meets girl, vampire bites girl, girl is shocked to find out there really are vampires. The sex, blood, and overprotective behavior all come quickly thereafter. Some of it is pretty explicit." I paused. "There's no time for bundling, that's for sure. I don't remember much poetry or dancing either." Matthew swore. "No wonder your aunt wanted to know if I was hungry." "You really should read this stuff, if only to see what humans think. It's a public-relations nightmare. Far worse than what witches have to overcome. — Deborah Harkness