Novik Quotes & Sayings

The cows were all running around their pen in manic terror. — Naomi Novik

Few novels truly deserve the description 'rollicking' in the way Mary Novik's Conceit does. A hearty, boiling stew of a novel, served up in rich old-fashioned story-telling. Novik lures her readers into the streets of a bawdy seventeenth-century London with a nudge and a wink and keeps them there with her infectious love of detail and character. A raunchy, hugely entertaining read that will leave you at once satiated and hungry for more. — Gail Anderson-Dargatz

What an unequaled gift for disaster you have. — Naomi Novik

I am not whimpering, at all," Temeraire muttered, and added, "ow!" There — Naomi Novik

What perfectly sensible advice. It sat in my stomach, an indigestible lump. — Naomi Novik

If you don't want a man dead, don't bludgeon him over the head repeatedly. — Naomi Novik

It seems perfectly plain to me that it is war itself which must be halted, without wanting one side or another defeated in particular. — Naomi Novik

Rankin put down his glass and stared at him coldly. "I beg your pardon?" he said. "I gather this is some more of your officious - "
Laurence paid no attention, but seized the back of his chair and heaved. Rankin fell forward, scrabbling to catch himself on the floor. Laurence took him by the scruff of his coat and dragged him up to his feet, ignoring his gasp of pain.
"Laurence, what in God's name - " Lenton said in astonishment, rising to his feet.
"Levitas is dying; Captain Rankin wishes to make his farewells," Laurence said, looking Lenton squarely in the eye and holding Rankin up by the collar and the arm. "He begs to be excused."
The other captains stared, half out of their chairs. Lenton looked at Rankin, then very deliberately sat back down. "Very good," he said, and reached for the bottle; the other captains slowly sank back down as well. — Naomi Novik

Could have devoured the rest of the valley overnight. But a tree isn't a woman; it doesn't bear a single seed. It scatters as many of them as it can, and hopes for some of them to grow. — Naomi Novik

I tried to make him a young court-wizard in my mind - he almost looked the part in his fine clothes, pursuing some lovely noblewoman - and there my imagination stumbled. He was a thing of books and alembics to me, library and laboratory. — Naomi Novik

Laurence could make no real quarrel with the aims, which were natural and just; but England was at war, after all, and he was conscious, as Temeraire was not, of the impudence in demanding concessions from their own Government under such circumstances: very like mutiny. Yet — Naomi Novik

But none of that matters at all." His head raised to stare balefully at me, but I said, incoherent yet convinced, "It's just - a way to go. There isn't only one way to go." I waved at his notes. "You're trying to find a road where there isn't one. It's like - it's gleaning in the woods," I said abruptly. "You have to pick your way through the thickets and the trees, and it's different every time. — Naomi Novik

And we must still try or we would be leaving our friends to fight without us. I think this is what you have meant by duty, all along; I do understand, at least this much of it. — Naomi Novik

All those stories must have ended this same way, with someone tired going home from a field full of death, but no one ever sang this part. — Naomi Novik

No one had made her talk to me, or be in my company. I couldn't understand why she would have gone to the trouble just to be unpleasant. — Naomi Novik

No; they nearly drowned you, and not even on purpose but only through carelessness. I am not letting them have you back, Temeraire said. — Naomi Novik

And if you have been lying about it," Iskierka put in, having roused enough from her napping to follow the conversation, with slitted eyes, "you may be quite sure you will all be sorry: if anything has happened to my egg, I will burn everything between here and whatever house Napoleon is hiding in, and then I will set *that* on fire, too. — Naomi Novik

When they had dismounted, he indulged himself in a shudder of his whole body. "That is more than I undertake to do again!' --this to the admiral, in reproachful tones. "Those two monstrously large beasts! Going right up to them like that and dangling their captains in front of them just as if to say, look what I have got, ha ha! I am all astonishment they did not leap upon me at once. I hope they did not get a clear look at me. If they ever saw me again I am sure they would not let it pass."

"I beg you not to repine upon it," Laurence said. "Temeraire understands well that orders must be obeyed, and will not hold it against you; he knows it was not in your power to deliver us to him."

"Well, but it was," Souci said, not conciliated, and Granby said nothing reassuring at all. Iskierka allow of assurances of her behavior, good, evil, or otherwise. — Naomi Novik

We leave tonight," he continued, very cold and calm, "and we take the eggs with us. — Naomi Novik

A girl had supposedly disguised herself as a man to fight in her father's stead, had become companion to a military dragon and saved the empire by winning a great battle; — Naomi Novik

I missed home like the ache of hunger, something in me left empty. I'd missed it every day since we crossed out of the valley, going over the mountains. Roots - yes. There were roots in my heart, as deep as any corruption could go. — Naomi Novik

And to crown the whole, you must needs come back and make a martyr of yourself, so now anyone who cares a farthing for your life must watch you hanged; that is, if they do not decide to make a spectacle of it and draw and quarter you in the fine old style. I suppose you would go to it like Harrison, 'as cheerful as any man could do in that condition.' Well, I should not be damned cheerful, and neither should anyone else who loved you, and some of them can knock down half of London Town if they should choose. — Naomi Novik

They moved out of Jena early the next morning, with Prince Louis and the rest of the advance guard, for the town of Saalfeld, — Naomi Novik

Justice is expensive. That is why there is so little of it, and it is reserved for those few with enough money and influence to afford it. — Naomi Novik

The single most important technique for making progress is to write ten words. Doesn't matter if you're badly stuck, or your day is completely jam-packed, or you're away from your computer - carry a small paper notebook and write a sentence of description while you're waiting on line at a coffee shop. I think of this as baiting a hook. Even if you have a few days in a row where nothing comes except those ten words, I find that as long as you have to think about the novel enough to write ten words, the chances are that more will come. — Naomi Novik

We're meant to go. We're not meant to stay forever. — Naomi Novik

You speak in ignorant disdain of the foremost nation of the world," Yongxing said, growing angry himself, "like all your country-men, who show no respect for that which is superior, and insult our customs."
"For which I might consider myself as owing you some apology, sir, if you yourself had not so often insulted myself and my own country, or shown respect for any customs other than your own," Laurence said. — Naomi Novik

And I wasn't old enough to be wise, so I loved her more, not less, because I knew she would be taken from me soon. — Naomi Novik

Araminta had generally considered the laws of etiquette as the rules of the chase, and divided them into categories: those which everyone broke, all the time; those which one could not break without being frowned at; and those which caused one to be quietly and permanently left out of every future invitation to the field. — Naomi Novik

A life before you in the moment isn't worth a hundred elsewhere, three months from now. — Naomi Novik

I will see you bereft of all that you have, of home and happiness and beautiful things. I will see your nation cast down and your allies drawn away. I will see you as alone and friendless and wretched as am I; and then you may live as long as you like, in some dark and lonely corner of the earth, and I shall call myself content.
-Lien, Albino Celestial (Dragon) — Naomi Novik

And then finally the magic flowed, but not the same way as when the Dragon's spell-lessons dragged it in a rush out of me. Instead it seemed to me the sound of the chanting became a stream made to carry magic along, and I was standing by the water's edge with a pitcher that never ran dry, pouring a thin silver line into the rushing current. — Naomi Novik

One man can go where a group cannot, and manage on very little, particularly a rough adventurer such as he. More the point, he risks only himself when he goes: you much consider that in your charge is an inexpressibly valuable dragon, whose loss must be of greater importance than even this mission."

"Oh, pray, let us be gone at once," said the inexpressibly valuable dragon, when Laurence had carried the question, still unresolved, back to him. "It sounds very exciting to me. — Naomi Novik

It wasn't that I wanted a husband and a baby; I didn't, or rather, I only wanted them the way I wanted to live to a hundred: someday, far off, never thinking about the particulars. — Naomi Novik

Well, I only wish you may all not have your throats slit by Uygurs," Riley said in deep pessimism, giving up, after he had tried once more at dinner to persuade them to remain. . .
"I will not let anyone slit your throats at all," Temeraire said, a little indignantly. "Although I would like to see an Uygur; is that a kind of dragon?"
"A kind of bird, I think," Granby said; Laurence was doubtful, but he did not like to contradict when he was not sure himself.
"Tribesmen," Tharkay said, the next morning.
"Oh." Temeraire was a little disappointed; he had seen people before. "That is not very exciting, but perhaps they are very fierce?" he asked hopefully.
"Have you enough money to buy thirty camels?" Tharkay asked Laurence, after he had finally escaped a lengthy interrogation as to the many other prospective delights of their journey, such as violent sandstorms and frozen mountain passes. — Naomi Novik

The gate is perfectly simple," Temeraire said. "There is only a bar across the fence, which one can lift very easily, and then it swings open; Nitidus could do it best, for his forehands are the smallest. Though it is difficult to keep the animals inside the pen, and the first time I learned how to open it, they all ran away," he added. "Maximus and I had to chase after them for hours and hours
it was not funny at all," he said, ruffled, sitting back on his haunches and contemplating Laurence with great indignation. — Naomi Novik

It seems to me that if you wish to apply laws to us, it were only reasonable to consult us on them, and from what you have read to me about Parliament, I do not think any dragons are invited to go there — Naomi Novik

I'm not stupid, nor a liar," I said, "and if I can't do any good, I can at least do something — Naomi Novik

Laurence felt his face going red; she was sitting there in breeches that showed every inch of her leg, with a shirt held closed only by a neckcloth; he shifted his gaze to the unalarming top of her head and managed to say, Your servant, Miss Harcourt. — Naomi Novik

I will tell you what we shall do: if ever you need to rescue Catherine, or you Berkley, Maximus, I will help you, and you will do as much for me. Then we do not need to worry, I do not suppose anyone could stop all three of us, at least not before we can escape — Naomi Novik

Well, I don't know, yet," the dragonet said, "but I mean to find a way: just because the business will be difficult is no excuse for not making the attempt. — Naomi Novik

I am beginning to feel the need of a glass of wine to fortify myself against this conversation. — Naomi Novik

(Temeraire "Can one hire a translator to say things properly?"
"Yes; they are called lawyers," Tharkay said, and laughed softly to himself. — Naomi Novik

The French seized his arms and put a blade to his throat, calling to Eroica, "Geben Sie oben, — Naomi Novik

It comes, I suppose," I said thoughtfully, speaking to the air, "of spending too much time alone indoors, and forgetting that living things don't always stay where you put them. — Naomi Novik

He wasn't a person, he was a lord and a wizard, a strange creature on another plane entirely, as far removed as storms and pestilence. — Naomi Novik

I watched them roam awhile, and had a small weep, but even grief had its limits. By dinner-time I was horribly bored. — Naomi Novik

Out ahead of them, Arkady began something very like a marching song, chanting lines answered by the other ferals, their voices ringing out across the sky, each to each. Temeraire added his own to the chorus, and little Iskierka began to scrabble at his neck, demanding, "What are they saying? What does it mean?"
"We are flying home," Temeraire said, translating. "We are all flying home. — Naomi Novik

Of course", I said. I was sure he'd even gone to Olshanka for the tribute first, just so he could pretend that was the truth for a little bit longer. But I couldn't really bring myself to pretend with him, not even long enough for him to get used to the idea; my mouth was already turning up at the corners without my willing it to. He flushed and looked away; but that wasn't any better for him, since everyone else was watching us with enormous interest, too drank on beer and dancing to be polite. He looked back at me instead, and scowled at my smile.
"Come and meet my mother," I said. I reached out and took his hand. — Naomi Novik

I felt argument coiling in my belly. — Naomi Novik

We are not going to be herded anywhere we do not like," [Temeraire] said, dangerously, "by Napoleon or by your admirals; and if you like to ask the other dragons of the Corps to try it, I expect they will see at once how very foolish it is, and if not, I will explain it to them, and I daresay they will join us instead. — Naomi Novik

I turned back and tried again, and once more I was sure that I was understanding, and all of it made perfect sense - better than perfect sense, even; it had the feeling of truth, of something that I'd always known and just hadn't ever put into words, or of explaining clearly and plainly something I'd never understood. — Naomi Novik

There was a song in this forest, too, but it was a savage song, whispering of madness and tearing and rage. — Naomi Novik

The passageway smelled of smoke: burning wood, a torch, acrid. His head ached. Blood was wet and sticky upon his arm and on his fingers, and the orange glow of torchlight played from behind his back and over the corridor walls, leaping like a bonfire. There was a strange familiarity to it: the narrow walls in around him. And when he came to a wooden door set in the wall, he put his hand upon it and pushed it open.
There was a room, and a pallet inside it; a small torch burned low in a socket upon the wall. A man lay upon the cot, his face bruised and battered, his hands curled against his chest bloody: and Laurence knew him; knew him and knew himself. He remembered another door opening, in Bristol, three years before, and a voice asking him to come outside his prison, in a Britain under siege.
"Tenzing," Laurence said, and, as Tharkay opened feverish eyes, went to help him stand. — Naomi Novik

after supper Laurence would go to sit outside and read to him by the light of a lantern. He had never been a great reader himself, but Temeraire's pleasure in books was so great as to be infectious, and Laurence could not but think with satisfaction of the dragon's likely delight in the new book, which spoke in great detail about gemstones and their mining, despite his own complete lack of interest in the subject. — Naomi Novik

Her fire was roaring, her silhouette raising showers of orange sparks with a hammer made of shadow. — Naomi Novik

I stood panting with my hands clenched at my sides, still ringing head-to-foot, and said, "Is that magic enough to put me on the list? Or do you want to see more?"
They stared at me, and in the silence I heard shouts outside in the courtyard, running feet. The guards were looking in with their hands on their sword-hilts, and I realized I'd just shaken the king's castle, in the king's city, and shouted at the highest wizards of the land. — Naomi Novik

Those men want to take Laurence from me, and put him in prison, and execute him, and I will not let them, ever, and I do not care if Laurence tells me not to squash you, he added, fiercely, to Lord Barham.
- Temeraire — Naomi Novik

There's a considerable distance between seeking perfection and irretrievable haste, — Naomi Novik

Enough of that, you damned conspirators, you will have us hanged a great deal sooner than we will. — Naomi Novik

You intolerable lunatic, he snarled at me, and then he caught my face between his hands and kissed me. — Naomi Novik

I was so tired that I was nothing but my body: the steady dull throb in my thighs, the tremor all along my arms, the thick grime of dust muffling my skin. — Naomi Novik

Listen, you impossible creature," he said, "I'm a century and more older than
"
"Oh, be quiet," I said impatiently. — Naomi Novik

he would not neglect what he considered his duty for the sake of being liked. — Naomi Novik

I held that last gown of plain undyed wool in my hands, feeling like it was a rope I was clinging to, and then in a burst of defiance I left it on my bead, and pulled myself in the green-and-russet gown.
I couldn't fasten the buttons in the back, so I took the long veil from the headdress, wound it twice around my waist and made a knot, just barely good enough to keep the whole thing from falling off me, and marched downstairs to the kitchens. I didn't even try to keep myself clean this time. — Naomi Novik

You can actually muck with history and think about what if, why not. What if there were dragons in the Incan Empire that allowed them to resist colonization? What if there were a massive dragon empire in the middle of the interior of southern Africa that decided to take objection to the slave trade? — Naomi Novik

They are ours," he said, "although not properly the sailors: they are only along because we would not leave them to drown, and ought to be more grateful for it than they are. Laurence," he said, turning, "this is Palta, and that man is called Taruca: Iskierka snatched him, and I cannot find she asked him in the least. — Naomi Novik

It felt like a war between two endless things, between a bottomless chasm and a running river. — Naomi Novik

. . . though if Fanshawe had not spoken in so unbecoming a way, Laurence would have liked to keep Carver out of it, as he knew the boy had a poor head for heights, which struck him as a grave impediment for an aviator. — Naomi Novik

Oh dear," Laurence said; he felt rather awkward explaining that the main attraction was the abundance of harbor prostitutes and cheap liquor. "Well, a city has a great many people in it, and thus various entertainments provided in close proximity," he tried.
"Do you mean such as more books?" Temeraire said. — Naomi Novik

Keep your eyes on him, you wretched vainglorious creature, — Naomi Novik

All of a sudden, I sort of started to feel that I was constrained by the characters as opposed to enjoying them. And that remains for me to this day the line that I know where it's like, OK, you're not writing fan fiction anymore. — Naomi Novik

I do not think you are in any danger of starving," Maximus said. "The surgeon said only two weeks ago that you are too fat."
"The devil!" Berkley said indignantly, sitting up; and Maximus snorted in amusement at having provoked him. — Naomi Novik

I hated her; I wanted her to burn, the way so many of the corrupted had burned, because she'd put her hold on them. But wanting cruelty felt like another wrong answer in an endless chain. — Naomi Novik

All maps are fiction when the world is seen from the sky. But if ten thousand dragons choose to believe in this one, I think you will find it nearer truth than otherwise. — Naomi Novik

For a moment ... I might have been the daughter she'd hoped for ... she might have been my teacher and my guide ... We might never have been enemies at all. — Naomi Novik

Truth didn't mean anything without someone to share it with; you could shout truth into the air forever, and spend your life doing it, if someone didn't come and listen. — Naomi Novik

Once we're out of the Wood ... , I said, but my voice died in my throat. I felt odd and sick. Did you ever get out of the Wood, if you'd been in it for twenty years? — Naomi Novik

I am of the opinion", Tharkay said, "that you ought not assign to free will something more likely the consequence of a sharp blow to the skull. — Naomi Novik

As a novelist you have just unlimited budget, total creative control. You really get to have your cake - all the cake - and then you can have a second cake if you wanted to. — Naomi Novik

He'd also agreed to be betrothed to the Archduke of Varsha's daughter, a girl of nine who had evidently impressed him a great deal by being able to spit across a garden plot. I was a little dubious about this as a foundation for marriage, but I suppose it wasn't much worse than marrying her because her father might have stirred up rebellion, otherwise. — Naomi Novik

I had forgotten to fear him, from too much time spent too close. — Naomi Novik

The crew were all of them inclined to cough and sneeze, the boys particularly, and Keynes said, "We ought put them all in the water: to keep the chest warm must be the foremost concern."
Laurence agreed without thinking and was shortly appalled by the sight of Emily bathing with the rest of the young officers, innocent of both clothing and modesty.
"You must not bathe with the others," Laurence said to her urgently, having bundled her out and into a blanket.
"Mustn't I?" she said, gazing up at him damp and bewildered.
"Oh, Christ," Laurence said, under his breath. "No," he told her firmly, "it is not suitable; you are beginning to be a young lady."
"Oh," she said dismissively, "Mother has told me all about that, but I have not started bleeding yet, and anyway I would not like to go to bed with any of them," and a thoroughly routed Laurence feebly fell back on giving her some make-work, and fled to Temeraire's side. — Naomi Novik

Trying to out-guess Bonaparte; the thought makes my blood run cold. — Naomi Novik

So I put together a street-going rig and came up with the courier. — Naomi Novik

It seems to me after a fellow has been mutinied against three or four times, there is something to it besides bad luck. — Naomi Novik

I remembered when my oldest brother married Malgosia, and suddenly the two of them stopped running around with us and started sitting with the parents: a very solemn kind of alchemy, one that I felt shouldn't have been able to just sneak up on me. — Naomi Novik

Once down by the shore, only Temeraire went directly into the deep water and began to swim. Maximus came tentatively into the shallows, but went no further than he could stand, and Lily stood on the shore watching, nosing at the water but not going in. Levitas, as was his habit, first wavered on the shore, and then dashed out all at once, splashing and flapping wildly with his eyes tightly shut until he got out to the deeper water and began to paddle enthusiastically. — Naomi Novik

Laurence," Granby said at his shoulder, "in the hurry, the ammunition was all laid in its usual place on the left, though we are not carrying the bombs to balance it out; we ought to restow."
"Can you have it done before we engage? Oh, good Lord," Laurence said, realizing. "I do not even know the position of the convoy; do you?" Granby shook his head, embarrassed, and Laurence swallowed his pride and shouted, "Berkley, where are we going?"
A general explosion of mirth ran among the men on Maximus's back. Berkley called back, "Straight to Hell, ha ha!" More laughter, nearly drowning out the coordinates that he bellowed over. — Naomi Novik

He roared at me furiously for ten minutes after he finally managed to put out the sulky and determined fire, calling me a witless muttonheaded spawn of pig farmers-"My father's a wood-cutter," I said- "adOf axe-swinging lummocks!" he snarled. — Naomi Novik

But he wasn't going for the sake of corruption or the kingdom. His tower was broken, he'd drunk Spindle-water, and he'd held my hand. So now he was going to run away as quick as he could, and find himself some new stone walls to hide behind. He'd keep himself locked away for ten years this time, until he withered his own roots, and didn't feel the lack of them anymore. — Naomi Novik

And it came out that this King Arthur and his knights had done nothing of real note but to kill innocent dragons all around Britain: almost certainly a pack of lies, as Forthing admitted they had not possessed even any guns at the time, and unpleasant lies at that. — Naomi Novik

I will never let Berkley commit treason, ever," Maximus said, "but if he did, I would step on anyone who tried to hang him. — Naomi Novik

Temeraire
Never fear; I am going; the Son of Heaven will not tolerate delays, and Barham gives me leave. Allegiance will carry us! Pray eat something
L. — Naomi Novik

Everyone says you love a Dragon-born girl differently as she gets older; you can't help it, knowing you so easily might lose her. — Naomi Novik

and a clean pocket-handkerchief. The — Naomi Novik

Well, I would have struck him, but I would have had to get up. You have no notion how difficult it is to arrange skirts when sitting down; it took me five minutes together the first time. — Naomi Novik

No." Laurence said, "I mean to retire when we have returned. I have enough money to keep Temeraire now, and enough of a countenance to ask my brother to put us up on one of the farms."

Or they might return to Australia, or to China. Temeraire has every right to ask that of him now that the war was won. Laurence did not mean to refuse him, he only hoped to go back to Wollaton Hall first and find a way to carry it with him somehow. He longed in a deep inward part for Britain, for home, and the house standing at twilight with all the windows lit. A child's memory of peace. He would even be grateful there for the counterfeit honors that had been heaped onto his head, if they gave his mother some peace, and his brother need not be ashamed to give him a field for Temeraire to sleep in, for a little while. — Naomi Novik

Darby, sir, but Janus they call me," the seaman said, "on account of a surgeon we shipped in the Sophie, a learned bloke, saying I saw both ways like some old Roman cut-up by that name. — Naomi Novik

It's a lie that matches his desire. — Naomi Novik