Susanna Quotes & Sayings

This time I read the title of the painting: Girl Interrupted at Her Music. Interrupted at her music: as my life had been, interrupted in the music of being seventeen, as her life had been, snatched and fixed on canvas: one moment made to stand still and to stand for all the other moments, whatever they would be or might have been. What life can recover from that? — Susanna Kaysen

So you're not offended that I kissed you?" His voice was low and his smile widened. "I hardly think that's an appropriate question to ask a lady." She fought against her own smile. "I think you liked my kiss." "It was fair enough - " "Fair?" He leaned a hand against the door next to her head. "Admit it, Susanna. My kiss was swoon-worthy. — Jody Hedlund

Better to find out certain things by living them, not by reading them in a book. — Susanna Kearsley

But what you bring back with you in the end, he said, might not be what you started out in search of to begin with — Susanna Kearsley

She [Susanna] realized she was still hugging the wall. Pride propelled her two steps forward. As she advanced, something bleated at her, as though chastising her for trespassing. She stopped midstep and peered at it. "Did you know there's a lamb in here?"
"Never mind it. That's dinner."
She gave it a smile and a friendly pat. "Hullo, Dinner. Aren't you a sweet thing."
"It's not his name, it's his ... function. — Tessa Dare

A walk through the storage facility of the community museum where I worked might easily have convinced you that people in the past wore only wedding dresses, carried silver candlesticks, and played with porcelain dolls. — Susanna Kearsley

(All those paintings of women, in art galleries, surprised at private moments. Nymph Sleeping. Susanna and the Elders. Woman bathing, one foot in a tin tub - Renoir, or was it Degas? both, both women plump. Diana and her maidens, a moment before they catch the hunter's prying eyes. Never any paintings called Man Washing Socks in Sink.) — Margaret Atwood

He was sick of the noise and sight of so many people and determined to go quietly away, but it so happened that just at that moment the crowds about the door were particularly impenetrable; he was caught up in the current of people and carried away to quite another part of the room. Round and round he went like a dry leaf caught up in a drain; in one of these turns around the room he discovered a quiet corner near a window. A tall screen of carved ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl half-hid - ah! what bliss was this! - a bookcase. Mr Norrell slipped behind the screen, took down John Npier's A Plaine Discouverie of the Whole Revelation of St John and began to read. — Susanna Clarke

Romantic fiction, in the broader sense, can be any novel that has a love story somewhere in it. It can be a mystery or a historical novel, as long as it has this very strong romantic thread running through it. — Susanna Kearsley

Curses, like chickens, come home to roost. — Susanna Moodie

I spent five years of my childhood in Port Elgin and came back to spend another five years of my young adulthood there as well, including the years in which I was first published. — Susanna Kearsley

I have been most industriously talking up your extraordinary powers to all my wide acquaintance,' continued Mr Drawlight. 'I have been your John the Baptist, sir, preparing the way for you! — Susanna Clarke

The recent controversy over the portrayal of Ken Taylor and his embassy staff in the movie 'Argo' brought home to me the great responsibility we writers have when telling stories that involve real people. — Susanna Kearsley

Was there another Celia Sands? — Susanna Kearsley

What does borderline personality mean, anyhow? It appears to be a way station between neurosis and psychosis: a fractured but not disassembled psyche. Though to quote my post-Melvin psychiatrist: "It's what they call people whose lifestyles bother them. — Susanna Kaysen

Many people nowadays have surnames that reveal their ancestors' fairy origins. Otherlander and Fairchild are two. — Susanna Clarke

As a former waitress myself, I know firsthand how a simple smile from someone can improve your day and how a single harsh word can destroy it. Being courteous and thoughtful costs you nothing and can sometimes pay you dividends in unexpected ways. — Susanna Kearsley

Both had indulged in, if not Black Magic, then certainly magic of a darker hue than seemed desirable or legitimate. — Susanna Clarke

Take you my ring," he repeated, "and keep it with you." His tone was stubborn, and so I obeyed, sliding the great ring from his outstretched finger. The ring was cold, as his hands were cold, and I held it tenderly in my palm, blinking back the rising wetness of my eyes. "Remember that hawk, Mariana Farr," he told me gently, "and seek me not with your eyes, but with your soul. The soul sees what truly matters. — Susanna Kearsley

A Nottinghamshire man called Tubbs wished very much to see a fairy and, from thinking of fairies day and night, and from reading all sorts of odd books about them, he took it into his head that his coachman was a fairy. — Susanna Clarke

Then Childermass related to Mr Norrell what he had discovered about Drawlight: how he belonged to a certain breed of gentlemen, only to be met with in London, whose main occupation is the wearing of expensive and fashionable clothes; how they pass their lives in ostentatious idleness, gambling and drinking to excess and spending months at a time in Brighton and other fashionable watering places; how in recent years this breed seemed to have reached a sort of perfection in Christopher Drawlight. Even his dearest friends would have admitted that he possessed not a single good quality. — Susanna Clarke

The easiest thing in the world to do when you don't want to look inside yourself is to find escape hatches. You can always make it someone else's fault, it takes a lot of courage to admit that the fault
or rather the responsibility
is yours alone. And yet, as I've said before, this is the only way to go forward. If life's a road we travel, it's uphill all the way. — Susanna Tamaro

There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same. They must reflect quite different aspects of brain function. The point is, the brain talks to itself, and by talking to itself changes its perceptions. — Susanna Kaysen

The old King is dead. The new King approaches! And at his approach the world sheds its sorrow. The sings of the old King dissolve like morning mist! The world assumes the character of the new. His virtues fill up the wood and world! — Susanna Clarke

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 ... — Susanna Clarke

This is the genius of my enemy! Lock a door against him and all that happens is that he learns first how to pick a lock and second how to build a better one against you! — Susanna Clarke

Such nonsense!" declared Dr Greysteel. "Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful!"
"Except for staring at one in a supercilious manner," said Strange. "That has a sort of moral usefulness, I suppose, in making one feel uncomfortable and encouraging sober reflection upon one's imperfections. — Susanna Clarke

Because, whenever I am melancholy you talk to me of cheerful things and cure my low spirits and so I must now do the same for you. That is what friendship is. — Susanna Clarke

To sail beyond the sunset ... I'd thought that beautiful, once. But now I knew it was a wasted effort, chasing sunsets. There was nothing on the other side. — Susanna Kearsley

Because it is in giving of ourselves and our possessions that we best please God; by actions, not words. And all men do deserve a chance to earn God's grace. — Susanna Kearsley

Well, don't say I didn't warn you. You've never been on the receiving end of one of his tirades." "They can't possibly be any worse than my brother's." "What, that lovely sweet man who sat at my bar telling funny stories all the afternoon? Don't tell me he has a temper?" "Fire and brimstone," I affirmed. "In biblical proportions. — Susanna Kearsley

In theater and dance, I was trying to win someone's approval, trying to get in, trying to be good. It felt out of my control, whereas music suddenly felt like this free expression. It was fun. — Susanna Hoffs

More than one soldier wondered if, at last, the French had found a magician of their own; the French infantrymen appeared much taller than ordinary men and the light in their eyes as they drew closer burnt with an almost supernatural fury. But this was only the magic of Napoleon Buonaparte, who knew better than any one how to dress his soldiers so they would terrify the enemy, and how to deploy them so that any onlooker would think them indestructible. — Susanna Clarke

Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone. — Susanna Kaysen

Every window in Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco. — Susanna Kaysen

As a young singer, you have to get experience somehow, to try things out and grow as a singer. They way you do that is by going through the ranks and singing at companies like Opera Birmingham. It's a perfect place to foster a career. — Susanna Phillips

I will stand by you. You must not be afraid. This is a brave land, Susanna, founded by brave people who never shrank from their duty or their vision of freedom. But this land has a future only if each of us stands up for what is right when it is given us to do so. — Ann Rinaldi

Could become like that, I thought suddenly. If I did not guard against it, I too could become like the doomed birds in the dovecote. Like lovely, dead-eyed Caroline, with her hair turning white from worry at twenty-five. For if the dovecote was a trap, then so was Greywethers, and my uncle's hand held the rope that could pull shut the door and bar my flight. — Susanna Kearsley

And lash the vice and follies of the age. — Susanna Centlivre

I am, as far as I can tell, about a month behind Lord Byron. In every town we stop at we discover innkeepers, postillions, officials, burghers, potboys, and all kinds and sorts of ladies whose brains still seem somewhat deranged from their brief exposure to his lordship. And though my companions are careful to tell people that I am that dreadful being, an English magician, I am clearly nothing in comparison to an English poet and everywhere I go I enjoy the reputation- quite new to me, I assure you- of the quiet, good Englishman, who makes no noise and is no trouble to any one ... — Susanna Clarke

I might have asked, figured her out, led her to open up. I was good at that. But I didn't inquire, a punishment. I didn't let anger go, habit from the dangerous family I'd left behind, from being leery of women. I was good at that, too, the guarded disappointment. — Susanna Sonnenberg

We might get out sometime, but she was locked up forever in that body. — Susanna Kaysen

I am a Book," said Vinculus, stopping in mid-caper. "I am the Book. It is the task of the Book to bear the words. Which I do. It is the task of the Reader to know what they say. — Susanna Clarke

This behavior may ... counteract feelings of'numbness'and depersonalization that aries duriing periods of extreme stress.-153 Girl,Interrupted — Susanna Kaysen

I still wear minis and cardigans, but I think I'll steer away from shoulder pads. — Susanna Hoffs

Life is always uncertain,'he said with a shrug. 'We cannot let the fear of what might happen stop us living as we choose. — Susanna Kearsley

If it hadn't been for Bill Macdonald's book 'The True Intrepid,' I might never have found out about the women who went down to work in secret in New York for our own spymaster Sir William Stephenson in the Second World War. — Susanna Kearsley

It seemed that it was not only live magicians which Mr. Norrell despised. He had taken the measure of all the dead ones too and found them wanting. — Susanna Clarke

She wasn't blotto, she was plotting. — Susanna Kaysen

The York magicians had all looked over the letter and expressed their doubts that any body with such small handwriting could ever make a tolerable magician. — Susanna Clarke

I have a scholar's love of silence and solitude. To sit and pass hour after hour in idle chatter with a roomful of strangers is to me the worst sort of torment. — Susanna Clarke

Want is the mistress of invention — Susanna Centlivre

Ha!' said the tall man drily. 'He was in high luck. Rich old uncles who die are in shockingly short supply. — Susanna Clarke

Disease [is] as one of our languages. Doctors understand what disease has to say about itself. It's up to the person with the disease to understand what the disease has to say to her. — Susanna Kaysen

There's a line in The Barretts of Wimpole Street - you know, the play - where Elizabeth Barrett is trying to work out the meaning of one of Robert Browning's poems, and she shows it to him, and he reads it and he tells her when he wrote that poem, only God and Robert Browning knew what it meant, and now only God knows. And that's how I feel about studying English. Who knows what the writer was thinking, and why should it matter? I'd rather just read for enjoyment. — Susanna Kearsley

She so cheerfully resigned to his neglecting her that he could not help opening his mouth to protest — Susanna Clarke

The sky was wide and inviting, and the grass was cool and sweetly refreshing under my bare feet as I walked across the undulating field towards the river. It was a short walk, only a mile or so, but I did not hurry it, letting my soul soak up the glorious sensation of freedom and lightness. — Susanna Kearsley

Now I was safe, now I was really crazy, and nobody could take me out of there. — Susanna Kaysen

It is impossible to say how many dinners Drawlight was invited to sit down to that day - and it is fortunate that he was never at any time much of an eater or he might have done some lasting damage to his digestion. — Susanna Clarke

There are times when our victories have a cost that we did not foresee, when winning brings us loss. — Susanna Kearsley

They had come in secret, having an idea that Dr Greysteel, and perhaps even Mr Strange, might try to prevent them going, or else insist upon accompanying them - and they had no wish for male companionship upon this occasion.
"They will want to be talking about it," said Aunt Greysteel, "they will be trying to guess how she came to this sad condition. But what good will that do? How does that help her? — Susanna Clarke

Women are completely disadvantaged - despite what men will say. It is not a fair fight. — Susanna Moore

Of course," Armand was saying to Simon, "you know that it was an American, like yourself, who nearly ruined the wine-making in France?" "We're Canadians." "But that is the same thing, surely? — Susanna Kearsley

There is nothing that anyone can get past a forty-five-year-old woman." We laugh hard, the first honest sound I make that afternoon, or in many days, each of us feeling the ravages of experience, our debt to enduring. We are not to be fucked with. We rule. Even as we age and help our children push past us, as we worry about the estimate for the roof, forget things we meant to do, regard our widening bodies, we rule. We've returned again and again to our original selves for another look; we have refined our purpose. Changes we thought we'd been resisting have anyway been wrought, and they have made us unbreakable. — Susanna Sonnenberg

I must confess that in my teens and twenties, I loved 'Mansfield Park' rather in spite of Fanny than because of her. Like Fanny's rich, sophisticated cousins, I didn't really get her. — Susanna Clarke

Faith, you worry about the propriety of having one lover. At Court you would be considered uncommonly prim." "One lover is all I need," I said, snuggling deeper into his chest. "'Tis all you'll have." "And when my uncle promises me in marriage to some merchant?" I shifted my head, curious. "What will happen then?" "I'd not allow it. I'd marry you myself." His arm tightened. "I will not lose you. — Susanna Kearsley

Could soldiers read? Mr Norrell did not know. He turned with a look of desperate appeal to Childermass.
Childermass shrugged. — Susanna Clarke

You want to watch him, Julia," he told me. "He may look harmless enough, but appearances can be deceiving." Geoff grinned. "That's slander, that is. You know I always behave like a perfect gentleman." "Right then, Sir Galahad," Iain said dryly. — Susanna Kearsley

Lunatics are similar to designated hitters. Often an entire family is crazy, but since an entire family can't go into the hospital, one person is designated as crazy and goes inside. Then, depending on how the rest of the family is feeling that person is kept inside or snatched out, to prove something about the family's mental health. — Susanna Kaysen

Large parties given to very young children ... foster the passions of vanity and envy, and produce a love of dress and display which is very repulsive in the character of a child. — Susanna Moodie

One of the more interesting challenges I face when doing research for my novels is to trace the lives of women who are vital to the narrative and try my best to give them back their voices. — Susanna Kearsley

When you're writing, you're creating something out of nothing ... A successful piece of writing is like doing a successful piece of magic.
[As quoted on WritersServices, 6 March 2012] — Susanna Clarke

I have been quite put out of temper this morning and someone ought to die for it. — Susanna Clarke

The very basis of true peace of mind is a benevolent wish to see all the world as happy as one's self ... — Susanna Rowson

Mr. Norrell gazed at Strange with an odd expression upon his face as though he would have been glad of a little conversation with him, but had not the least idea how to begin. — Susanna Clarke

It's one of the reasons I became a writer, to be able to smoke in peace. — Susanna Kaysen

He argument he was conducting with his neighbor as to whether the English magician had gone mad because he was a magician, or because he was English. — Susanna Clarke

Mr. Robinson was a polished sort of person. He was so clean and healthy and pleased about everything that he positively shone - which is only to be expected in a fairy or an angel, but is somewhat disconcerting in an attorney. — Susanna Clarke

You think that I am angry, but I am not. You think I do not know why you have done what you have done, but I do. You think you have put all your heart into that writing and that every one in England now understands you. What do they understand? Nothing. I understood you before you wrote a word. What you wrote, you wrote for me. For me alone. — Susanna Clarke

I applied to a few conservatories. I was sure that I wouldn't get in, and I didn't plan to go to N.Y. But then I got into Juilliard. — Susanna Phillips

When I meet a wind I cannot fight , I can do naught but set my sails to let it take me where it will. — Susanna Kearsley

I will tell you what rule I observed when I was young, and too much addicted to childish diversions-never to spend more time in mere recreation in one day than I spent in private religious devotions. — Susanna Wesley

In short they felt that they should like to have the pleasure of looking at Lady Pole again, and so they told Sir Walter - rather than asked him - that he missed his wife. He replied that he did not. But this was not allowed to be possible; it was well known that newly married gentlemen were never happy apart from their wives; the briefest of absences could depress a new husband's spirits and interfere with his digestion. — Susanna Clarke

A Man that wants Money thinks none can be unhappy that has it ... — Susanna Centlivre

We rarely see the things we don't expect to see. — Susanna Kearsley

Mr Hawkins said nothing; the Hawkins' domestic affairs were arranged upon the principle that Fanny supplied the talk and he the silence. — Susanna Clarke

Emptiness and boredom: what a complete understatement. What I felt was complete desolation. Desolation, despair and boredom. — Susanna Kaysen

Happiness always has an object ... Depends on external things. Joy ... Has no object. It seizes you for no apparent reason, it's like the sun, its burning is fueled by its own heart. — Susanna Tamaro

Luke 8 Women Who Followed Jesus Soon afterward Jesus began a tour of the nearby towns and villages, preaching and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom of God. He took his twelve disciples with him, 2 along with some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. Among them were Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons; 3 Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's business manager; Susanna; and many others who were contributing from their own resources to support Jesus and his disciples. — Anonymous

And does he like blondes, as well?'
Rob laughed. I had forgotten just how great a laugh he had. 'No, he prefers, dark haired women. You've nothing to fear from the Sentinel, Nicola. — Susanna Kearsley

The mind of youth eagerly catches at promised pleasure: pure and innocent by nature, it thinks not of the dangers lurking beneath those pleasures, till too late to avoid them. — Susanna Rowson

Each year, I await with dread the federal government's catalog of endangered and threatened species in the Hawaiian Islands, where I was raised and where I live. — Susanna Moore

So you are not a coward, after all," he said, and I fancied his tone was faintly pleased. "You would face the devil on his own footing. — Susanna Kearsley

There is a book waiting for him upon the library table; his eyes fancy they still follow its lines of type, his head still runs upon its argument, his fingers itch to take it up again. — Susanna Clarke

Maybe, there's a moment growing up when something peels back ... Maybe, maybe, we look for secrets because we can't believe our mind. — Susanna Kaysen

Even Austrian landladies recognise the hand of destiny at work. — Susanna Kearsley

The governess was not much liked in the village. She was too tall, too fond of books, too grave, and, a curious thing, never smiled unless there was something to smile at. — Susanna Clarke

Suddenly it seemed that all that had been learnt in every English childhood of the wildness of English magic might still be true, and even now on some long-forgotten paths, behind the sky, on the other side of the rain, John Uskglass might be riding still, with his company of men and fairies. Most — Susanna Clarke

I had always been fascinated by comics, but it had taken me several weeks to make up my mind to buy 'Watchmen'; for someone on a publisher's assistant's salary, it was some quite unheard-of sum of money. — Susanna Clarke

In a strange way we were free. We'd reached the end of the line. We had nothing more to lose. Our privacy, our liberty, our dignity: all of this was gone and we were stripped down to the bare bones of our selves — Susanna Kaysen