Above all remember this: that magic belongs as much to the heart as to the head and everything which is done, should be done from love or joy or righteous anger.

— Susanna Clarke

Ah, but sir,' said Nacelles, 'it is precisely bypassing judgments upon other people's work and pointing out their errors that readers can be made to understand your own opinions better. It is the easiest thing in the world to turn a review to one's own ends. One only need to mention the book once or twice and for the rest of the article one may develop one's theme just as one causes. It is, I assure you, what everybody else does.

— Susanna Clarke

[A] smile is the most becoming ornament that any lady can wear.

— Susanna Clarke

Besides,” said Mr Morrell, “I really have no desire to write reviews of other people's books. Modern publications upon magic are the most pernicious things in the world, full of misinformation and wrong opinions.” “Then sir, you may say so. The ruder you are, the more the editors will be delighted.” “But it is my own opinions which I wish to make better known, not other people's.” “Ah, but, sir,” said Nacelles, “it is precisely bypassing judgements upon other people's work and pointing out their errors that readers can be made to understand your own opinions better. It is the easiest thing in the world to turn a review to one's own ends. One only need to mention the book once or twice and for the rest of the article one may develop one's theme just as one causes. It is, I assure you, what everybody else does.” “Hmm,” said Mr Morrell thoughtfully, “you may be right. But, no. It would seem as if I were lending support to what ought never to have been published in the first place.

— Susanna Clarke

Beware Stephen! There will probably be a magical combat of some sort. I daresay I shall have to take on different forms – cockatrice, raw head and bloody bones, rains of fire, etc., etc. You may wish to stand back a little!

— Susanna Clarke

Bright yellow leaves flowed swiftly upon the dark, almost-black water, making patterns as they went. To Mr. Segundo the patterns looked a little like magical writing. 'But then,' he thought, 'So many things do.

— Susanna Clarke

But the other Ministers considered that to employ a magician was one thing, novelists were quite another, and they would not stoop to it.

— Susanna Clarke

Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.

— Susanna Clarke

Captain Harcourt-Bruce was not only dashing, handsome, and brave, he was also rather romantic. The reappearance of magic in England thrilled him immensely. He was a great reader of the more exciting sort of history - and his head was full of ancient battles in which the English were outnumbered by the French and doomed to die, when all at once would be heard the sound of strange, unearthly music, and upon a hilltop would appear the Raven King in his tall, black helmet with it's mantling of raven-feathers streaming in the wind; he would gallop down the hillside on his tall, black horse with a hundred human knights and a hundred fairy knights at his back, and he would defeat the French by magic. That was Captain Harcourt-Bruce's idea of a magician. That was the sort of thing which he now expected to see reproduced on every battlefield on the Continent. So when he saw Mr Morrell in his drawing-room in Hanover square, and after he had sat and watched Mr Morrell peevishly complain to his footman, first that the cream in his tea was too creamy, and next that it was too watery - well, I shall not surprise you when I say he was somewhat disappointed. In fact, he was so downcast by the whole undertaking that Admiral Haycock, a bluff old gentleman, felt rather sorry for him and only had the heart to laugh at him and tease him very moderately about it.

— Susanna Clarke

For a moment or two before the spell took effect, he was aware of all the surrounding sounds: rain splashing on metal and leather, and running down canvas; horses shuffling and snorting; Englishmen singing and Scotsmen playing bagpipes; two Welsh soldiers arguing over the proper interpretation of a Bible passage; the Scottish captain, John Kincaid, entertaining the American savages and teaching them to drink tea (presumably with the idea that once a man had learned to drink tea, the other habits and qualities that make up a Briton would naturally follow). Then silence. Men and horses began to disappear, few by few at first, and then more quickly – hundreds, thousands of them vanishing from sight. Great gaps appeared among the close-packed soldiers. A little further to the east an entire regiment was gone, leaving a hole the size of Hanover-square. Where, moments before, all had been life, conversation and activity, there was now nothing but the rain and the twilight and the waving stalks of rye. Strange wiped his mouth because he felt sick.

— Susanna Clarke