💬 Quotes

"Werd' ich zum Augenblicke sagen: Verweile doch! du bist so schön!"

"Wer immer strebend sich bemüht, den können wir erlösen."

"Clarke employs history not merely as a decorative backdrop, but as a dynamic engine that shapes the ontological possibilities of magic within the narrative."

"The dichotomy between Norrell’s library-bound scholarship and Strange’s intuitive engagement reflects a broader tension between historiography as preservation and history as living practice."

"By weaving the Raven King into the fabric of English political history, Clarke interrogates the legitimacy of the historical canon and who possesses the authority to write it."

"The footnotes in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell serve as an historiographical apparatus, blurring the lines between documented fact and the subversive power of legend."

"The English landscape in Clarke’s work acts as a palimpsest, where the layers of forgotten magical history are constantly threatening to surface through the veneer of the Napoleonic era."

"Ultimately, Clarke suggests that history is a contested space; for magic to return, the established historical record must be dismantled and reimagined by those marginalized by it."

"I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like."

"It is such a happiness when good people get together—and they always do."

"I have been in love with you ever since I met you."

"Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way."

"I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other."

"Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken."

"Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!"

"They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more."

"We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist?"

"Habit is a great deadener."

"We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment. How many people can boast as much?"

"Well, shall we go? Yes, let's go. (They do not move.)"