Susanna Clarke: Likeness

“A piece of writing is like a piece of magic. You create something out of nothing.”

“Magic, madam, is like wine and, if you are not used to it, it will make you drunk.”

“It [Ashfair House] was an old fashioned house—the sort of house in fact, as Strange expressed it, which a lady in a novel might like to be persecuted in.”

“Well, I suppose one ought not to employ a magician and then complain that he does not behave like other people.”

“You mean to say he became mad deliberately?'
… Nothing is more likely,' said the duke.”

“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.”

“It is these black clothes," said Strange. "I am like a leftover piece of funeral, condemned to walk about the Town, frightening people into thinking of their own mortality.”

“The land is all too shallow
It is painted on the sky
And trembles like the wind-shook rain
When the Raven King passed by”