Quotes from book
The Thirteenth Tale

Name: The Thirteenth Tale
Author: Diane Setterfield

Diane Setterfield

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield is a gothic suspense novel, the author's first published book.

“Fate, at first so amenable, so reasonable, so open to negotiation, ends up by exacting a cruel revenge for happiness.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“There are too many books in the world to read in a single lifetime; you have to draw the line somewhere.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“Tragedy alters everything.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“All children mythologise their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won’t be the truth: it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“One gets so used to one's own horrors, one forgets how they must seem to other people.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“For it must be very lonely being dead.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“For me to see is to read. It has always been that way.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“Sometimes you can know things. Things about yourself. Things from before you can remember.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“But silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grown pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“Emmeline didn't call me anything. She didn't need, for I was always there. You only need names for the absent.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“A story so cherished it has to be dressed in casualness to disguise its significance in case the listener turned out to be unsympathetic.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“The hours between eight in the evening and one or two in the morning have always been my magic hours. Against the blue candlewick bedspread the white pages of my open book, illuminated by a circle of lamplight, were the gateway to another world.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“When one is nothing, one invents. It fills a void.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“What better place to kill time than a library?”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“Reading can be dangerous.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“Prescription: 'Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Take ten pages, twice a day, til end of course.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“Life is compost.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother, but the rest of the time there was none. This story is about one of those other times.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

Similar authors

Diane Setterfield42

English novelist 1964

Chuck Palahniuk555

American novelist, essayist None

Nicholas Sparks646

American writer and novelist None

Sherrilyn Kenyon752

Novelist None

Laurell K. Hamilton261

Novelist None

Carlos Ruiz Zafón149

Spanish writer None

Joanne K. Rowling29

British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series None

Tom Hiddleston15

English actor, producer and musical performer None

John Green103

American author and vlogger None

Jimmy Carr20

British comedian and humourist None