Best 62 quotes of Frances Hardinge on MyQuotes

Frances Hardinge

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    Frances Hardinge

    At one o’clock, the ever-logical Right-Eye Grand Steward woke up to discover that during his sleep his left-eyed counterpart had executed three of his advisors for treason, ordered the creation of a new carp pool and banned limericks. Worse still, no progress had been made in tracking down the Kleptomancer, and of the two people believed to be his accomplices, both had been released from prison and one had been appointed food taster. Right-Eye was not amused. He had known for centuries that he could trust nobody but himself. Now he was seriously starting to wonder about himself.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Desperation is a millstone. It wears away at the very soul, grinding away pity, kindness, humanity and courage. But sometimes it whets the mind to a sharpened point and creates moments of true brilliance. And standing there, nose tickled by the dusty hide of the stuffed deer head, such a moment visited Mosca Mye.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Everybody knew that books were dangerous. Read the wrong book, it was said, and the words crawled around your brain on black legs and drove you mad, wicked mad.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Every time I do what you say I tumble a bit farther down this well of darkness, an' this here is a drop too deep an' too dark for me. I have to stop falling while I can still see a bit of the sky.

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    Frances Hardinge

    I find it hard to believe that a lady like...’ Pertellis hesitated, and coughed. ‘There is something elevated in the female spirit that will always hold a woman back from the coldest and most vicious forms of villainy.’ ‘No, there isn’t,’ Miss Kitely said kindly but firmly, as she set a dish in his hand. ‘Drink your chocolate, Mr Pertellis.

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    Frances Hardinge

    If you want someone to tell you what to think," the phantom answered briskly, without looking up, "you will never be short of people willing to do so." . . . "Come now," he said at last, "you can hardly claim that I have left you ignorant. I taught you to read, did I not?

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    Frances Hardinge

    If you want someone to tell you what to think..." "You will never be short of people willing to do so.

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    Frances Hardinge

    In Mosca’s experience, a ‘long story’ was always a short story someone did not want to tell.

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    Frances Hardinge

    It did seem hard to be doing something heroic while everyone was too busy to notice.

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    Frances Hardinge

    It was all very well being told that she could do nothing to make things better. Neverfell did not have the kind of mind that could take that quietly. She did not have the kind of mind that could be quiet at all.

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    Frances Hardinge

    It was hopeless. She was flawless. She was a sunbeam. Mosca gave up and got on with hating her.

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    Frances Hardinge

    I want my chirfugging goose back!

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    Frances Hardinge

    Making a wish is like saying, 'I can't deal with anything, I give up, somebody bigger come along and solve it all instead.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Mosca and Saracen shared, if not a friendship, at least the solidarity of the generally despised. Mosca assumed that Saracen had his reasons for his persecution of terriers and his possessive love of the malthouse roof. In turn, when Mosca had interrupted Saracen’s self-important nightly patrol and scooped him up, Saracen had assumed that she too had her reasons.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Mosca said nothing. The word ‘damsel’ rankled with her. She suddenly thought of the clawed girl from the night before, jumping the filch on an icy street. Much the same age and build as Beamabeth, and far more beleaguered. What made a girl a ‘damsel in distress’? Were they not allowed claws? Mosca had a hunch that if all damsels had claws they would spend a lot less time ‘in distress’.

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    Frances Hardinge

    My child, you have a flawed grasp of the nature of myth-making. I am a poet and storyteller, a creator of ballads and sagas. Pray do not confuse the exercise of the imagination with mere mendacity. I am a master of the mysteries of words, their meanings and music and mellifluous magic.

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    Frances Hardinge

    My dear fellow," he continued more soberly, "If you have managed to complicate things by forming a sentimental attachment in less than a week, then I doubt there is anything I can do for you. You, sir, are a romantic, and I suspect your condition is incurable.

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    Frances Hardinge

    My good lady,’ interrupted Clent, ‘are you telling me that he is not the Luck? That you have in some way obfuscated the chronology of his nativity?’ Seconds passed. A beetle flew into Mistress Leap’s hair while she stared at Clent, then it struggled free and flew off again. ‘Did you lie about when he was born?’ translated Mosca.

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    Frances Hardinge

    No." Mosca bit her lip and shook her head firmly. Books no longer seemed quite enough. I don’t want a happy ending, I want more story.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Oh, painted smirk of a hopeless dawn, the girl is still wearing her breeches.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Ordinary life did not stop just because kings rose and fell, Mosca realized. People adapted. If the world turned upside down, everyone ran and hid in their houses, but a very short while later, if all seemed quiet, they came out again and started selling each other potatoes.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Perhaps illnesses could be left behind, just like small, badly concealed china corpses.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Revenge is a dish best served unexpectedly and from a distance - like a thrown trifle.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Sometimes fear made you angry. Perhaps after years anger cooled, like a sword taken from a forge. Perhaps in the end you were left with something very cold and very sharp.

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    Frances Hardinge

    So this was a nest of radicals. She thought a hotbed of sedition would involve more gunpowder and secret handshakes, and less shuffling of feet and passing the sugar.

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    Frances Hardinge

    That," he whispered, "is unthinkable." In Mosca’s experience, such statements generally meant that a thing was perfectly thinkable, but that the speaker did not want to think it.

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    Frances Hardinge

    The world is like a broken wrist that healed the wrong way, and will never be the same again.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Tips for aspiring writers: don't be afraid of writing rubbish. It's very easy to become hypnotised by an empty page or screen. It's tempting to abandon a half-finished work because you can't make it perfect. I hereby give you permission to write things that aren't perfect, make mistakes, try things that don't work, experiment with styles you're not used to and generally throw words around. You'll learn much faster that way.

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    Frances Hardinge

    True stories seldom have endings. I don't want a happy ending, I want more story.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Truth is dangerous. It topples palaces and kills kings. It stirs gentle men to rage and bids them take up arms. It wakes old grievances and opens forgotten wounds. It is the mother of the sleepless night and the hag-ridden day. And yet there is one thing that is more dangerous than Truth. Those who would silence Truth’s voice are more destructive by far. It is most perilous to be a speaker of Truth. Sometimes one must choose to be silent, or be silenced. But if a truth cannot be spoken, it must at least be known. Even if you dare not speak truth to others, never lie to yourself.

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    Frances Hardinge

    We always find it difficult to forgive our heroes for being human.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Where is your sense of patriotism?" I keep it hid away safe, along with my sense of trust, Mr. Clent. I don't use 'em much in case they get scratched.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Words were dangerous when loosed. They were more powerful than cannon and more unpredictable than storms. They could turn men’s heads inside out and warp their destinies. They could pick up kingdoms and shake them until they rattled.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Yes, I know,’ she said in answer to the unasked, for there was no time for explanations. ‘Yes. My face is spoilt.’ Grandible’s jowl wobbled and creased. Then, for the first time that Neverfell could remember, he changed to a Face she had never seen before, a frown more ferocious and alarming than either of the others. ‘Who the shambles told you that?’ he barked. ‘Spoilt? I’ll spoil them.’ He took hold of her chin and examined her. ‘A bit sadder, maybe. A bit wiser. But nothing rotten. You’re just growing yourself a rind at last. Still a good cheese.

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    Frances Hardinge

    And perhaps some other later girl, leafing through her father's library, would come across a footnote in an academic journal and read the name 'Faith Sunderly.' Faith? she would think. That is a female name. A woman did this. If that is so...then so can I. And the little fire of hope, self-belief and determination would pass to another heart.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Bear, I need your eyes. I need your nose. I need your night-wits and forest-wisdom.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Before her escort could react, she sprinted out from their little pool of lantern-light into the darkness, her feet pounding the soft, treacherous clods of the field. The guards called after her for a while, but did not pursue, In a lost city, how could they chase down every lost soul who became a little more lost?

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    Frances Hardinge

    But in the name of all that is holy, Mosca, of all the people you could have taken up with, why Eponymous Clent?" murmured Kohlrabi. Because I'd been hording words for years, buying them from peddlers and carving them secretly on bits of bark so I wouldn't forget them, and then he turned up using words like "epiphany" and "amaranth." Because I heard him talking in the marketplace, laying out sentences like a merchant rolling out rich silks. Because he made words and ideas dance like flames and something that was damp and dying came alive in my mind, the way it hadn't since they burned my father's books. Because he walked into Chough with stories from exciting places tangled around him like maypole streamers..." Mosca shrugged. "He's got a way with words.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Even when she slept, her anxieties did not.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Everybody betrayed her, so why expect otherwise? But it turned out that distrust could fool you and endanger you, just as trust could.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Faith had always told herself that she was not like other ladies. But neither, it seemed, were other ladies.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Follow that coffeehouse.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Habits, places and faces grew into you over time, like tree roots burrowing into stone work.

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    Frances Hardinge

    I died recently, and I am in no hurry to enjoy the experience again just yet.

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    Frances Hardinge

    I don’t know. How can you know? I…I’m a monster. When I’m hungry, I might do anything." "Oh no, of course I couldn’t possibly understand you." Violet’s shadowed face seemed to be wearing a grim and serious smile. "I know, you woke up one day and found out that you couldn’t be the person you remembered being, the little girl everybody expected you to be. You just weren’t her any more, and there was nothing you could do about it. So your family decided you were a monster and turned on you." Violet sighed, staring out into the darkness. "Believe me, I do understand that. And let me tell you - from one monster to another - that just because somebody tells you you’re a monster, it doesn’t mean you are. "just now you told me what you did because you want me to stop you from eating Pen. If you were a real monster, you wouldn’t have done that, would you?" Trista’s eyes stung, and she wiped strands of cobweb away with her sleeve. "Idiot," added Violet, for good measure.

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    Frances Hardinge

    If you want someone to tell you what to think," the phantom answered briskly, without looking up, "you will never be short of people willing to do so.

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    Frances Hardinge

    I generally find,' Clent murmured after a pause, 'that it is best to treat borrowed time the same way as borrowed money. Spend it with panache, and try to be somewhere else when it runs out.' 'And when we get found, Mr. Clent, when the creditors and bailiffs come after us and it's payment time...' '...then we borrow more, madam, at a higher interest. We embark on a wilder gamble, make a bigger promise, tell a braver story, devise a more intricate lie, sell the hides of imaginary dragons to desperate men, climb to even higher and more precarious ground...and later, of course, our fall and catastrophe will be all the worse, but later will be our watchword, Mosca. We have nothing else - but we can at least make later later.

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    Frances Hardinge

    It could be kindness. Faith felt hollow at the thought. She had needed kindness before, and has received none. Now it was too late, and she did not know what to do with it.

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    Frances Hardinge

    It is a very terrible thing to be far smaller than one's rage.

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    Frances Hardinge

    Looking at the rich and powerful was dangerous, like peering into the sun.