Frances Hardinge

“But easier, she reminded herself, was not the same as better.”

— Frances Hardinge

“There was too much to feel strongly about, she was stretched too thin, so she could not quite feel anything about anything.”

— Frances Hardinge

“Every inch of Neverfell seemed to be throbbing with life. Everything was new, and new was a drug.”

— Frances Hardinge

“Little god, you see the world through such black eyes." "Got no choice. My father give ’em to me.”

— Frances Hardinge

“Well, if you are to help me with my work, you had better get used to stories without endings. True stories seldom…

— Frances Hardinge

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

— 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…

— Frances Hardinge

“Mother was like this sometimes. Conversations became riddles with traps in them, and your answers had consequences.”

— Frances Hardinge

“She had big, vague eyes and a big, vague smile, and was always very busy in the way that a moth crashing…

— Frances Hardinge

“She lay there with her eyes closed, as if sleep were a shy creature that might venture out if she played dead.…

— Frances Hardinge

“I think that when Lady Tamarind looks at you, she feels as the cathedral might if it suddenly remembered that once it…

— Frances Hardinge

Mosca and Saracen shared, if not a friendship, at least the solidarity of the generally despised. Mosca assumed that Saracen had his…

— Frances Hardinge

“Sometimes she felt she would like to engulf him like a trap-lantern, and never share him with anyone or anything else again,…

— Frances Hardinge

“I understand Neverfell, you see. For Neverfell, it is as if other people are part of her. When she believes they are…

— Frances Hardinge

“After the engine had faded away she did not dismount, but sat for a few minutes with her face in her hands,…

— Frances Hardinge

Desperation is a millstone. It wears away at the very soul, grinding away pity, kindness, humanity and courage. But sometimes it whets…

— Frances Hardinge

“He did not look at her. He did not need to. Over the years she had built a special palace of the…

— Frances Hardinge

“Enquirer," Neverfell said slowly, "do you really think I would have walked into this court if I didn’t have a way of…

— Frances Hardinge

“It draws you in. You twist your mind into new shapes. You start to understand Caverna . . . and you fall…

— 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…

— Frances Hardinge

“Are you questioning the power vested in me by His Excellency?" demanded Treble. "Are you challenging the authority of the Grand Steward…

— Frances Hardinge

“All these years I've been...I'm...' He still seemed to be choking. 'I'm...an orphan. I'm...I'm alone. I'm...I'm...I'm...free.' He pushed himself up on one…

— Frances Hardinge

“In Neverfell’s face the clouds broke, and her smile came out like the sun. She could not read his mind as he…

— Frances Hardinge

“Truth is dangerous. It topples palaces and kills kings. It stirs gentle men to rage and bids them take up arms. It…

— 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…

— 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…

— Frances Hardinge

“Gravelip, a young, slight footman with a pocked nose and large ears, obediently gave a smile like toothache. He seemed less than…

— Frances Hardinge

Push something in someone’s face, and they will shove it away reflexively. Threaten to snatch it away from them, and sometimes they…

— Frances Hardinge

“The only sane option was to retreat back out into the corridor. Fortunately sanity had never really slowed Neverfell down.”

— Frances Hardinge

“Nobody’s mind ever remains a blank page, however carefully they are locked away from the world.”

— Frances Hardinge

“I can't think straight. But why am I trying to do that anyway? Everybody else thinks straight. That's why nobody expects me…

— Frances Hardinge

“Mosca had preferred it when she could hear the edge in her companion’s voice. Now she felt like someone who knows that…

— Frances Hardinge

“I left you clean. Purged of all your ghosts. I am the one who has been haunted all my life. Haunted by…

— Frances Hardinge

“He was bellowing a great many words that were new to Mosca and sounded quite interesting. She memorized them for future use.”

— Frances Hardinge

I'm never telling the truth again! It gets you hanged and locked out and starved and froze and hated . . .

— Frances Hardinge

“The low road and the sea always flirted with each other, and today they were particularly passionate.”

— Frances Hardinge

“Mosca had never tasted power before. It was a little like the feeling the gin had given her, but without the bitterness…

— Frances Hardinge

“Lord Fellmotte was not a man. He was an ancient committee. A parliament of deathly rooks in a dying tree.”

— Frances Hardinge

“Fear made everyone look very alive in a strange and fragile way, like the last flare of a candle before it dies.”

— Frances Hardinge

“Nobody was to be trusted. The plan that had ensnared her had been the brainchild of her protector, Maxim Childersin.”

— Frances Hardinge