Naomi Novik Quotes

A power claimed and challenged and thrice carried out is true

And I wasn’t old enough to be wise, so I loved her more, not less, because I knew she would be taken from me soon.

You feel like it's going to rain.

I am not your subject or your servant, and if you want a cowering mouse for a wife, go find someone else who can turn silver to gold for you.

But hope is good strong drink, especially when you can get someone else to buy it for you.

I'd want to. If you want, I want.

Uprooted is very much about my mother’s side of the family, who were Polish Catholics. They were deeply patriotic and deeply rooted in their country...Spinning Silver is about my father’s family, and they were Lithuanian Jews who had to escape persecution—not just from the Nazis, but from their own neighbors.

It was exactly what I wanted, only once I was in it, I didn’t want it after all.

I love having existential crises at bedtime, it's so restful.

They all had stories. They had mothers or fathers, sisters or lovers. They weren't alone in the world, mattering to no one but themselves. It seemed utterly wrong to treat them like pennies in a purse. I felt the soldiers understood perfectly well that we were making sums out of them-- this many safe to spend, this number too high, as if each one wasn't a whole man.

All of magic essentially involves sneaking something you want past reality while it’s distracted and looking the other way.

We're all greedy, but children make it easier to be. We feel it's only right to give them everything we can grab, even when you know that anything you feed your own child still comes out of someone else's mouth.

I’m not stupid, nor a liar,” I said, “and if I can’t do any good, I can at least do something

I should rather have you than a heap of gold, even if it were very comfortable to sleep on.

She was safe for another moment, one more moment, and all of life was only moments, after all.