Deborah Harkness Quotes

Deborah Harkness

Deborah Harkness is an American scholar and novelist, best known as an historian and as the author. (Deborah Harkness Quotes)

“A little book can hold a big secret – one that might change the world. You’re a witch. You know words have power.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason. —THOMAS PAINE”
Deborah Harkness
Time’s Convert

“A man like Matthew never frees himself of the shadows completely. But perhaps it is necessary to embrace the darkness in order to love him,” Philippe continued.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“A vampire’s life was measured not in hours or years but in secrets revealed and kept.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“A witch shouldn’t keep secrets from other witches. Bad things happen when she does.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“All that children need is love, a grown-up to take responsibility for them, and a soft place to land.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“All you have to do is be a good listener. Nobody really wants to keep secrets, not even the dead. People leave clues everywhere, and if you pay attention, you can piece them together.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“And happiness is always louder than sadness.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“And if we all did what we should, we would wake to find ourselves in paradise”
Deborah Harkness
The Book of Life

“And the only true fence against the world and all its dangers is a thorough knowledge of it,” Matthew said as we rocked in silence, together.”
Deborah Harkness
Time’s Convert

“Anyone who has read paperback bestsellers or even watched television knows that vampires are breathtaking, but nothing prepares you to actually see one. Their bone structures are so well honed that they seem chiseled by an expert sculptor. Then they move, or speak, and your mind can’t begin to absorb what you’re seeing. Every movement is graceful; every word is musical. And their eyes are arresting, which is precisely how they catch their prey. One long look, a few quiet words, a touch: once you’re caught in a vampire’s snare you don’t stand a chance.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“As far as I can tell, there are only two emotions that keep the world spinning, year after year. One is fear. The other is desire.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“As for this darkness we all feel, you will tell me about it one day. I will not take the knowledge from you.”
Deborah Harkness
Time’s Convert

“As I am the end, so my lover is the beginning. I encompass the whole work of creation, and all knowledge is hidden in me.”
Deborah Harkness
The Book of Life

“Before you I was nothing but dust and shadows. You brought me to life. And I cannot survive without you.”
Deborah Harkness
The Book of Life

“Change is the only reliable thing in the world.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“Children needed love a reliable source of comfort, and an adult willing to take responsibility for them.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“Do not fear me because I am dark and shadowed”
Deborah Harkness
The Book of Life

“Don’t be such a spoilsport. She’s a dragon—not a goldfish. Why are you always trying to pretend that the magical is ordinary? Let her fly!”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“English vampires may not be as well behaved around witches as the American ones are.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“Even the darkest places need to be brought into the light of day, or else they’ll grow until they swallow a man whole.”
Deborah Harkness
The All Souls Trilogy

“Every time I pick up a book or a document from the past, I’m in a battle with people who lived hundreds of years ago. They have their secrets and obsessions – all the things they won’t or can’t reveal. It’s my job to discover and explain them.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“Everybody thinks the library is just a building, but it isn’t.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“Explanations, like medicines, go down easier when accompanied by liquid refreshment.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“Folks are always in favor of fairness, until they have to give up something they have to someone else.”
Deborah Harkness
Time’s Convert

“For storms will rage and oceans roar When Gabriel stands on sea and shore. And as he blows his wondrous horn, old worlds die, and new be born.”
Deborah Harkness
The All Souls Trilogy

“Giving a woman your whole life is meaningless without giving her your whole heart as well.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“God didn’t give the General sons of his own. I reckon that’s why He gave Washington an army – so that he could be father to us all.”
Deborah Harkness
Time’s Convert

“Humans can convince themselves up is down and black is white. It’s their special gift.”
Deborah Harkness
The All Souls Trilogy

“I arched my back in an effort to increase the contact between us, and Matthew stilled. With my spine bowed, he was poised at the entrance to my womb. And in that brief, forever moment, father, mother, and child were as close as any three creatures could be.”
Deborah Harkness
The All Souls Trilogy

“I can tell you as a scientist, that there’s no such thing as ‘normal.’ ‘Normal’ is a bedtime story – a fable – that humans tell themselves to feel better when faced with overwhelming evidence that most of what’s happening around them is not ‘normal’ at all.” (Deborah Harkness Quotes)
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“I don’t mind one moment of love that you’ve shared with any creature, living or dead, so long as you want to be with me right at this moment.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“I don’t want to look back on a life where I took everything rather than earned it.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“I have never been a radical! Change is very much overrated.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“I see you, even when you hide from the rest of the world. I hear you, even when you’re silent.”
Deborah Harkness
The Book of Life

“I see you, even when you hide from the rest of the world. I hear you, even when you’re silent.” It was a pure definition of love.”
Deborah Harkness
The Book of Life

“I wanted to know how humans came up with a view of the world that had so little magic in it. I needed to understand how they convinced themselves that magic wasn’t important.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“I was planning on starting a new file on my computer with the title “Phrases That Sound One Way to Witches but Mean Something Else to Vampires.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“I would rather have had this moment with you—just this one night—than centuries with someone else…”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“If the butterfly wings its way to the sweet light that attracts it, it’s only because it doesn’t know that the fire can consume it.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“If you truly love someone, you will cherish what they despise most about themselves.”
Deborah Harkness
The Book of Life

“If you truly love someone, you will cherish what they despise most about themselves” – Fernando Conclaves”
Deborah Harkness
The Book of Life

“In a city as cramped as London was at that time, they were lucky to have the spacious apartment they did, including the hidden archive room that Matthew revealed to Diana, decorated with strange hanging files filled with de Clermont family secrets.”
Deborah Harkness
The World of All Souls

“In every moment, for the rest of my life, I will be choosing you.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“In labor we blame absolutely everything on the husband. It keeps the mother from developing homicidal fantasies and reminds the men they aren’t the center of attention,’ Sarah explained.”
Deborah Harkness
The All Souls Trilogy

“In November 2009 archivist Rima Jaen at the Goncalves archives in Seville, Spain, comes across Diana’s journal in a forgotten box in the archive attics.”
Deborah Harkness
The World of All Souls

“In the interests of originality – not to mention verisimilitude – we’re skipping dinner and moving right on to the date.’ ‘Readers would love a vampire who said that!’ I said.”
Deborah Harkness
The All Souls Trilogy

“In this room we understand why this war might be fought…it’s about our common belief that no one has the right to tell two creatures that they cannot love each other-no matter what their species.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“It begins with absence and desire. It begins with blood and fear. It begins with a discovery of witches.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“It is a blessing as well as a burden to love so much that you can hurt so badly when love is gone.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”
Deborah Harkness
The Book of Life

“It took me eighteen hours to bring that boy into the world, and no time at all for some idiot with a gun to steal him away.” Mistress Bishop pulled a small bottle out of her pocket. “War is such a waste of women’s time.”
Deborah Harkness
Time’s Convert

“It will not be the first time my children have driven me to tears. But I wouldn’t give up the sorrow if it meant giving up the joy as well.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“It’s a historian’s job to uncover secrets. And I’m very good at it.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“It’s a scientist’s prerogative to change his mind as new information comes to light.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“It’s one thing to wander in the darkness because you know no different, but it’s quite another to enjoy the light only to have it taken from you.”
Deborah Harkness
The Book of Life

“Just because something seems impossible doesn’t make it untrue,”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“Like all parents, they were just doing their best from moment to moment.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“Magic begins with desire. The words come much, much later.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“Magic is desire made real. When a witch concentrates on something she wants, and then imagines how she might get it, she can make it happen.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“Magic was nothing more than desire made real, after all.”
Deborah Harkness
The All Souls Trilogy

“Making love should be about intimacy, about knowing another’s body as well as your own.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“Many of the world’s ills have stemmed from someone (or a group of someones) deciding that what is different is also dangerous.”
Deborah Harkness
The World of All Souls

“Memories were short and history unkind. It was the way of the world.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“Miracles should leave a mark, so that we can remember how precious they are.”
Deborah Harkness
Time’s Convert

“Modern creatures are always in such a hurry. Call me old-fashioned if you’d like, but I want to enjoy every moment of our courtship.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“My experiences thus far had me planning to throttle the first Tudor historian I met upon my return for gross dereliction of duty.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“My ideas about vampires may be romantic, but your attitudes toward women need a major overhaul.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“My life now has a beginning, middle, and an end. Everything before was preamble. Now I have you. One day you will be gone, and my life will be over.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“No act of creation has ever been painless,” she continued. “Miracles should leave a mark, so that we can remember how precious they are.”
Deborah Harkness
Time’s Convert

“No matter how much we change, it is important to remember the past and honor it.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“No one sees as many centuries as I have without being careful. I’m always careful. Now more than ever, since I have so much more to lose.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“No wonder Philippe always looked so exhausted,” he said ruefully when he was through. “It’s very fatiguing pretending you’re in charge when your wife actually rules the roost.”
Deborah Harkness
The Book of Life

“Phoebe was the good girl in the family, the one who could be relied upon to give in, give up, and give way to keep the peace.”
Deborah Harkness
Time’s Convert

“Rima was employed in the Goncalves Library, a small and impoverished specialist archive in twenty-first century Seville, Spain, which houses an eclectic collection of books and manuscripts. There are hidden treasures a the Goncalves, including a dusty discovery that Rima unearthed, an English commonplace book from the late sixteenth century.
Rima was forced out of her job there and found employment at the Congregation’s library on the Isola della Stella, in Venice, after the previous librarian and secretary (traditionally always a human) died of a heart attack.”
Deborah Harkness
The World of All Souls

“Rules may teach you to be blindly obedient, but they’re no real protection against the world”
Deborah Harkness
Time’s Convert

“Saying no takes courage—far more courage than saying yes.”
Deborah Harkness
Time’s Convert

“Some promises matter more than others.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“Some say a witch’s true power comes from being a creature between life and death, light and darkness”
Deborah Harkness
The All Souls Trilogy

“Stop worrying about what other women do. Be your own extraordinary self.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“That’s the most important lesson a warrior learns, witch. You learn how to pick your battles and let go of those you can’t win, to fight another day.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“The devil is everywhere, sir. Those who believe otherwise fall prey to his wiles.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“The first requirement of war: allies must not kill each other.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“The forest has eyes, and the woods have ears; therefore I will see, be silent, and hear.”
Deborah Harkness
The All Souls Trilogy

“The goddess does not want us to imitate some ideal of perfection, but to be our true selves.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“The house was winning, thanks to its chief weapon: Fleetwood Mac.”
Deborah Harkness
The All Souls Trilogy

“The house was winning, thanks to its chief weapon: Fleetwood Mac. Sarah had bashed Mom’s old radio to bits two days after we found it during a never-ending concert of “The Chain.” The house retaliated by removing all the toilet-paper rolls from the bathroom cabinets and replacing them with a variety of electronic gadgets capable of playing music. It made for a rousing morning”
Deborah Harkness
The All Souls Trilogy

“The life stories of a vampire are theirs to tell – and theirs alone.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed (Albert Einstein)”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“The most terrifying monsters always look just like ordinary men.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“The scars don’t bother me. They are just signs that I’ve fought and survived.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“The secret is that I may be the head of the Bishop-Clairmont family, but you are its heart,” he whispered. “And the three of us are in perfect agreement: The heart is more important.”
Deborah Harkness
The Book of Life

“The strongest distinguishing characteristic of humans is their power of denial. I have strength and long life, you have supernatural abilities, daemons have awe-inspiring creativity. Humans can convince themselves up is down and black is white. It’s their special gift.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“The touch we feel as a restraint when we are younger has a way of bringing us comfort later in our lives.”
Deborah Harkness
Time’s Convert

“The wolf who wins is the wolf you feed. The evil wolf feeds on anger, guilt, sorrow, lies, and regret. The good wolf needs a diet of love and honesty, spiced up with big spoonfuls of compassion and faith. So if you want the good wolf to win, you’re going to have to starve the other one.”
Deborah Harkness
The Book of Life

“There’s magic inside you, Diana, and it wants to get out, whether you ask for it or not.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“They fear us because we are different. Fear breeds contempt, then hate. It is a familiar story.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“This companion volume gives you a chance to have a good rummage though my inspiration archive.”
Deborah Harkness
The World of All Souls

“This family was more fun when we had fewer medical degrees”
Deborah Harkness
The All Souls Trilogy

“This was so different from books and movies, where love was made into something tense and difficult. Loving Matthew was much more like coming into port than heading out into a storm.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“Thomas Paine had come to believe that religion was the worst form of tyranny because it pursued you through death and into eternity—something no king or despot had yet managed to do. At last, Marcus settled on repeating something Thomas himself had written. “ ‘My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”
Deborah Harkness
Time’s Convert

“To be a vampire you must choose life—your life, not someone else’s—over and over again, day after day,” Ysabeau said. “You must choose it over sleep, over peace, over grief, over death. In the end, it is our relentless drive to live that defines us. Without that, we are nothing but a nightmare or a ghost: a shadow of the humans we once were.” (Deborah Harkness Quotes)
Deborah Harkness
Time’s Convert

“To every question I have ever had, or ever will have, you are the answer.”
Deborah Harkness
The Book of Life

“Too soon? There is no such thing,” Ysabeau said. “We are, all of us, asked to grow up too quickly. It is the way the gods remind us that life, no matter how long, is still but a breath.”
Deborah Harkness
Time’s Convert

“Try not to be too hard on yourself as you journey into the future. Keep your wits about you, and trust your instincts. It’s not much in the way of advice, but it’s all that a mother can give.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“War is such a waste of women’s time.”
Deborah Harkness
Time’s Convert

“We face a dark future if children stop asking questions, Susanna,” Goody Alsop remarked.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“We kissed each other, long and deep, while my legs opened like the covers of a book.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“Weddings aren’t for the benefit of the bride or the groom. Most couples would be content to go off on their own as we did, say a few words, and then leave for a holiday. Weddings are rites of passage for the community”
Deborah Harkness
The All Souls Trilogy

“What is blood, if not fire and water?”
Deborah Harkness
The All Souls Trilogy

“Whiskey made it possible to close your eyes at night without hating yourself for everything you’d been ordered to do that day.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“Whoever can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“Why do vampires have such a strange attitude toward time? Witches don’t have centuries to fall in love. We do it quickly.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“Will you not sit with me? The goddess may not afford us another chance.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“Witches see the truth plainly—even if their husbands are full of nonsense.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“Witches, vampires, and daemons aren’t supposed to mix. You know that. Humans are more likely to notice us when we do. No daemon or vampire is worth the risk.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“With all the playhouses closed on account of the plague, it would be a challenge to keep body and soul together.”
Deborah Harkness
The All Souls Trilogy

“You do angry. I just saw it. And you left at least one hole in my carpet to prove it.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“You have found a woman who is worthy of you, with courage and hope to spare, Matthaios.’ ‘I know,’ Matthew said, taking my hand. ‘Know this, too: you are equally worthy of her. Stop regretting your life. Start living it.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“You persist in this romantic vision of what it is to be a vampire, but despite my best efforts to curb it I have a taste for blood.”
Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches

“You will not be alone either, Philippe de Clermont,” I whispered fiercely. “I’ll find a way to be with you in the darkness, I promise. And when you think the whole world has abandoned you, I’ll be there, holding your hand.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“You’ll adjust. Meanwhile people will talk. But no one’s opinion in Woodstock matters. Soon you will be familiar and the gossip will stop.’ I looked at him doubtfully. ‘You don’t know much about gossip, do you?”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

“Your father says a wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountaintop.”
Deborah Harkness
Shadow of Night

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.
Deborah Harkness
The Book of Life