Naomi Novik Quotes

Temeraire said, 'It is very nice how many books there are, indeed. And on so many subjects!

As a novelist you have just unlimited budget, total creative control. You really get to have your cake - all the cake - and then you can have a second cake if you wanted to.

Temeraire-- Never fear; I am going; the Son of Heaven will not tolerate delays, and Barham gives me leave. Allegiance will carry us! Pray eat something --L.

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

Enough of that, you damned conspirators, you will have us hanged a great deal sooner than we will.

It seems to me after a fellow has been mutinied against three or four times, there is something to it besides bad luck.

Would you believe it's harder to find a virgin than a unicorn in New York?

I ended up rooming in a dorm that was basically a solid wall of female scientists. And every Wednesday, we would all watch "Star Trek: Next Generation."

Well, I would have struck him, but I would have had to get up. You have no notion how difficult it is to arrange skirts when sitting down; it took me five minutes together the first time.

Justice is expensive. That is why there is so little of it, and it is reserved for those few with enough money and influence to afford it.

Trying to out-guess Bonaparte; the thought makes my blood run cold.

I'm an engineer and a writer. And I find that those two things are not uncomplementary.

And we must still try or we would be leaving our friends to fight without us. I think this is what you have meant by duty, all along; I do understand, at least this much of it.

I am very tired of this Government, which I have never seen, and which is always insisting that I must do disagreeable things, and does no good to anybody.

What could make the Napoleonic Wars more exciting? Dragons.

Something about that whole process of building the structure of that game turned into a real kind of lightbulb moment for me as a writer.

All maps are fiction when the world is seen from the sky. But if ten thousand dragons choose to believe in this one, I think you will find it nearer truth than otherwise.

You’ve been inexpressibly lucky, ” he said finally. “And inexpressibly mad, although in your case the two seem to be the same thing

And yet Praecursoris is not punished the same way, only because it is not practical, and he is needed for breeding?

It's a lie that matches his desire.

But she hadn't been able to take root. She'd remembered the wrong things, and forgotten too much. She'd remembered how to kill and how to hate, and she'd forgotten how to grow.

The river flows to the sea, whatever the wind says about it

I am of the opinion", Tharkay said, "that you ought not assign to free will something more likely the consequence of a sharp blow to the skull.

Elsie eyed him puzzledly, and then offered, "Would you like to see my plate?