A Quote by Susanna Clarke

It seemed to me that you make magic real by making it a little prosaic, a little difficult and disappointing - never quite as glamorous as the other characters imagine.
My daughter was a toddler. I had no idea there was anything wrong with kids' media.I started watching little preschool shows with her or G-rated videos or whatever; I couldn't believe what I was seeing, that there seemed to be far more male characters than female characters in what we make for little kids. It was just a shock.
These people who can see right through you never quite do you justice, because they never give you credit for the effort you're making to be better than you actually are, which is difficult and well meant and deserving of some little notice.
When [the magician] clicks his fingers and cards change to the four aces, we know we have experienced sleight of hand. Real magic would not be quite that quick and easy. Real magic would take investment. Real magic would draw you in, and make you nervous.
...It's all sort of dreams and it's all illusion. It's theater; it's not real. We're making up stories, you know, and people tend to run into you and believe you are your characters. And I suppose the funny thing is the longer you go, you do become sort of some version of [your characters]. You both diverge from them - you know - you live, but you also permanently inhabit that geography and that mental space - and so you do morph a little bit. We do become what we imagine.
Sometimes I have thought that a song should look disappointing on the page - a little thin, perhaps, a little repetitive, or a little on the obvious side, or a mixture of all of these things.
It reminded me of talking, how what is said is never quite what was thought, and what is heard is never quite what was said. It wasn’t much in the way of comfort, but everything has a little failure in it, and we still make do somehow.
We all want to be a little glamorous, a little playful and a little mischievous at times.
And Myrnin seemed quite taken with that, Claire thought; she’d never seen him look at anyone with quite that much admiration. It surprised her that it made her feel a little … what was that? Jealous? Couldn’t be.
My problems seemed so glamorous to other people, and everyone just thought I was so lucky. But then, I was lucky because my family was really there for me - San Francisco was a real refuge.
At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper. . . .
I always just wanted to have the wherewithal to make another record. I never really dreamt of fortune or fame, because it seemed so unlikely. I'm much more interested in people's perceptions of me than what my life is really like. It appears that some people think it's all cocaine and caviar for Okkervil River. And it's not. I'm making a little bit more than I was making at the video store right now.
I'm always making music. I'm constantly making little musical recordings on my phone or on a little voice recorder I carry with me so I can remember these little pieces of music that eventually becomes songs.
Most directors do work in pairs. There's usually some form of this, sometimes it literally comes down to you both show up in the morning and one of you is like, "I'm a little tired and overwhelmed today, so I might need you to just be a little step ahead of me and speak with more confidence because I'm not quite there." So, there's quite a bit of that in other teams.
The little island seemed to float on the dark lake-waters. Trees grew on it, and a little hill rose in the middle of it. It was a mysterious island, lonely and beautiful. All the children stood and gazed at it, loving it and longing to go to it. It looked so secret - almost magic.
I started to see human beings as little lonesome, water based, pink meat, life forms pushing air through themselves and making noises that the other little pieces of meat seemed to understand. I was thinking to myself, 'There's five billion people here but we've never been more isolated.' The only result of the aggressive individualism we pursue is that you lose sight of your compassion and we go to bed at night thinking, 'Is this all there is?' because we don't feel fulfilled.
I remember how, at first, I had felt the tension in his lips, as if he was trying to make a barrier between us - then they had relaxed, parted slightly. And that's when I had known he wanted to kiss me, wanted to give in. That little parting of the lips, the little sigh that came out... I would hear that sigh forever. That little, little sound when the whole world seemed to open up.
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