Deborah Harkness - A Discovery of Witches (2011)

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Wordlessly I looked back at him, astonished that a kiss on the palm could be so intimate.

Deborah Harkness
Are you smelling me? After yesterday I suspected that my body was giving him all kinds of information I didn't want him to have. Don't tempt me, he murmured.

Deborah Harkness
It begins with absence and desire. It begins with blood and fear. It begins with a discovery of witches.

Deborah Harkness
Yes, I see that you are behaving like a prince but that doesn't mean you won't behave like a devil at the first opportunity.

Deborah Harkness
English vampires may not be as well behaved around witches as the American ones are.

Deborah Harkness
The first requirement of war: allies must not kill each other.

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

Deborah Harkness
Scholars do one of two things when they discover information that doesn't fit what they already know. Either they sweep it aside so it doesn't bring their cherished theories into question or they focus on it with laserlike intensity and try to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Deborah Harkness
Within days they'd formed an unholy alliance with a foppish young French vampire in the Garden District who had implausibly golden hair and a streak of ruthlessness as wide as the Mississippi

Deborah Harkness
That evening, rowing on the quiet river as sunset turned to dusk, I saw an occasional smoky smudge on the towpath, always slightly ahead of me, like a dark star guiding me home.

Deborah Harkness
The king just sits there, moving one square at a time. The queen can move so freely. I suppose I'd rather lose the game than forfeit her freedom.

Deborah Harkness
You do angry. I just saw it. And you left at least one hole in my carpet to prove it.

Deborah Harkness
There's nothing more powerful than human fear—not magic, not vampire strength. Nothing.

Deborah Harkness
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
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
Just because something seems impossible doesn't make it untrue,

Deborah Harkness
Remember the past, and that there is a future.
Se Souvenir du passe et qu'il ya un avenir

Deborah Harkness
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
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
She was like a camera that had been chronically out of focus until someone came by and twisted the lenses into alignment.

Deborah Harkness
I saw the logic that they used, and the death of a thousand cuts as experimental scientists slowly chipped away at the belief that the world was an inexplicably powerful, magical place. Ultimately they failed, though. The magic never really went away. It waited, quietly, for people to return to it when they found the science wanting.

Deborah Harkness
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
Matthew kept hinting that his desire - for blood, chiefly- was so strong that it put everything else at risk. But vampires weren't the only creatures who had to manage such strong impulses. Much of what qualified as magic was simply desire in action. Witchcraft was different- that took spells and rituals. But magic? A wish, a need, a hunger too strong to be denied- these could turn into deeds when they cross a witch's mind.

Deborah Harkness
These days vampires gravitated toward particle accelerators, projects to decode the genome, and molecular biology. Once they had flocked to alchemy, anatomy, and electricity. If it went bang, involved blood, or promised to unlock the secrets of the universe, there was sure to be a vampire around.

Deborah Harkness
Be still, he said, voice harsh. I might not be able to control myself if you step away.

Deborah Harkness