307 Quotes by Alan Bradley

I dreamt of turrets and craggy ledges where the windswept rain blew in from the ocean with the odor of violets. A pale woman in Elizabethan dress stood beside my bed and whispered in my ear that the bells would ring. An old salt in an oilcloth jacket sat atop a piling, mending nets with an awl, while far out at sea a tiny aeroplane winged its way towards the setting sun.

Mr. Sambridge possessed a remarkably good mouthful of natural teeth for someone his age, whether ritually maintained or expensively corrected I could not tell.As someone who has spent hours of agony strapped down in Dr. Frankenstein's chamber of dental horrors in Farrington Street, I could only respect—and hate—anyone who still possessed such a spotless set of choppers.

I felt a pang -- a strange and inexplicable pang that I had never felt before. It was homesickness. Now, even more than I had earlier when I'd first glimpsed it, I longed to be transported into that quiet little landscape, to walk up the path, to take a key from my pocket and open the cottage door, to sit down by the fireplace, to wrap my arms around myself, and to stay there forever and ever.

You can learn from a glance at anyone's library, not what they are, but what they wish to be.

Neiti Mountjoy! Eläkkeellä oleva neiti Mountjoy! Olin kuullut tarinoita neiti Mountjoysta ja kauhun aikakaudesta. Hän oli ollut Bishop's Laceyn yleisen kirjaston johtavana kirjastonhoitajana josilloin, kun Nooa seilasi paatillaan. Ulospäin hän oli oikein hurmaava, mutta sisältä oikea "pahantahtoisuuden palatsi". Tai niin minulle oli kerrottu. ...Kyläläiset pyysivät edlleen iltarukouksissaan, että neiti Mountjoy pysyisi eläkkeellä.

Seisoessani siinä kirjaston ulkopuolella Cow Lanella ajattelin, että taivaassa kirjasto on varmasti auki vuorokauden ympäri, seitsemänä päivänä viikossa. Eipä kun kahdeksana päivänä viikossa.

There's a reason we English are ruled more by tea than by Buckingham Palace or His Majesty's Government: Apart from the soul, the brewing of tea is the only thing that sets us apart from the great apes - or so the Vicar had remarked to Father.

...silence is sometimes the most costly of commodities.

I had once repeated the experiment to reassure myself that this was so, and it was. Ashes to ashes; starch to sugar. A little window into the Creation