Home > Author > Stefan Bachmann
1 " Once people see you cry, it's like they own part of you. It's like you ripped a hole in yourself, and they saw through whatever armor you had on, got a good long view of all the screaming alien goop underneath. "
― Stefan Bachmann , A Drop of Night
2 " I look up at the painting. It's not even that interesting. Definitely doesn't grab me and shake my brain around like the meadow scene did. "
3 " He had an image in his mind of a gaggle of long-necked geese, all done up in petticoats and crinolines, sitting around a stuffy parlor and talking about him. "
― Stefan Bachmann , The Peculiar (The Peculiar, #1)
4 " …it struck Mr. Jelliby that a wide-eyed faery was not a surprised faery. It was an angry, angry faery. "
5 " He wanted a faery. More than anything else in the world. He had already imagined exactly how it should happen. He would set up the invitation, and the next day there would be a petal-winged pisky clinging to the top of his bedpost. It would have a foolish grin on its face, and large ears, and it wouldn’t notice at all that Bartholomew was small and ugly and different from everyone else. But no. Mother had to ruin everything. "
6 " Her voice was loud and cheerful, the way it was when nothing was well and she was determined not to show it. "
7 " There's this special talent that humans have that they can be unhappy no matter where they are. But humans have another special talent: We can be happy almost anywhere, too. We can be happy because we're not alone. "
8 " But you will not spare a drop of pity because I am rich? We have death in our gilded courts, too. We have disease and cruelty, and not a breath of air or freedom. You cannot say our lives are easy, any more than I can say yours is. They are lives, and so they are HORRID! "
9 " Feathers fell from the sky. Like black snow, they drifted onto an old city called Bath. "
10 " A philosopher,' said Mrs. Cantanker, stalking across the study, black heels clicking, ruby silks whispering around her ankles, 'is one who attempts to capture the truths of the universe so precisely that they become too confusing to understand. A novelist is one who attempts to capture the truths of the universe in such a roundabout way that they become obvious to anyone who reads them. "
― Stefan Bachmann , Cinders & Sparrows
11 " I can't even fathom myself from twenty-four hours ago. I was so busy following my rotten little heart, Disney princess-style. I did end up in a palace, so that's cool. "
12 " The staircase was a mass of rotting wood, carved with such cruel-looking mermaids that Mr. Jelliby was afraid to put his hand on the banister. "
13 " It was called the Smiling War because it left so many skulls, white and grinning, in the fields. "
14 " It was a fine day by London's standards. Which meant it was a day slightly less likely to suffocate you and poison your lungs. "
15 " Arthur Jelliby was a very nice young man, which was perhaps the reason why he had never made much of a politician. "
16 " The faery lady looked at Hettie curiously from beneath her wig. "You know..." she said, very softly. "All I wanted was that you would be my friend. That isn't very much to ask, is it? Doesn't everyone in the Smoke Lands have a friend? Doesn't everyone have someone?" She smiled pitifully and looked away. "I wanted a little person who would be mine, because no one else is. Life is so lonely when one lives as long as we do, in such a horrible, horrible house. But you never wanted to be my friend. You never, ever did. "
― Stefan Bachmann , The Whatnot (The Peculiar, #2)
17 " What is this liking? If you liked everything that happened to you, you would be quite the most feeble person. A thousand things will happen to you, and some of it will be good and some of it will be bad and some of it will be utterly dreadful, but they all . . ." The faery butler paused. "They all lead somewhere. "
18 " A word could cause a riot, ink could spell a man’s death, and the Sidhe knew those weapons like the backs of their hands. Oh yes, they knew. "
19 " I liked him at once. I always felt I could trust worried, anxious people more than brash ones. Those who strode through life too bravely always struck me as either foolishly unaware of the world's terrors, or else frighteningly powerful and immune to them, neither of which I found endearing. "
20 " She was too thin, her face all sharp bones and pale skin, tinged blue from lack of sunlight. Ugly, like him. Her eyes were huge and round, black puddles collecting in the hollows of her skull. The tips of her ears were pointed. In a pinch Bartholomew might still pass as a human child, but not Hettie. There was no mistaking the faery blood in her veins. For where Bartholomew had a mess of chestnut hair growing out of his scalp, Hettie had the smooth, bare branches of a young tree. "
