Zen Cho > Quotes

“Your amoral ingenuity in the pursuit of your interest is perfectly shocking,” said Zacharias severely. “Yes, isn’t it?” said Prunella, pleased.”
― Zen Cho, Sorcerer to the Crown

“But that was the trouble with children, Sir Stephen reflected. They were confoundedly liable to pattern themselves upon one’s conduct, when one would rather they simply did what they were told.”
― Zen Cho, Sorcerer to the Crown

“Maybe that was what true love meant: a bitterness that stayed on the tongue when everything else faded.”
― Zen Cho, Black Water Sister

“Prunella had once thought life in London would be all flirting and balls and dresses, hitting attentive suitors on the shoulder with a fan, and breakfasting late upon bowls of chocolate. She sighed now for her naïveté. Little had she known life in London was in fact all hexes and murder and thaumaturgical politics, and she would always be rising early for some reason or other!”
― Zen Cho, Sorcerer to the Crown

“Why, all the greatest magic comes down to blood," said Mak Genggang. "And who knows blood better than a woman?”
― Zen Cho, Sorcerer to the Crown

“But one may like someone enough to kiss them without liking them enough to confide in them. The two are quite different emotions.”
― Zen Cho, The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo

“A female may be poor or delicate or a spinster, but it does seem ill-advised of Miss Liddiard to combine all three.”
― Zen Cho, Sorcerer to the Crown

“Are you going? What shall you wear?"
"I shall go in what I am standing in," said Mak Genggang. "A witch is always appropriate whatever her attire.”
― Zen Cho, Sorcerer to the Crown

“Prunella took to the ballrooms of London in the spirit of ruthless calculation of a general entering a battlefield.”
― Zen Cho, Sorcerer to the Crown

“Goodbye," said Siew Tsin.
"See you next time," said Lady Meng, more accurately.
"Will you remember me when I come again?"
"Of course," said Lady Meng. "I miss you every time.”
― Zen Cho, The Terracotta Bride

“Since the decision to become a parent is invariably self-interested, it is my belief that a parent's obligation is to the child, and the child's obligation is to itself.”
― Zen Cho, Sorcerer to the Crown

“She can’t be a medium,” said Mom. “She graduated from Harvard!”
― Zen Cho, Black Water Sister

“[A] life passed amid the feuds and rivalries of a girls' school had left Prunella not wholly unprepared for battle.”
― Zen Cho, Sorcerer to the Crown

“I should advise you not to stop there, but set fire to his house, too, and sell his children to pirates. That is the only way he will learn”
― Zen Cho, Sorcerer to the Crown

“You can bargain with anybody, spirit or human. All you need to know is what do they want and what are they scared of. That's all.”
― Zen Cho, Black Water Sister

“What a thing a bad death was. It made a mythology that caught up in its wake old trees and young women alike, the violence of it reverberating through the years.”
― Zen Cho, Black Water Sister

“But a woman should not marry where there is no respect. Respect is the most important thing.”
― Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad

“Ah Ma doesn’t want a girl as her medium,” said Jess. “She says they’re useless. Every month you have to take a break and can’t do anything for a few days.”

“Ma, you must be more modern.” Ah Ku was talking directly to his mother, as though Jess wasn’t even there. “Nowadays, men and women, there’s not much difference. A boy who is not reliable is useless every day of the month. Isn’t it better to have a reliable girl?”
― Zen Cho, Black Water Sister

“You are having a baby,' he said.

'I certainly hope it turns out to be a baby,' I agreed.”
― Zen Cho, The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo

“Zacharias’s study bore the marks of his predecessors, whose taste had run decidedly stoicheiotical. They had had a fondness for skulls with burning lights in their eye sockets, crystal balls in which mysterious shapes came and went, and dark velvet window curtains traced with obscure runes.”
― Zen Cho, Sorcerer to the Crown

“Hell was hot and full of unkind people in a hurry; there was far too much red tape; and the bureaucrats were all shockingly corrupt.”
― Zen Cho, The Terracotta Bride

“He was a typical specimen of the younger son in avid pursuit of mediocrity with which the Theurgist’s teemed:”
― Zen Cho, Sorcerer to the Crown

“It was not a world Siew Tsin would have chosen to live in. But she did not want to be reborn, either, anymore than Junsheng did, anymore than all the other spirits showering gold and favours on hell officials so that they could stay where they were. Rebirth entailed a true death, the severing of one's memory and the loss of one's self.”
― Zen Cho, The Terracotta Bride

“It figured that she'd avoided getting nagged to go to law school, only to get nagged to become a vessel for the dead.”
― Zen Cho, Black Water Sister

“Resignation to unhappiness didn't come naturally—she had to learn it.”
― Zen Cho, The Terracotta Bride

“You cannot stay rich in times like these without eating sin.”
― Zen Cho, The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water

“Shameless, impudent, meddling females, who presumed to set at naught the Society’s prohibition on women’s magic, and duped the common people with their potions and cantrips!”
― Zen Cho, Sorcerer to the Crown

“She was a walking nothing—a hole in the universe, perfect for letting the dead through.”
― Zen Cho, Black Water Sister

“This time, let us hope you will get to be old," she said. "It is a great suffering to know youth only.”
― Zen Cho, The Terracotta Bride

“You like the gentleman, then?" said Muna.
"I don't dislike him," said Henrietta unpromisingly.
[...]
"I don't dislike cabbage," Muna found herself saying, "but I should not consider marrying it. Not disliking seems a poor foundation for future happiness.”
― Zen Cho, The True Queen