Piranesi Quotes

“In my mind are all the tides, their seasons, their ebbs and their flows.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“I lined a fishing net with heavy-gauge plastic. Inside I placed what I thought was the right amount of nesting material for two such enormous birds. It approximated to three days’ fuel. This was no insignificant amount and I knew that I might be colder because I had given it away. But what is a few days of feeling cold compared to a new albatross in the World?..”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“Perhaps that is what it is like being with other people. Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the World in ways you would rather not...”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“I thought that it was unkind to punish him for something he can’t help. It is not his fault that he does not see things the way I do.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“I felt a great pressure there as if a whole host of half-formed ideas were about to break through into my consciousness, bringing with them more madness or else understanding.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“Matthew Rose Sorenson is the English son of a half-Danish, half-Scottish father and a Ghanaian mother. He originally studied mathematics, but his interest soon migrated (via the philosophy of mathematics and the history of ideas) to his current field of study: transgressive thinking. He is writing a book about Laurence Arne-Sayles, a man who transgressed against science, against reason and against law.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“Laurence Arne-Sayles is the transgressive thinker par excellence. He crossed so many boundaries. He wrote about magic and pretended it was science. He convinced a group of highly intelligent people that there were other worlds and he could take them there. He was gay when it was still illegal. He kidnapped a man and to this day no one knows why.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“Suddenly I saw in front of me the Statue of the Faun, the Statue that I love above all others...I climbed up on to his Plinth and flung Myself into his Arms, wrapping my arm around his Neck, intertwining my fingers with his Fingers. Safe in his embrace, I wept for my lost Sanity. Great, heaving sobs rose up, almost painfully, from my chest.

/Hush!/ he told me. /Be comforted!/

(108-109)”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi