Ian Rankin Quotes

Well, as everyone knows, once witchcraft gets started, there's no stopping it.

When I consider the Question, Whether there are such Persons in the World as those we call Witches? My Mind is divided between the two opposite Opinions; or rather I believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it.

Magic is at the core of myths.

Superstitions and belief in magic are perennial in just the same way as religion, and something near to being universal among mankind; and why this is so may be interesting, but in most cases the beliefs themselves are devoid of interesting content, at least to me.

In the middle ages when people were convinced there were witches, they certainly found them.

It is not so long ago, as years are reckoned, that a scientist in a physical or chemical laboratory was popularly regarded as a magician engaged in unlawful pursuits, or as in impious converse with evil spirits, about whom all sorts of detrimental stories were circulated and believed.

Anything that has a dragon, a wand, pixie dust, fairies, magic, any of that, I love it. I'm obsessed with it, I will read it, I will watch it, I will commit it to memory.

I'd go into the woods to look for the witches, the mythical beings.

And all the stories had, somewhere, the witch. The wicked old witch. And Tiffany had thought: Where's the evidence?

Witchcraft was hung, in History, But History and I Find all the Witchcraft that we need Around us, every Day -

When I was a child there were many witches, and they bewitched both cattle and men, especially children.

Our forefathers looked upon nature with more reverence and horror, before the world was enlightened by learning and philosophy, and loved to astonish themselves with the apprehensions of witchcraft, prodigies, charms, and inchantments. There was not a village in England that had not a ghost in it, the church-yards were all haunted, every large common had a circle of fairies belonging to it, and there was scarce a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit.

...belief has a second edge. If there are ten thousand medieval peasants who create vampires by believing them real, there may be one - probably a child - who will imagine the stake necessary to kill it. But a stake is only stupid wood; the mind is the mallet which drives it home.

I hate witches. Humans had the right idea, burning them at the stake.

I have always been fascinated by the supernatural elements in stories, whether fairy tales, myths, film or literature.

In the absence of evidence, superstition. It's a Middle Ages thing. That's my theory anyway.

This is the first case of it’s kind since we stopped trying people for witchcraft.

There is no law in Pennsylvania against riding on broomsticks.

Medieval Europeans did not much fear witches until they created an inquisition to find them.

The law against witches does not prove there be any; …

During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry.....There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed.

The Reign of the Witches

When it came to the burning of witches, Germany was home to a kind of pre-Holocaust, where at least 100,000 people were executed for witchcraft, usually by public burning.

I think you can learn a lot from primary sources. 'The Penguin Book of Witches,' which is edited by novelist Katherine Howe, is a wonderful compilation of primary sources about witchcraft.

The thing about 'Game of Thrones' is it doesn't pin too much of a focus on magic. It kind of paints it in the same way that mystical things are portrayed in our world, because you don't walk about Westeros and see wizards with staffs or magical wands. All the characters don't really believe in it. It's this mysterious hidden vein to Westeros.