Jonathan Stroud Quotes

The Amulet of Samarkand. It was Simon Lovelace's. Now it is yours. Soon it will be Simon Lovelace's again. Take it and enjoy the consequences.

Check out that one at the end. He's taken the form of a footstool. Weird ... but somehow I like his style."
"That is a footstool.

I'ts how I want to remember him, the way he was that night: with horrors up ahead and horrors at our back, and Lockwood standing in between them, calm and unafraid.

Hippo in a skirt: this was a comic reference to one of Solomon's principal wives, the one from Moab. Childish? Yes. But in the days before printing we had limited opportunities for satire.

Me, I was still in the pygmy hippo in a skirt, singing lusty songs about Solomon's private life and a giant stone back and forth through the air as I climbed out of the quarry at the edge of the site.

Lockwood gave a sudden exclamation; when I looked at him, his eyes were shining. 'On second thoughts, we can scrap my last suggestion,' he said. 'Stuff the mingling. Who wants to do that? Boring. George - this library. Where is it?

We trespassed in the city of the dead, and all our skills and talents counted for nothing.

Mr Lockwood, you've impressed a lot of people over the years. Personally, I expected you to be ghost-touched long ago, but your agency has flourished. Impress me again now... Let them forget about you... Even now, it's probably not too late. - Inspector Barnes

Let's have the baddish one first,' George said. 'I prefer my misery to come at me in stages, so I can acclimatize on the way.

I like using traditional beliefs in my fantasies, even though I always end up warping them to suit my purpose: it somehow makes everything feel more 'solid' if it's got a long history behind it.

Strong characters of their sort tend to gravitate together. Pride has a part to play in it, and other emotions too. Neither wishes to fail; each redoubles their effort to impress. Things get done - but not always the right things or not always the things expected. and there's not much you can do to stop it.

He was transfixed at the sight of the lords and ladies of his realm running about like demented chickens.

Ooh, I smell something burning... Wait, wait - it's your pants ! Your pants are on fire, you massive liar ! You so weren't on a case !

Really?"
"No. I'm being ironic. Or is it sarcastic? I can never remember."
"Irony's cleverer, so you're probably being sarcastic.

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Has anyone got any bandages? I've just split my sides laughing.

Because you're unique . You shine like a beacon, attracting the attention of all dark things." It chuckled. "Why do you think I'm chatting with you?

Well, I make that one murder victim, one police interrogation and one conversation with a ghost," George said. "Now that's what I call a busy evening."
Lockwood nodded. "To think some people just watch television.

I am Bartimaeus! I am Sakhr al-Jinni, N'gorso the Mighty, and the Serpent of Silver Plumes! I have rebuilt the walls of Uruk, Karnak, and Prague. I have spoken with Solomon. I have run with the buffalo fathers of the plains. I have watched over Old Zimbabwe till the stones fell and the jackals fed on its people. I am Bartimaeus!

When I set out from the boy's attic window, my head was so full of competing plans and complex stratagems that I didn't look where I was going and flew straight into a chimney.
Something symbolic in that. It's what fake freedom does for you.

cannon used. The night of the grand festivity

Those statues were exquisitely carved, without exception; that was what the Egyptians were really good at, along with organized religion and civil engineering.

I thought I told you to stop doing that," he snapped.
A thin-lipped mouth opened; the jutting chin and nose knocked together indignantly. "Do what?"
"Taking on such a hideous appearance. I've just had my breakfast."
A section of brow lifted, allowing an eyeball to roll forward with a squelching sound.The face looked
unapologetic."Sorry, mate," it said. "It's just my job."
"Your job is to destroy anyone entering my study without authority. No more, no less."
The door guard considered. "True. But I seek to preempt entry by scaring trespassers away. To my way
of thinking, deterrence is more aesthetically satisfying than punishment."
Mr. Mandrake snorted. "Trespassers apart, you'll likely frighten Ms. Piper here to death."
The face shook from side to side, a process that caused the nose to wobble alarmingly. "Not so. When
she comes alone, I moderate my features. I reserve the full horror for those I consider morally vicious."
"But you just looked that way to me!"
"The contradiction being...?

It was a time of beginnings and a time of endings.

Of the first few hauntings I investigated with Lockwood & Co. I intend to say little, in part to protect the identity of the victims, in part because of the gruesome nature of the incidents, but mainly because, in a variety of ingenious ways, we succeeded in messing them all up.

God rest her soul and may she never walk at night

Their first stop, naturally, was the library, and here, by whirling flashlight beam, Fairfax's body was located. He lay facedown on the rug in the center of the room, with his eyes wide open and his arms outstretched as if in supplication. The medics had the adrenaline needles ready, but they didn't try to use them. It was already much too late. Fairfax had suffered first-degree ghost-touch, and it had left him swollen, blue, and dead. Immediate readings were carried out in the vicinity of the locket and all around the room, but everything came up negative. The spirit of Annie Ward - having been reunited with her killer - was nowhere to be found.

Despite his crimped shirts and flowing mane (or perhaps because of them) I had seen no evidence as yet that Nathaniel even knew what a girl was. If he'd ever met one, chances are they'd both have run screaming in opposite directions.

Bartimaeus: "A small piece of advice," I said "it isn't wise to be rude to someone bigger than you, especially when they've just trapped you under a boulder."
Imp: "You can stick your advice up ... "
"This brief pause replaces a short, censored episode, characterized by bad language and some sadly necessary violence. When we pick up the story again, everything is as before, except that I am perspiring slightly and the contrite imp is the model of cooperation."
Bartimaeus: "I'll ask again: who is Rupert Deveraeux?"
Imp: "He's the British Prime Minister, oh Most Bounteous and Merciful one.

I had a chance at him now. Things were a bit more even. He knew my name, I knew his. He had six years' experience, I had five thousand and ten. That was the kind of odds that you could do something with.

Her clarity gave her purpose and her purpose gave her clarity.

Then again, Solomon was human. And that meant he was flawed (Go on, take a look at yourself in the mirror. A good long look, if you can bear it. See? Flawed's putting it mildly, isn't it?)

It's a curious thing with George. With his glasses off, his eyes looked small and weak - blinky and a bit baffled, like an unintelligent sheep that's taken a wrong turn. But when he put them on again, they went all sharp and steely, more like the eyes of an eagle that eats dumb sheep for breakfast.

I read a bit of the Icelandic sagas. They're fascinating in that they are completely ordinary. The farmer will go off into the hills and fight a troll, and then go back and do ordinary things. It's an odd mix of fantasy and reality.

Much has happened since last we met, Bartimaeus," he went on. "Do you remember how we parted?"
"No." I did.
"You set light to me, old friend. Struck a match and left me burning in a copse."
The crow shifted uneasily beneath the cleaver."That's a gesture of endearment in some cultures. Some hug, some kiss, some set each other on fire in small patches of woodland ...

That didn't last long, of course. "Oh Bartimaeus, could you just irrigate the Fertile Cresent?""Could you just divert the Euphrates HERE and HERE?""Look, while you're at it, do you mind just planting a few million wheat seeds up and down the flood plain? Thanks." Didn't even give me a dibble. By the time I got to Ur I wasn't surging with any of that terrible joy, oh no. My back was KILLING me.

It was Nathaniel's boundless capacity for stating the obvious that made him so charmingly human.

We grow up being told about great figures in our society, and as you get older you have to question the stories you've been told and decide if these great figures are indeed as great as you've been told.

Woman, man, mole, maggot – they're all the same, when all's said and done, except for slight variations in cognitive ability.

The object that was pinning me haplessly to the ground, like a butterfly on a collector's tray, was of twentieth-century origin and of very specific function.
Oh, all right, it was a public lavatory.

His face was uniquely slapable - a nun would have ached to punch him - while his backside cried out to heaven for a well-placed kick.

Not bad in short, though the last one [understanding the language of animals], isn't half as useful as you might expect, since when all's said and done the language of the beasts tends to revolve around: a) the endless hunt for food, b) finding a warm bush to sleep in the evening, and c) the sporadic satisfication of certain glands. (Many would argue that the language of human kind boils down to this too)

If she'd repeatedly fallen over while crossing soft ground, you could have sewn a crop of beans in the chin-holes she left behind.

Lockwood sat up awkwardly, adjusting his Bubble-Wrapped loops of chain. 'We're in good shape,' he said. 'We've lost the heavy duty chains and the stuff in the bags, but we've got our rapiers, iron, and silver seals. And we've found what we wanted now.'
I stared at the clean, calm surface of the door. 'Why couldn't it come after us? Ghosts can pass through walls.'
Lockwood shrugged. 'In some cases a Visitor is tied so completely to the room where it met its death that it no longer has any conception of there being any adjacent space at all. So ... when we left its hunting ground, it was as if we ceased to exist, as if we ceased to be ... '
I looked at him. 'You haven't really got a clue, have you?'
'No.

Lockwood didn't speak until everything was quiet again. "I know you're worrying about me, Luce," he said. "But you really mustn't. These things happen when you're an agent. You've been snared by ghosts in the past, haven't you? There was the one that made the bloody footprints, and the thing in the tunnels below the Aickmere Brothers store. But it's fine, because I helped you then, and you've helped me now. We're there to help each other. If we do that, we'll get through." Which was a lovely thing to say, and it made me feel a little warmer. I just had to hope it was true.

Hey, it was his first time. I wanted to scare him

Listen, a goad's anything that provokes or incites an enemy
let me have a go: cursed deamon! you have met your end! the shivering fire awaits you! i shall spread your vile essance across this hall like ... um, like margarine, a very think layer of it ...
ye-es ... im not sure he'll pick up on that analogy. never mind, keep going.

So stop worrying about the past. The past is for ghosts. We've all done things that we regret. It's what's ahead of us that counts.

Ah, you coward! Look at you, running." "Actually, it's called improvising.

And then, as if written by the hand of a bad novelist, an incredible thing happened.

This is what the Problem means," he went on. "This is the effect it has. Lives lost, loved ones taken before their time. And then we hide our dead behind iron walls and leave them to the thorns and ivy. We lose them twice over, Lucy. Death's not the worst of it. We turn our faces away.

Can you define "plan" as "a loose sequence of manifestly inadequate observations and conjectures, held together by panic, indecision, and ignorance"? If so, it was a very good plan.

Long ago I dreamed of being a hero in your company" Halli said Huskily "I'm sorry to say your reality disappoints me

Ah, two firm friends, reunited at last! There should be sweet violin music playing for us, but I'll settle for the screams of the dying.

Nothing could keep me from you. Nothing in life or Death...

But Holly the gun-toting, wild-haired madwoman of the night before was in there somewhere, I knew. It made me look upon her with fond affection.

The door closed; almost imperceptably, the lift began to rise.
'Going up,' the skull said. 'Next floor: cutlery, condiments and underpants.

Watch where you leave your victims! I stubbed my toe on that.

Oh, we'll suffer in silence. You've given us plenty of practice at that.

Probing psychological analysis is one thing: namely impartial observation, liberally spiced with sarcasm and personal abuse - let's face it, I'm good at all that - constructive suggestions, quite another.

But certainly the two best-known tales in the neighborhood - the key hauntings, if you will - concern the Red Room and the Screaming Staircase.'
There was a profound silence, abruptly broken by an enormously loud rumble from George's stomach. Plaster didn't actually fall from the ceiling, but it was close.
'Sorry,' he said cheerfully. 'Famished. I think Ill have another doughnut, if you don't mind. Any takers?

The skull's…spirit? He…he looks different."
The youth scowled. "Yeah? You look just the same. I was banking on frostbite taking a few of your fingers, or even your nose. Here's hoping something else has dropped off that I don't know about. If not, I'll be sorely disappointed."
Lockwood stared. "Does he always talk like this?"
"No. Usually he's worse. See what I have to put up with?

Well,' Lockwood said, "if you judge success by the number of enemies you make, that was a highly successful evening.

This is an interview, not a boxing match.

When I think about my ideal free day, it usually involves going into London and sitting in a nice coffeehouse with cake and coffee, but I would probably still have my notebook in my pocket.

I wanted to wake you straightaway, but I knew I had to wait several hours to ensure you were safely recovered."
"What! How long has it been?"
"Five minutes. I got bored.

The short, fat fingers moved like dancing sausages across the strings;

I rather think he knew anyway.

The bristling eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. Mesmerized, the boy watched them disappear under the hanging thatch of white hair. There, almost coyly, they remained just out of sight for a moment, before suddenly descending with a terrible finality and weight.

A dozen more questions occurred to me. Not to mention twenty-two possible solutions to each one, sixteen resulting hypotheses and counter-theorems, eight abstract speculations, a quadrilateral equation, two axioms, and a limerick. That's raw intelligence for you.

According to some, heroic deaths are admirable things. I've never been convinced by this argument, mainly because, no matter how cool, stylish, composed, unflappable, manly, or defiant you are, at the end of the day you're also dead. Which is a little too permanent for my liking.

I got fairly good grades, but I was bad at woodwork. They said I tried hard, but the result was hopeless.

The stories that bind us, Halli. The stories we live by, that dictate what we do and where we go. The stories that give us our names, our identities, the places we belong, the people we hate.

I was having dark thoughts about waffles.

Death is fugitive; even when you're watching for it, the actual instant somehow slips between your fingers. You don't get that sudden drop of the head you see in movies. Instead you simply sit there, waiting for something to happen, and all at once you realize you've missed it.

You think so?" The boy looked down at his cross-legged form. He was sitting straight-backed, legs folded neatly in the manner of an Egyptian scribe. "It's two thousand, one hundred and twenty-nine years since Ptolemy died," he said. "He was fourteen. Eight world empires have risen up and fallen away since that day, and I still carry his face. Who do you think's the lucky one?

Making tea is a ritual that stops the world from falling in on you.

Strange how close the darkness is, even when things seem brightest. Even in the glare of a summer noon, when the sidewalk bakes and iron fences are hot to the touch, the shadows are still with us. They congregate in doorways and porches, and under bridges, and beneath the brims of gentlemen's hats so you cannot see their eyes. There is darkness in our mouths and ears; in our bags and wallets; within the swing of men's jackets and beneath the flare of women's skirts. We carry it around with us, the dark, and its influence stains us deep.

Well, when you're being held at gunpoint by a geriatric madman in a metal skirt, you've kind of hit rock bottom anyway. It can't really get much worse.

How d'you want me to put it? You waltzed off on a whim and left us to pick up the pieces. Now you suddenly swan back and expect us to carry on where we left off! You can't have it both ways--either we were affected by your departure or we weren't. Which do you prefer?

The important thing about any book is that you have to have a good story and that it has to be exciting. Then it's nice to add other levels underneath that people can pick up on.

There - the chandelier, choked with dust and webs. A single rivulet of red had trickled from the ceiling, down the central column, and out along a curving crystal arm. At its lowest point, a new pendant of blood was slowly building.
'It - it can't do that,' I stammered. 'We're inside the iron.'
'Move out of the way!' Lockwood pushed me back just as the drop fell, spattering on the floor in the center of the circle. We were all standing almost atop the iron chains. 'We've made it too big,' he said. 'The power of the iron doesn't extend into the very center. It's weak there, and this Visitor's strong enough to overcome it.'
'Adjust the chains inward-' George began.
'If we make the circle smaller,' Lockwood said, 'we'll be squeezed in a tiny space. It's scarcely midnight; we've seven hours till dawn and this thing's just gotten started. No, we've got to break out

Hey, we've all got problems, chum. I'm overly talkative. You look like a field of buttercups in a suit.

Zealots: Wild eyed persons afflicted with incurable certainty about the workings of the world, a certainty that can lead to violence when the world doesn't fit.

Pardon me, Highness, a women waits whithout."
"Whithout what?

There was a profound silence, abruptly broken by an enormously loud rumble from George's stomach. Plaster didn't actually fall from the ceiling, but it was close.

One magician demanded I show him an image of the love of his life. I rustled up a mirror.

John Mandrake was an attractive young man, and the scent of power hung about him, sweet and intoxicating, like honeysuckle in the evening air.

Oh, the boots were on the other eight feet now.

In recent weeks it has come to my attention that many caravans have met with disaster; they have not gotten through."
I grunted wisely. "Probably ran out of water. That's the thing about deserts. Dry."
"Indeed. A fascinating analysis. But survivors reaching Hebron report differently: monsters fell upon them in the wastes."
"What, fell upon them in a squashed-them kind of way?"
"More the leaped-out-and-slew-them kind. ( ... )

Did Lovelace's forces find you? Did Jabor break in?"
He spoke slowly through clenched teeth. "I went to get a newspaper"
This is getting better and better! I shook my head regretfully. "You should leave such a dangerous assignment to people better qualified: next time ask an old granny, or a toddler-

What have they done to your poor arm?' - Holly
'Oh, don't worry, it's just a graze.' - Lucy
'I'm talking about the bandages. That's simply the most incompetent bit of first aid I've ever seen. Lockwood, George - how much dressing did you use?

When you go out hunting wicked spirits, it's the simple things that matter most. The silvered point of your rapier flashing in the dark; the iron filings scattered on the floor; the sealed canisters of best Greek Fire, ready as a last resort ...
But tea bags, brown and fresh and plenty of them, and made (for preference) by Pitkin Brothers of Bond Street, are perhaps the simplest and best of all.
OK, they may not save your life like a sword-tip or an iron circle can, and they haven't the protective power of a sudden wall of fire. But they do provide something just as vital. They help keep you sane.

Okay ... ' I hurried on. 'But why me?'
'You're a girl,' Lockwood called. 'Aren't you supposed to be more sensitive?'
'To emotions, yes. To nuances of human behavior. Not necessarily to secret passages in a wall.'
'Oh, it's much the same thing.

Dark Specter** - A frightening variety of Type Two ghost that manifests as a moving patch of darkness. Sometimes the apparition at the center of the darkness is dimly visible; at other times the black cloud is fluid and formless, perhaps shrinking to the size of a pulsing heart, or expanding at speed to engulf a room.

They passed a succession of granite monuments to the conquering magicians of the late Victorian age and the fallen heroes of the Great War, then a few monolithic sculptures representing Ideal Virtues (Patriotism, Respect for Authority, the Dutiful Wife).

Getting that first draft out is a horribly hard grind, but that (perversely) is where the joy of it lies.

Ambition is all very well, my lad, but you must cloak it.

She's her?' - Lucy
'Exactly. Penelope Fittes is Marissa Fittes. They're one and the same person.' - The Skull

So I departed, leaving behind a pungent smell of brimstone. Just something to remember me by.

He turned to face her, his body tingling. She gave a little shudder.
"Did you feel that too?" she asked.
"Yes," he said softly, "but don't talk."
She pushed him away. "It was our sensor webs, you fool. Something's triggered them.