Jonathan Stroud Quotes

64 Sourced Quotes

Spy three suspicious butterflies flitting over hedge. Check the planes. Yep, small foliots, arms flapping wildly. Wasp rises up behind them, shoots down out of sun, zaps them with Infernos, one, two, three. Burning butterflies crash-land in pond. Alert master to my triumph. She inspects charred fragments. Her scowl deepens; turns out they were her slaves, returning with valuable information.

Jonathan Stroud
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.

Jonathan Stroud
Together, we must advance unafraid into the modern age!

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

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

Jonathan Stroud
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.

Jonathan Stroud
The Hermit was known to be pretty sniffy about disciples who returned in failure. There was a wall of the institute layered with their skins- an ingenious display that encouraged vigor in his students, as well as nicely keeping out the drafts.

Jonathan Stroud
Maybe I'd better call a halt to the journal for a bit. Until something crops up, that is, which it hopefully won't for a couple of decades. In the meantime: farewell, enjoy your futile lives, etc. This is Bartimaeus, care of The Other Place, signing off.

Jonathan Stroud
The old pain had started up again, throbbing in my chest, stomach, bones. It wasn't healthy to be encased in a body for so long. How humans can stand it without going completely mad, I'll never know.†

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

Jonathan Stroud
It's the same with spirit guises; show me a sweet little choirboy or a smiling mother and I'll show you the hideous fanged strigoi it really is. (Not always. Just sometimes. *Your* mother is absolutely fine, for instance. Probably.)

Jonathan Stroud
"I order you, Bartimaeus, to reveal whether you have diligently and wholly carried out your charge-"
"Of course I have - what do you think this is, costume jewelry?"

Jonathan Stroud
The magician emerges from bed and we recount our tale. Her response lacks gratitude: stammering furiously, she chides us for the damage to her lawns and flowerbed. The boy is smacked; I am Spasmed; we both spend the day with nail-clippers attending to the damage to the garden.

Jonathan Stroud
Besides, if you're going to die horribly, you might as well do it with style.

Jonathan Stroud
That's usually how they start, the young ones. Meaningless waffle.

Jonathan Stroud
If anyone else asked that question, O He Who Is Terrible and Great, I would have said they were an ignorant fool; in you it is a sign of the disarming simplicity which is the fount of all virtue.

Jonathan Stroud
The darkness cloaking my mind lifted. Instantly, I was as alert as ever, crystal-sharp in all my perceptions, a coiled spring ready to explode into action. It was time to escape!
Except it wasn't.

Jonathan Stroud
"I know you," he said. "I know your scent. Long ago, yes, but I never forget. I know your name."
"A friend of a friend, perhaps?" I eyed his spear-tip nervously. Unlike Eagle-beak, he didn't wave it about at all.
"No... an enemy..."
"Terrible when you can't remember something that's right on the tip of your tongue," I observed. "Isn't it, though? And you try so hard to recall it, but often as not you can't because some fool's interrupting you, prattling away so you can't concentrate, and-"
Bull-head gave a bellow of rage. "Shut up! I almost had it then!"

Jonathan Stroud
Haven't you done enough for a lifetime? Think about it—two power—crazed magicians killed, a hundred power—crazed magicians saved…

Jonathan Stroud
"Take that stupid grin off your face," he said. "You're putting me off."
"Sorry." I adopted a hideous expression of malady and woe.
"That's not much better."

Jonathan Stroud
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.

Jonathan Stroud
"H-he is a messenger for you. H-h-he brings a message."
"You stagger me, Simpkin! A messenger with a message! Extraordinary."

Jonathan Stroud
"I'm Martha. And you are...?"
A small snuffle, a smaller voice. "Nathaniel."

Jonathan Stroud
Julius Tallow was a fool. He appeared complacent, but like a weak swimmer out of his depth, his legs were kicking frantically under the surface, trying to keep him afloat. Whatever happened, Nathaniel did not intend to sink with him.

Jonathan Stroud
That did it. I'd gone through a lot in the past few days. Everyone I met seemed to want a piece of me: djinn, magicians, humans...it made no difference.I'd been summoned, manhandled, shot at, captured, constricted, bossed about and generally taken for granted. And now, to cap it all, this bloke is joining in too, when all I'd been doing was quietly trying to kill him.

Jonathan Stroud
No magical alarm sounded, though I did hit my head five times on a pebble†.

Jonathan Stroud
Minor magicians take pains to fit this traditional wizardly bill. By contrast, the really powerful magicians take pleasure in looking like accountants.

Jonathan Stroud
What was it that drew you back? My marvellous personality, I suppose? Or my sparkling conversation?

Jonathan Stroud
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.

Jonathan Stroud
Listen," I began, "this is an established, traditional form that-" "Traditional nothing.Where are your clothes?" "Clothes?" I said weakly. "I don't normally bother with them in this guise." "Well, you could put on a pair of shorts, at least.Your not decent." "I'm not sure they'd go with the wings..." The demon frowend, and blinked."Hold on, enough of this." "Lenderhosen would. They'd compliment the leather.

Jonathan Stroud