Quotes from Jonathan Stroud

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.

Jabor finally appeared at the top of the stairs, sparks of flame radiating from his body and igniting the fabric of the house around him. He caught sight of the boy, reached out his hand and stepped forward. And banged his head nicely on the low-slung attic door.

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...

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

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

The mercenary finished his coffee in a single gulp, It must have been piping hot, too. Boy, he was tough.

I warn you," the boy went on. "I am a magician of great power. I control many terrifying entities. This being you see before you" - here I rolled my shoulders back and puffed my chest up menacingly - "is but the meanest and least impressive of my slaves." (Here I slumped my shoulders and stuck my stomach out.)

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

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.

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.

He was a worried man (I'm stretching the term a bit here, I know. By now, in his mid to late teens, he might just about have passed for a man. When seen from behind. At a distance. On a very dark night).

Plan F, we follow Plan F, right now. - Is that the one where we run away? - Not at all. It's the one where we beat a dignified emergency retreat.

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.

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-

As a child I was really into fantasy books with elves and goblins and swords, and I went through a phase for a few years when I was reading endless series. But in the end I became totally fed-up with all these sub-Tolkien rip-offs because they all end up doing the same old things and there's no rigour to it.

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

As an author, you need to keep talking to your audience to remind yourself what they like and what they don't like. You spend most of your life locked in a room, and you need to be social occasionally.

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.

Most traditional ghost stories feature rather hapless protagonists, who have nasty things happen to them.

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.

I used to have quite long hair, and I decided that I wanted to get it cut. I'd never met the person who did it, and she cut it into some kind of dreadful mullet. It looked like a triangle on my head. The other kids were merciless.

When I was young, I kept a diary for about 10 years and I had to write in it every day. Even on days when nothing seemed to happen, I made myself think of something to put in it.

I had a big fight in my first week in secondary school. There was a kid in the year above who was nasty to me, and we ended up having a scrap. I can remember thinking that there was going to be some serious bloodshed if we didn't stop, so I made a decision to walk away. It was a difficult thing to do, but the most sensible.

I like to have my characters talking in an up-to-date way, and I like their essentially modern self-awareness, which means we can have lots of irony and jokes.