Quotes from 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.

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.

It wasn't the body," he said. "I've seen worse things in our fridge.

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.

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)

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.

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

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. (...)

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.)

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

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.

What is a gathering without unseemly drunkenness?

Fifty years isn't too bad. With luck you might see it happen when you're a sweet, old granny, dandling big fat babies on your knee. Actually"—he held up a hand, interrupting Kitty's cry of protest—"no, that's wrong. My projection is incorrect." "Good." "You'll never be a sweet old granny. Let's say, 'sad, lonely old biddy' instead.

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

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?

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.

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.

God rest her soul and may she never walk at night

I rather think he knew anyway.

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.

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.

A word of friendly advice could have saved him, but dear me, I was too busy watching him unravel to think of it until it was far too late.

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.

Never touch a mummified body part if you don't know where it's been. That's my motto." [- Lockwood] "Holds true with unmummified ones too," George said. "That's the motto I live by.