Quotes from Jonathan Stroud

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.

George,' I croaked, 'are you okay?' 'No. Someone's buttocks are flattening my foot.' I shifted my position irritably.

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.

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.

There was a loud cough from the man on the stand. I replaced My Magic Mirror carefully on his tray, gave him a cheesy smile, and went my way.

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.

At last! Am I glad to see you! Right, stab this guy quickly, and let's be going.

Is it just me,' Kipps said, 'or does that boy need punching?' 'It's not just you.

At Lockwood & Co., George was famous for not being able to throw or catch with any accuracy. Back in the kitchen at Portland Row, even the casual passing out of fruit or bags of chips became an exercise fraught with danger.

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.

Who says I'm dying? Did you see the amount of sheer effort it took me to escape the land of the dead? I'm not going back in now!

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

You're not our leader,' Dave said. 'No, but I know what I'm doing, which is a nice alternative.' - Lucy

The afrit batted his eyelashes with a ostentatious lack of concern. "Indeed? Have you a name?" "A name?" I cried. "I have MANY names! I am Bartimaeus! I am Sakhr al-Jinni! I am N'gorso the Mighty and the Serpent of Silver Plumes!" I paused dramatically. The young man looked blank. "Nope never heard of you. Now if you'll just-

You shouldn't have done it," I said. "You shouldn't have risked yourself." "Come off it," Lockwood said. "You know I'd die for you." He chuckled. "Heaven knows, I've come near it often enough. Scrambling down a crack in the ground is nothing…

In my eyes, refusing cake is an immoral act.

Our eyes adjusted; we gazed at what was in the room. And then I felt the floor pitch under me, as if we were suddenly at sea. George cleared his throat. I put out my hand to clench his arm. Lockwood stood slightly behind us, waiting. "Your parents?" I was the first to find my voice. "Close," Anthony Lockwood said. "My sister.

I suggest we go into business together. 'Carlyle and Skull,' we'd call it, or possibly 'Skull and Co.' Yes, that's it, with a little picture of me over the door. I can see it now….

Looks?" the skull said. "Who cares about that? It's superficial. Outward appearance doesn't interest me at all. Why do you think I hang around with you?" It chuckled. "Insult aside, that's just one way in which I'm superior to every one of you, except for Cubbins." I blinked. "What? Why? What's George got to do with anything?" "What a person looks like doesn't bother him much, or hadn't you noticed?

I was having dark thoughts about waffles.

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

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.

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

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