Quotes from Jonathan Stroud

Okay, well, if you do want to come with me, Luce, I'll be in the hall." He went to the door, paused, and grinned back at me. "And don't forget to sign the statement!" With that, he was pattering down the stairs.

The caretaker was certainly very ancient, a tight and desiccated thing from which all softness and moisture had long since been extracted.

This is an interview, not a boxing match.

Holly was staring at me. "Who were you talking to just then?" "No one! You!" "I don't believe you." "Look, does it really matter right now?" "If we're going to be working together, Lucy...." "Oh, hell! All right! I'll tell you! It's an evil haunted skull that lives in my backpack! Happy, now?

Time snapped back into one piece. I was wholly in the present, alert and questioning.

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?

cannon used. The night of the grand festivity

Yes, all the inhabitants of the store had left. But that didn't mean we were alone.

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

The boy was silent as we went. Unsurprising, this—he had seldom left London in his life before. I guessed him to be gazing about in dumbstruck admiration. "What an appalling place," he [Nathaniel] said. - Bartimaeus

Ich für meinen Teil denke während einer Verfolgungsjagd gern nach. Keiner stört einen, man ist allein und all die Problemchen werden bedeutungslos. Das wichtigste Thema heißt natürlich: "Wie bleibe ich am Leben?", aber auch andere Dinge sieht man in neuem Licht, was zu ganz neuen und manchmal überraschenden Erkenntnissen führt.

I was making for 35 Portland Row.

There's nothing like imminent disaster for putting an end to bickering

Someone at Portland Row really missed you, you know... Me. - Holly

Strange how sometimes you make a particular choice. When it's not a specific thought or line of argument that decides you, but more a set of jumbled sensations that changes your mind

The echoes had faded, and now the eager silence of the house rose to enfold us like the waters of a well.

This city,' said George, 'is going to hell in a handcart.

It's everywhere. It's right on top of us. It coils around us like a snake. We're all inside it. It's already swallowed us whole.

Do you remember," George went on, "what we found in the tunnels beneath Aickmere's? Aside from a massive pile of human bones." "I found

What was it about Albert? He seemed to live almost entirely in the present, able to cut himself off from the unpleasantness of the past and the perils of even the most imminent future. Sure, it kept him in more or less constant danger of death, but it was not the least of his talents. Scarlett, on whom certain aspects of the past weighed heavily, found that she envied it greatly.

that's what being a supervisor is: it's a life of sending others out to fight and die. I've known that for a while, but it took you to make me realize I couldn't bear to continue with it. I couldn't stay at Fittes Agency. I'd rather do something else.

En pleine bagarre, vous vous en tenez au strict nécessaire, à savoir étriper l'adversaire en faisant en sorte que ce dernier ne vous arrache pas les bras pour vous assommer avec.

I was simply happy to have the chance to be with them again.

Lucy,' Lockwood said, 'the last time I saw body language like yours was when we were chatting to Martine Grey about her missing husband, and afterwards found him at the bottom of her freezer.