Jonathan Stroud quotes

Jonathan Stroud is a British writer, best known for his fantasy novels for young adults, including the Bartimaeus Sequence. His imaginative storytelling and memorable characters have earned him worldwide recognition. He continues to captivate readers with his inventive plots and engaging prose. Here are 85 of his quotes:

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

Jonathan Stroud

Pardon me, Highness, a women waits whithout." "Whithout what?

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

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

Hey, we've all got problems, chum. I'm overly talkative. You look like a field of buttercups in a suit.

Jonathan Stroud

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

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.

Jonathan Stroud

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.

Jonathan Stroud

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.

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

Wednesday Yep, same again. Saw a few nice whirling colours and things. That's it. Easy, this journal lark, isn't it?

Jonathan Stroud

The boy did the preliminaries, sealing the circles, erecting the bonds. Now we were all subject to the rules of the summoning. But then he stopped. He did not progress. The woman looked at him furiously. "I've forgotten it," he said.

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

In the middle of the lawn was a lake adorned with an ornamental fountain, depicting an amorous Greek god trying to kiss a dolphin.† † Inadvisable.

Jonathan Stroud

No attack yet by Archmage. Wish he'd hurry up.

Jonathan Stroud

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

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

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

Jonathan Stroud

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.

Jonathan Stroud

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).

Jonathan Stroud

Watch where you leave your victims! I stubbed my toe on that.

Jonathan Stroud

I read a bit of the Icelandic sagas. They're fascinating in that they are completely ordinary. The farmer will go off into the hills and fight a troll, and then go back and do ordinary things. It's an odd mix of fantasy and reality.

Jonathan Stroud