222 Quotes by Jonathan Stroud

When I write something that would have made me laugh as a 10-year-old, or would have scared me or would have excited me, I know I’m onto something.

But Holly the gun-toting, wild-haired madwoman of the night before was in there somewhere, I knew. It made me look upon her with fond affection.

This was how you did it. This was how your spirit stayed strong. This was how you looked death in the eye and defied it.

The stories that bind us, Halli. The stories we live by, that dictate what we do and where we go. The stories that give us our names, our identities, the places we belong, the people we hate.

This is the way it was with Lockwood, his shifts were sometimes so sudden that they took your breath away. But his energy and enthusiasm were always impossible to resist.

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.

Mum’s dead.” “I’m sorry,” Lockwood said. A shrug of bony shoulders. “The good news is, she hasn’t risen again. So far.” There was a silence. “Try the cake,” George said. “It’s good.

Peace and quiet. That’s one thing to be said for deserts. They give you a chance to get away from the everyday pressures of life. And when those everyday pressures consist of seven furious djinn and one apperplectic master magician, a few hindered thousand square miles of sand, rock, wind, and desolation is exactly what you need.

Death is fugitive; even when you’re watching for it, the actual instant somehow slips between your fingers. You don’t get that sudden drop of the head you see in movies. Instead you simply sit there, waiting for something to happen, and all at once you realize you’ve missed it.