"A dozen more questions occured to me. Not to mention twenty-two possible solutions to each one, sixteen resulting hypotheses and counter-theorems, eight abstract speculations, a quadrilateral equation, two axioms, and a limerick. That's raw intelligence for you."
— Jonathan Stroud (The Bartimaeus Trilogy Boxed Set)

"One magician demanded I show him an image of the love of his life. I rustled up a mirror."
— Jonathan Stroud (The Amulet of Samarkand)

"Hey, we've all got problems, chum. I'm overly talkative. You look like a field of buttercups in a suit."
— Jonathan Stroud (The Golem's Eye)

"According to some, heroic deaths are admirable things. I've never been convinced by this argument, mainly because, no matter how cool, stylish, composed, unflappable, manly, or defiant you are, at the end of the day you're also dead. Which is a little too permanent for my liking."
— Jonathan Stroud (Ptolemy's Gate)

"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 (The Golem's Eye)

"Freedom is an illusion. It always comes at a price."
— Jonathan Stroud (The Bartimaeus Trilogy Boxed Set)

"Believe me, I know all about bottle acoustics. I spent much of the sixth century in an old sesame oil jar, corked with wax, bobbing about in the Red Sea. No one heard my hollers. In the end an old fisherman set me free, by which time I was desperate enough to grant him several wishes. I erupted in the form of a smoking giant, did a few lightning bolts, and bent to ask him his desire. Poor old boy had dropped dead of a heart attack. There should be a moral there, but for the life of me I can't see one."
— Jonathan Stroud

"The column hung above the middle of the pentacle, bubbling ever upward against the ceiling like the cloud of an erupting volcanoe. There was a barely perceptible pause. Then two yellow staring eyes materialized in the heart of the smoke.
Hey, it was his first time. I wanted to scare him. And it did, too."
— Jonathan Stroud (The Amulet of Samarkand)

"According to some, heroic deaths are admirable things. (Generally those who don't have to do it. Politicians and writers spring to mind.) I've never been convinced by this argument, mainly because, no matter how cool, stylish, composed, unflappable, manly, or defiant you are, at the end of the day you're also dead. Which is a little too permanent for my liking.
"
— Jonathan Stroud (Ptolemy's Gate)

"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."
— Jonathan Stroud (The Amulet of Samarkand)

"That did it. I'd gone through a lot in the past few days. Everyone I met seemed to want a piece of me: djinn, magicians, humans...it made no difference.I'd been summoned, manhandled, shot at, captured, constricted, bossed about and generally taken for granted. And now, to cap it all, this bloke is joining in too, when all I'd been doing was quietly trying to kill him."
— Jonathan Stroud (The Amulet of Samarkand)

"Watch where you leave your victims! I stubbed my toe on that."
— Jonathan Stroud (The Amulet of Samarkand)

""But I do get afraid. It's just that fear makes me sort of . . . angry and resentful, and I bite back at it. It's hard to describe."

"It isn't hard to describe, you idiot," Aud said. "It's called courage.""
— Jonathan Stroud (Heroes of the Valley)

"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 (The Amulet of Samarkand)

"Minor magicians take pains to fit this traditional wizardly bill. By contrast, the really powerful magicians take pleasure in looking like accountants."
— Jonathan Stroud (The Amulet of Samarkand)

"What is a gathering without unseemly drunkenness?"
— Jonathan Stroud (Heroes of the Valley)

"That's usually how they start, the young ones. Meaningless waffle."
— Jonathan Stroud