A.Rae > A.Rae's Quotes

“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

“A dozen more questions occurred 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, Ptolemy's Gate

“The mercenary finished his coffee in a single gulp, It must have been piping hot, too. Boy, he was tough.”
― Jonathan Stroud, Ptolemy's Gate

“A typical master. Right to the end, he didn’t give me a chance to get a word in edgeways. Which is a pity, because at that last moment I’d have liked to tell him what I thought of him. Mind you, since in that split second we were, to all intents and purposes, one and the same, I rather think he knew anyway.”
― Jonathan Stroud, Ptolemy's Gate

“Much has happened since last we met, Bartimaeus," he went on. "Do you remember how we parted?"
"No." I did.
"You set light to me, old friend. Struck a match and left me burning in a copse."
The crow shifted uneasily beneath the cleaver."That's a gesture of endearment in some cultures. Some hug, some kiss, some set each other on fire in small patches of woodland...”
― Jonathan Stroud, Ptolemy's Gate

“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, Ptolemy's Gate

“The Hermit was known to be pretty sniffy about disciples who returned in failure. There was a wall of the institute layered with their skins- an ingenious display that encouraged vigor in his students, as well as nicely keeping out the drafts.”
― Jonathan Stroud, Ptolemy's Gate

“Pardon me, Highness, a women waits whithout."
"Whithout what?”
― Jonathan Stroud, Ptolemy's Gate

“I thought I told you to stop doing that," he snapped.
A thin-lipped mouth opened; the jutting chin and nose knocked together indignantly. "Do what?"
"Taking on such a hideous appearance. I've just had my breakfast."
A section of brow lifted, allowing an eyeball to roll forward with a squelching sound.The face looked
unapologetic."Sorry, mate," it said. "It's just my job."
"Your job is to destroy anyone entering my study without authority. No more, no less."
The door guard considered. "True. But I seek to preempt entry by scaring trespassers away. To my way
of thinking, deterrence is more aesthetically satisfying than punishment."
Mr. Mandrake snorted. "Trespassers apart, you'll likely frighten Ms. Piper here to death."
The face shook from side to side, a process that caused the nose to wobble alarmingly. "Not so. When
she comes alone, I moderate my features. I reserve the full horror for those I consider morally vicious."
"But you just looked that way to me!"
"The contradiction being...?”
― Jonathan Stroud, Ptolemy's Gate

“listen, a goad's anything that provokes or incites an enemy
---
let me have a go: cursed deamon! you have met your end! the shivering fire awaits you! i shall spread your vile essance across this hall like... um, like margarine, a very think layer of it...
---
ye-es... im not sure he'll pick up on that analogy. never mind, keep going.”
― Jonathan Stroud, Ptolemy's Gate

“Fifty years isn’t too bad. With luck you might see it happen when you’re a sweet, old granny, dandling big fat babies on your knee. Actually”—he held up a hand, interrupting Kitty’s cry of protest—“no, that’s wrong. My projection is incorrect.”
“Good.”
“You’ll never be a sweet old granny. Let’s say, ‘sad, lonely old biddy’ instead.”
― Jonathan Stroud, Ptolemy's Gate

“Listen,” I began, “this is an established, traditional form that—”
“Traditional nothing. Where are your clothes?”
“Clothes?” I said weakly. “I don’t normally bother with them in this guise.”
“Well, you could put on a pair of shorts, at least. You’re not decent.”
“I’m not sure they’d go with the wings….” The demon frowned, blinked. “Hold on, enough of this!”
“Lederhosen would. They’d compliment the leather.”
― Jonathan Stroud, Ptolemy's Gate

“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.”
― Groucho Marx, The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“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

“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, The Golem's Eye

“I wanted to wake you straightaway, but I knew I had to wait several hours to ensure you were safely recovered."
"What! How long has it been?"
"Five minutes. I got bored.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Golem's Eye

“Okay...' I hurried on. 'But why me?'
'You're a girl,' Lockwood called. 'Aren't you supposed to be more sensitive?'
'To emotions, yes. To nuances of human behavior. Not necessarily to secret passages in a wall.'
'Oh, it's much the same thing.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Screaming Staircase

“Lockwood sat up awkwardly, adjusting his Bubble-Wrapped loops of chain. 'We're in good shape,' he said. 'We've lost the heavy duty chains and the stuff in the bags, but we've got our rapiers, iron, and silver seals. And we've found what we wanted now.'
I stared at the clean, calm surface of the door. 'Why couldn't it come after us? Ghosts can pass through walls.'
Lockwood shrugged. 'In some cases a Visitor is tied so completely to the room where it met its death that it no longer has any conception of there being any adjacent space at all. So...when we left its hunting ground, it was as if we ceased to exist, as if we ceased to be....'
I looked at him. 'You haven't really got a clue, have you?'
'No.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Screaming Staircase

“Well, I make that one murder victim, one police interrogation and one conversation with a ghost,” George said. “Now that’s what I call a busy evening.”
Lockwood nodded. “To think some people just watch television.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Whispering Skull

“Really?"
"No. I'm being ironic. Or is it sarcastic? I can never remember."
"Irony's cleverer, so you're probably being sarcastic.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Screaming Staircase

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“Sometimes the truth has difficulty breaching the city walls of our beliefs. A lie, dressed in the correct livery, passes through more easily.”
― Rachel Hartman

“I cannot perch among those who think that I am broken.”
― Rachel Hartman, Seraphina

“Love is not a disease...I cannot let them cut you out of me, nor her either. I will cling to my sickness, if it is a sickness. I will hold it close to me like the sun.”
― Rachel Hartman, Seraphina

“Once I had feared that telling the truth would be like falling, that love would be like hitting the ground, but here I was, my feet firmly planted, standing on my own.”
― Rachel Hartman, Seraphina

“It is permissible to be the god of your own metaphors.”
― Rachel Hartman, Shadow Scale

“Haven't you always been more than yourself? Haven't we all? We are none of us just one thing.”
― Rachel Hartman, Shadow Scale

“Relius looked away. "He said that you...cried," he said softly.
"But not that he cried as well," said the queen, amused at the memory. "We were very lachrymose... would you like to hear more romance of the evening? He told me the Guard should be reduced by half, and I threw an ink jar at his head."
"Is that when he cried?"
"He ducked," said Attolia dryly.
"I had not pictured you for a fishwife."
"Lo, the transforming power of love.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia