Top 160 Jonathan Stroud Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “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.”

— Jonathan Stroud

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

— Jonathan Stroud

53. “Then I realized he was still holding my hand.”

— Jonathan Stroud

54. “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

55. “It was Nathaniel’s boundless capacity for stating the obvious that made him so charmingly human.”

— Jonathan Stroud

56. “So I departed, leaving behind a pungent smell of brimstone. Just something to remember me by.”

— Jonathan Stroud

57. “What, are you queuing now? Just how British are you people? Don’t just stand in line! Kill somebody!”

— Jonathan Stroud

58. “This was classic Lockwood. Friendly, considerate, empathetic. My personal impulse would have been to slap the girl soundly around the face and boot her moaning backside out into the night. Which is why he’s the leader, and I’m not. Also why I have no female friends.”

— Jonathan Stroud

59. “We grow up being told about great figures in our society, and as you get older you have to question the stories you’ve been told and decide if these great figures are indeed as great as you’ve been told.”

— Jonathan Stroud

60. “Me, I was still in the pygmy hippo in a skirt, singing lusty songs about Solomon’s private life and a giant stone back and forth through the air as I climbed out of the quarry at the edge of the site.”

— Jonathan Stroud

61. “Here we go,” the Skull sighed. “Cue crisis!”

— Jonathan Stroud

62. “At last! Am I glad to see you! Right, stab this guy quickly, and let’s be going.”

— Jonathan Stroud

63. “You speak with eerie calm, but your face promises violence. I feel a little frightened.”

— Jonathan Stroud

64. “It was one of those moments when a great Don’t Care wave hits you, and you float off on it, head back, looking at the sky.”

— Jonathan Stroud

65. “When I was young, I kept a diary for about 10 years and I had to write in it every day. Even on days when nothing seemed to happen, I made myself think of something to put in it.”

— Jonathan Stroud

66. “Well,′ Lockwood said, “if you judge success by the number of enemies you make, that was a highly successful evening.”

— Jonathan Stroud

67. “In my youth, I was always one for the dramatic entrance. Now, in keeping with my character, I gravitate more toward the subtle and refined. Okay, with the occasional feathered serpent thrown in.”

— Jonathan Stroud

68. “Mr Lockwood, you’ve impressed a lot of people over the years. Personally, I expected you to be ghost-touched long ago, but your agency has flourished. Impress me again now... Let them forget about you... Even now, it’s probably not too late. – Inspector Barnes.”

— Jonathan Stroud

69. “This is an interview, not a boxing match.”

— Jonathan Stroud

70. “In the meantime,” he said, “There are ghosts to foil and lives to save. But right now, it’s a lovely evening and I’m going for a stroll. That was the other thing I’d wanted, to see if you’ll come with me?”

— Jonathan Stroud

71. “The important thing about any book is that you have to have a good story and that it has to be exciting. Then it’s nice to add other levels underneath that people can pick up on.”

— Jonathan Stroud

72. “That’s just it. I’m the first. And if my venture goes well, and I return to record it, many others will follow after me. There will be a new era between djinn and men. I’ve made some of the notes already, Rekhyt-my book will take pride of place in every library on the Earth. I won’t be there to see it-but who knows, perhaps you will.”

— Jonathan Stroud

73. “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.”

— Jonathan Stroud

74. “Has anyone got any bandages? I’ve just split my sides laughing.”

— Jonathan Stroud

75. “I’m sorry, Miraculous One, it’s difficult to think of new titles for you when you ask short questions.”

— Jonathan Stroud

76. “Whatever the cost, as long as you’re in my company, be sure I’ll always be there for you.”

— Jonathan Stroud

77. “I wasn’t pretty, but as my mother once said, prettiness wasn’t my profession.”

— Jonathan Stroud

78. “Minor magicians take pains to fit this traditional wizardly bill. By contrast, the really powerful magicians take pleasure in looking like accountants.”

— Jonathan Stroud

79. “The bristling eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. Mesmerized, the boy watched them disappear under the hanging thatch of white hair. There, almost coyly, they remained just out of sight for a moment, before suddenly descending with a terrible finality and weight.”

— Jonathan Stroud

80. “I’ts how I want to remember him, the way he was that night: with horrors up ahead and horrors at our back, and Lockwood standing in between them, calm and unafraid.”

— Jonathan Stroud

81. “Isn’t it hard to maintain an argument when you can read each other’s mind?”

— Jonathan Stroud

82. “He was transfixed at the sight of the lords and ladies of his realm running about like demented chickens.”

— Jonathan Stroud

83. “Is mindless violence your solution to everything?” The ghost considered. “Pretty much, yeah.”

— Jonathan Stroud

84. “The mercenary finished his coffee in a single gulp, It must have been piping hot, too. Boy, he was tough.”

— Jonathan Stroud

85. “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.”

— Jonathan Stroud

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

— Jonathan Stroud

87. “Who says I’m dying? Did you see the amount of sheer effort it took me to escape the land of the dead? I’m not going back in now!”

— Jonathan Stroud

88. “Most traditional ghost stories feature rather hapless protagonists, who have nasty things happen to them.”

— Jonathan Stroud

89. “If she’d repeatedly fallen over while crossing soft ground, you could have sewn a crop of beans in the chin-holes she left behind.”

— Jonathan Stroud

90. “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.”

— Jonathan Stroud

91. “Someone at Portland Row really missed you, you know... Me. – Holly.”

— Jonathan Stroud

92. “Woman, man, mole, maggot – they’re all the same, when all’s said and done, except for slight variations in cognitive ability.”

— Jonathan Stroud

93. “It’s a commonly known fact that while cats can’t stand ghosts, spiders love them.”

— Jonathan Stroud

94. “You kill, you lie, you rob, you hit old men and steal their boots. I only thank God you draw the line at swearing – it would have been just too dreadful otherwise.”

— Jonathan Stroud

95. “Okay, maybe I’d been a little ratty, but there’s something about rotting corpses leaping at my face that puts me a bit on edge.”

— Jonathan Stroud

96. “And saw a field mouse whistling through the air in a karate attack position, claws out, hind legs foremost – right at him.”

— Jonathan Stroud

97. “Jabor finally appeared at the top of the stairs, sparks of flame radiating from his body and igniting the fabric of the house around him. He caught sight of the boy, reached out his hand and stepped forward. And banged his head nicely on the low-slung attic door.”

— Jonathan Stroud

98. “George had his faraway look, the one that made him look like a constipated owl.”

— Jonathan Stroud

99. “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?”

— Jonathan Stroud

100. “Strong characters of their sort tend to gravitate together. Pride has a part to play in it, and other emotions too. Neither wishes to fail; each redoubles their effort to impress. Things get done – but not always the right things or not always the things expected. and there’s not much you can do to stop it.”

— Jonathan Stroud