Top 180 Jonathan Stroud Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 4 of 4

151. “Mr Lockwood,′ he said slowly. ‘It’s like the end of the world.”

— Jonathan Stroud

152. “We all laughed, but it wasn’t really a room for laughter. Nor for tears, oddly, or for anger, or for any emotion other than a sort of solemnity. It was the place of absence; we were in the presence of something that had left. It was like coming to a valley where someone had once shouted, loud and joyously, and the echo of that shout had resonated between the hills and lasted a long time. But now it had vanished, and you stood on the same spot, and it was not the same.”

— Jonathan Stroud

153. “At last, he was being decisive once again. Playing for the highest stakes, shrugging off the inertia of the last few years. He felt almost as he had done as a child, thrilling in the audacity of his actions. That was how it had often been before politics and the stultifying role of John Mandrake had closed in on him. And he no longer wished to play that part.”

— Jonathan Stroud

154. “He smiled at us; we smiled at him. Three crocodiles on a muddy shore could not have smiled at each other more eloquently or with such gleaming teeth.”

— Jonathan Stroud

155. “So she was well proportioned. So her hair was all glossy. So she looked as if her lips had never been the wrong side of a second doughnut in her life. What was any of that to me?”

— Jonathan Stroud

156. “He slouched, he slumped, he scuffed his way about the house like something soft about to melt.”

— Jonathan Stroud

157. “Despite myself, of course, I also couldn’t help being flattered by Lockwood’s words of praise.”

— Jonathan Stroud

158. “It was as if all the light and love it had gathered in the past was shining out on me.”

— Jonathan Stroud

159. “I was simply happy to have the chance to be with them again.”

— Jonathan Stroud

160. “He prided himself on blunt speaking. Mind you, he did have a weakness for boasting. If you believed all his stories, you’d have thought him responsible for most of the world’s major landmarks as well as being advisor and confidant to all the notable magicians. This, as I once remarked to Solomon, was a quite ridiculous claim.”

— Jonathan Stroud

161. “What I mean is, we’re not necessarily going to run into trouble here. Despite its history of violent death.”

— Jonathan Stroud

162. “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. Besides, flailing about with rapiers is basically all George and I are good at.”

— Jonathan Stroud

163. “Piano player’s gone,” Scarlett said. “That’s always a bad sign.”

— Jonathan Stroud

164. “He had a very slender face, with a long nose and a dark mop of unruly hair.”

— Jonathan Stroud

165. “What kind of life was it, to sit dumbly in the dark, in living fear of death? Better to go out and face it, head-on.”

— Jonathan Stroud

166. “The adult supervisors had zero psychic sensitivity and, since they were mortally afraid of going anywhere near an actual Visitor, never ventured far into a haunted zone. Instead, they hung around on the sidelines, being old and useless, and shouting orders that were utterly out of sync with whatever was going on.”

— Jonathan Stroud

167. “Two measly human years to get over the trauma of meeting you. Sure, I knew some idiot with a pointy hat would one day call me up again, but I hardly thought it would be the same idiot as last time.”

— Jonathan Stroud

168. “A window to the Other Side.”

— Jonathan Stroud

169. “This is cozy,” George said. “Nice cologne, Kipps. I’m being genuine there.” “Thanks.”

— Jonathan Stroud

170. “There’s nothing like imminent disaster for putting an end to bickering.”

— Jonathan Stroud

171. “He’d been many things to me, Nathaniel had, most of them indescribable. But he never looked so much of a puppet as he did now. And already it had all gone wrong.”

— Jonathan Stroud

172. “A small plinth sat on the wall between the central windows. On it was a marble bust of a stern, well-fed Victorian-looking man sporting an enormous pair of muttonchop whiskers. I went to take a look.”

— Jonathan Stroud

173. “I’ve got one word for you: egg whisk.”

— Jonathan Stroud

174. “The fact that a humble commoner was more honourable than you’ll ever be is hardly my affair. You do what you like.”

— Jonathan Stroud

175. “You could stuff a cushion with all that hair. I wonder if – ” “Hold it!” I said.”

— Jonathan Stroud

176. “Come off it,’ Lockwood said. ‘You know I’d die for you.”

— Jonathan Stroud

177. “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

178. “It didn’t move. It didn’t have to. I stared at it for thirty seconds, lying frozen in the bed. And I did feel frozen too.”

— Jonathan Stroud

179. “The echoes had faded, and now the eager silence of the house rose to enfold us like the waters of a well.”

— Jonathan Stroud

180. “The rest were rubbish compared to me.”

— Jonathan Stroud

181. “Thank goodness you’re here. He’s been like a plump whirlwind. And there was a most distressing glimpse of pink flesh when he bent down to pick up a paper clip. I’d have feared for my life if I wasn’t already dead.”

— Jonathan Stroud

182. “To be fair, since meeting her that morning she’d treated me with careful attention and respect; but since the same could also be said of a gloved scientist holding a blob of plague bacillus on a glass slide, I didn’t read too much into it.”

— Jonathan Stroud

183. “Lucy, you look delightful,” he said. “George, you’ll have to do. Oh, here’s something for you, Luce. Might go well with that excellent dress.” He took my hand and placed in it a necklace of pretty silver links, with a small diamond suspended as a pendant. It was really very beautiful. “What?” I stared at it. “Where’d you get this?” “Just something I had. I suggest you close your mouth when you wear it-it’s more elegant that way.”

— Jonathan Stroud