Top 15 Jonathan Stroud Quotes

Together, we must advance unafraid into the modern age!

Maybe I'd better call a halt to the journal for a bit. Until something crops up, that is, which it hopefully won't for a couple of decades. In the meantime: farewell, enjoy your futile lives, etc. This is Bartimaeus, care of The Other Place, signing off.

The boy shrugged. "I've forgotten it," was all he said. And then, "I guess I wasn't taught well enough."

The boy did the preliminaries, sealing the circles, erecting the bonds. Now we were all subject to the rules of the summoning. But then he stopped. He did not progress. The woman looked at him furiously. "I've forgotten it," he said.

[T]he magician emerges from bed and we recount our tale. Her response lacks gratitude: stammering furiously, she chides us for the damage to her lawns and flowerbed. The boy is smacked; I am Spasmed; we both spend the day with nail-clippers attending to the damage to the garden.

Spy three suspicious butterflies flitting over hedge. Check the planes. Yep, small foliots, arms flapping wildly. Wasp rises up behind them, shoots down out of sun, zaps them with Infernos, one, two, three. Burning butterflies crash-land in pond. Alert master to my triumph. She inspects charred fragments. Her scowl deepens; turns out they were her slaves, returning with valuable information.

No attack yet by Archmage. Wish he'd hurry up.

Today summoned painfully to earth by a short fat English magician with a dangerous stammer*.

Wednesday
Yep, same again. Saw a few nice whirling colours and things. That's it. Easy, this journal lark, isn't it?

Monday
In Other Place. Did nothing.

As part of my current charge I have been instructed to provide an occasional journal of my recent activities*.

A better plan would be to head straight for Bart's Guide to London, since that's hugely entertaining and witty, i.e. written by me.

I'm only introducing it because of a small sub-clause in an Official Charge that escaped my notice a year or two back. Unfortunately the author didn't forget. Like elephants, authors are – nothing contractual escapes them.

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

Take that stupid grin off your face," he said. "You're putting me off." "Sorry." I adopted a hideous expression of malady and woe. "That's not much better.