"Everything stopped: forks half raised, a bowl being passed. It seemed that the man was bathed in red, great swaths of it across his shirt and hands. And then Thomas realized: he was covered in blood."

"I don't think he's touched a washcloth to his face since the day he was born."

"Bird. A good name for her. She wasn't a sparrow or a songbird, though. She stood so straight, and her face was strong."

"And the boy was right in back of her, his neck thin as a pencil. "My name is Thomas," he said. "Thomas Neary." She didn't answer. "The horse's name is Alfred, in case you want to know." He screwed up his face. "Or maybe Fernando.""

"Is there anyone noisier in the world than Bird Mallon?"

""A new start," Pop said as they stopped at the corner and waited to cross over to where te horse and cart waited for them. "A new apartment, Thomas. A new life." A new world to write about."

"But that was a realworld, and he didn't have to put it down on paper. He ripped the page out of the book, tore it into shreds, and threw them behind the tree, where they settled into the weeds."

"Thomas watched him for a few minutes. Pop was good-looking, muscular, and his hair was almost gold even though it was getting a little thin on top. Thomas must have taken after his mother, whoever she was."

"If only she could have held on to that day, held on to that moment forever, grasped it in her fists so it wouldn't escape. If only."

"With just the sweep of a pen, Thomas, you can change the world, all of it."

"'What's it really like to always be the prettiest person in a room? Dos it mean you're always acting as if in a play, because no one stops looking at you?'"

"'Probably. That doesn't make you into one.'"

"'Are they trained to treat everyone as a servant?'"

"'That's not good, that's triumph.'"

"'What if feeling good only comes after you destroy someone you hate?'"

"When in doubt, be ridiculous."

"Finally someone takes me seriously enough to ask for my word of honor, and it’s a villain."

"War is a convenient fix for government problems if it happens somewhere else. To other people."

"I am old, but the word to me means familiar, comfortable. Accustomed after long and venerable use. Not dilapidated and useless."

"It is a shame when we must regard a people as an enemy. It is a shame and a regret when the two peoples share so much. And it is a shame, a regret, and a tragedy when those peoples meet as individuals and find much to admire."

"He’d spent his entire exile schooling himself to face that he would never get what he wanted. People didn’t, sometimes. So you made a life as best you could."

"Angry men with pointy things sent to secure a foreign city are pretty much alike anywhere. That's what I've heard. So far nothing's convinced me different."

"Choose the duty that you can most effectively execute: that is, finally, all we can do in life."

"What might have happened to them to make them the way they were? It did not change what they now did, but it changed, profoundly, how he perceived their motivations, their place in the world."

"Judging the actions of the many by those of the one is both human and dangerous."

"Nothing is "always," my dear. Except the greater truths, one of which is that power begets politics, and politics are more dangerous than war because there are fewer rules."

"I've been working hard at assuming Court polish, but the more I learn about what really goes on behind the pretty voices and waving fans and graceful bows, the more I comprehend that what is really said matters little, so long as the manner in which it is said pleases. I understand it, but I don't like it. Were I truly influential, then I would halt this foolishness that decrees that in Court one cannot be sick; that to admit you are sick is really to admit to political or social or romantic defeat; that to admit to any emotions usually means one really feels the opposite. It is a terrible kind of falsehood that people can only claim feelings as a kind of social weapon."

"I realized that despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt."

"If your opponent is better armed and has longer reach, then surprise is your only ally. And then you'd better hope he's half asleep."

"If more people recognized the difference between friendship and mere attraction, and how love must partake of both to prosper, I expect there'd be more happy people."

"It would have been funny if I had been an observer and not a participant, an idea that gave me a disconcerting insight into gossip. As I talked beside the silent Tamara, I realized that despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt."

"'It desolates me to disappoint you, but your brother is not here. Despite two really praiseworthy attempts at rescue.'"

"Who in the universe halts when the enemy tells them to?"

"Memory warps time, as it does the sights and sounds and smells of reality; for what shapes it is emotion, which can twist what seems clear, just as the surface of a pond seems to bend the stick thrust into the water."

"She just took off running to the old Perkins place. He couldn't help turning to watch. She ran as though it was her nature. It reminded him of the flight of wild ducks in the autumn. So smooth. The word "beautiful" came to his mind, but he shook it away and hurried up to his house."

"(Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?) Katherine Paterson’s books — which were almost traumatizing to me as a kid, but which I appreciate now for challenging me and my worldview."

"Trotter its all wrong. Nothing turned out the way it was supposed to." "How do you mean supposed to? Life ain't supposed to be nothing, 'cept maybe tough." [..] "If life is so bad, how come you're so happy?" "Did I say bad? I said it was tough. Nothing to make you happy like doing good on a tough job, now is there?"

"If there was anything her short life had taught her, it was that a person must be tough. Otherwise, you were had."

"Lord, it would be better to be born without an arm than to go through life with no guts."

""Why don't we change our clothes and watch TV or something over at your house?" He felt like hugging her. "I'll make us some coffee," he said joyfully. "Yuk," she said smiling and began to run for the old Perkins place, that beautiful, graceful run of hers that neither mud nor water could defeat."

"Even a prince may be a fool"

"He was angry, too, because it would soon be Christmas and he had nothing to give Leslie. It was not that she would expect something expensive; it was that he needed to give her something as much as he needed to eat when he was hungry. [...] She wouldn't laugh at him no matter what he gave her. But for his own sake he had to give her something he could be proud of."

"When Leslie spoke, the words rolled out so regally, you knew she was a proper queen. He could hardly manage English, much less the poetic language of a king."

"He felt there in the teachers' room that it was the beginning of a new season in his life, and he chose deliberately to make it so. He did not have to make any announcement to Leslie that he had changed his mind about her. She already knew it."

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

"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 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."

"Perhaps he'd want me to conjure up an illusion. That might be fun: there was bound to be a way of misinterpreting his request and upsetting him†."

"[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."