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

Dave: "You're not our leader."
Lucy: "No, but I know what I'm doing, which is a nice alternative."

Lockwood: "Never touch a mummified body part if you don't know where it's been. That's my motto."
George: "Holds true with unmummified ones too. That's the motto I live by."

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.

It was Nathaniel's boundless capacity for stating the obvious that made him so charmingly human.

"Really?"
"No. I'm being ironic. Or is it sarcastic? I can never remember."
"Irony's cleverer, so you're probably being sarcastic."

It was a time of beginnings and a time of endings.

Stop worrying about the past. The past is for ghosts. We've all done things that we regret. It's what's ahead of us that counts.

"I warn you," the boy went on. "I am a magician of great power. I control many terrifying entities. This being you see before you" - here I rolled my shoulders back and puffed my chest up menacingly - "is but the meanest and least impressive of my slaves." (Here I slumped my shoulders and stuck my stomach out.)

Making tea is a ritual that stops the world from falling in on you.

I wasn't pretty, but as my mother once said, prettiness wasn't my profession.

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

In my eyes, refusing cake is an immoral act.

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

I don't know how old the man was... but he was definitely closer to coffin than crib.

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.

Ambition is all very well, my lad, but you must cloak it.

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.

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.

And then, as if written by the hand of a bad novelist, an incredible thing happened.

To my astonishment I saw him standing at a table with Kitty Jones. It was the Kitty Jones bit that was astonishing. Not the table. Though it was very nicely polished.

"Is it just me," Kipps said, "or does that boy need punching?"
"It's not just you."

"Have you a name?"
"A name?" I cried. "I have MANY names! I am Bartimaeus! I am Sakhr al-Jinni! I am N'gorso the Mighty and the Serpent of Silver Plumes!"
I paused dramatically. The young man looked blank. "Nope never heard of you. Now if you'll just-"

"Looks?" the skull said. "Who cares about that? It's superficial. Outward appearance doesn't interest me at all. Why do you think I hang around with you?" It chuckled. "Insult aside, that's just one way in which I'm superior to every one of you, except for Cubbins."

"It wasn't the body," he said. "I've seen worse things in our fridge."

Hey, we've all got problems, chum. I'm overly talkative. You look like a field of buttercups in a suit.

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

"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."

"Plan F, we follow Plan F, right now."
"Is that the one where we run away?"
"Not at all. It's the one where we beat a dignified emergency retreat."

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.

Burned and squashed to death in a silver vat of soup. There must be worse ways to go. But not many.

Nothing could keep me from you. Nothing in life or Death...

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.

At Lockwood & Co., George was famous for not being able to throw or catch with any accuracy. Back in the kitchen at Portland Row, even the casual passing out of fruit or bags of chips became an exercise fraught with danger.

It was higher and shriller than Holly's, so we knew that it was Kipps.

I had a chance at him now. Things were a bit more even. He knew my name, I knew his. He had six years' experience, I had five thousand and ten. That was the kind of odds that you could do something with.

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.

What, are you queuing now? Just how British are you people? Don't just stand in line! Kill somebody!

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.

Let's have the baddish one first,' George said. 'I prefer my misery to come at me in stages, so I can acclimatize on the way.

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

"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."

A warm feeling filled me. It was made of tea and biscuits and sudden gratitude.

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

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!

Ignoring the whispers of the skull, which kept suggesting different, unlikely kitchen utensils that could be used for murder, I sketched out a map of the room.

Ah, two firm friends, reunited at last! There should be sweet violin music playing for us, but I'll settle for the screams of the dying.

Death is fugitive; even when you're watching for it, the actual instant somehow slips between your fingers. You don't get that sudden drop of the head you see in movies. Instead you simply sit there, waiting for something to happen, and all at once you realize you've missed it.

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.

It's a commonly known fact that while cats can't stand ghosts, spiders love them.