“Can you define "plan" as "a loose sequence of manifestly inadequate observations and conjectures, held together by panic, indecision, and ignorance"? If so, it was a very good plan.”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from The Ring of Solomon
“Besides, if you're going to die horribly, you might as well do it with style.”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from The Ring of Solomon
“Then again, Solomon was human. And that meant he was flawed (Go on, take a look at yourself in the mirror. A good long look, if you can bear it. See? Flawed's putting it mildly, isn't it?)”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from The Ring of Solomon
“Hippo in a skirt: this was a comic reference to one of Solomon's principal wives, the one from Moab. Childish? Yes. But in the days before printing we had limited opportunities for satire.”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from The Ring of Solomon
“Not bad in short, though the last one [understanding the language of animals], isn't half as useful as you might expect, since when all's said and done the language of the beasts tends to revolve around: a) the endless hunt for food, b) finding a warm bush to sleep in the evening, and c) the sporadic satisfication of certain glands. (Many would argue that the language of human kind boils down to this too)”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from The Ring of Solomon
“It's the same with spirit guises; show me a sweet little choirboy or a smiling mother and I'll show you the hideous fanged strigoi it really is. (Not always. Just sometimes. *Your* mother is absolutely fine, for instance. Probably.)”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from The Ring of Solomon
“In recent weeks it has come to my attention that many caravans have met with disaster; they have not gotten through."
I grunted wisely. "Probably ran out of water. That's the thing about deserts. Dry."
"Indeed. A fascinating analysis. But survivors reaching Hebron report differently: monsters fell upon them in the wastes."
"What, fell upon them in a squashed-them kind of way?"
"More the leaped-out-and-slew-them kind. (...)”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from The Ring of Solomon
“Her clarity gave her purpose and her purpose gave her clarity.”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from The Ring of Solomon
“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, quote from The Ring of Solomon
“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, quote from The Ring of Solomon
“The Evasive Cartwheel ™ © etc., Bartimaeus of Uruk, circa. 2800 B.C.E. Often imitated, never surpassed. As famously memorialized in the New Kingdom tomb paintings of Ramses III— you can just see me in the background of The Dedication of the Royal Family before Ra, wheeling out of sight behind the pharaoh.”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from The Ring of Solomon
“En pleine bagarre, vous vous en tenez au strict nécessaire, à savoir étriper l’adversaire en faisant en sorte que ce dernier ne vous arrache pas les bras pour vous assommer avec.”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from The Ring of Solomon
“Ich für meinen Teil denke während einer Verfolgungsjagd gern nach. Keiner stört einen, man ist allein und all die Problemchen werden bedeutungslos. Das wichtigste Thema heißt natürlich: "Wie bleibe ich am Leben?", aber auch andere Dinge sieht man in neuem Licht, was zu ganz neuen und manchmal überraschenden Erkenntnissen führt.”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from The Ring of Solomon
“Wenn man schon eines grässlichen Todes sterben muss, sollte man wenigstens einen stilvollen Abgang hinlegen.”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from The Ring of Solomon
Jonathan Stroud
Born place: in Bedford, The United Kingdom
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“If the boy did have a good and loving mother somewhere, surely they would find her.
God only knew how she wanted to believe it. Every single day, she practiced her detachment skills, trying not to care about everything that was wrong with the world. Or rather...to care, but in a suitably civilized manner, with an admirable commitment that might still be set aside when she came home to Morten and her family, complete with well-reasoned and coherent opinions of the humanist persuasion. Right now she felt more like one of those manic women from the animal protection societies, with wild hair and ever wilder eyes. Desperate.”
― Lene Kaaberbøl, quote from The Boy in the Suitcase
“القارىء السيىء يأتي و يطالبني بأن أقشّر من أجله الكتاب الذي كتبته. يجيء إليّ كي يطالبني بأن ألقي أنا بيديّ، من أجله، الى برميل النفايات عنبي و أن أقدم إليه النوى...
عودة الى مجموعة المونولوج القديم، المتآكل، المبتذل، الى مجموعة الكليشيهات الجافة التي يعرفها القارىء السيىء كغيره، منذ أمد بعيد و لذلك فهو يرتاح لها و بها فقط: الشخصيات التي في الكتاب هي بكل تأكيد الكاتب نفسه أو جيرانه، و الكاتب او جيرانه كما يظهر ليسوا " حمائم بيضاء"، وهم فاسدون قذرون مثلنا جميعاً. بعد التقشير حتى العظم يتضح دائماً "أنهم جميعا نفس الشيء". وهذا بالضبط ما يبحث عنه القارىء بتلهف و(يجده) في كل كتاب....
متعة القارىء السيىء تنطوي على أن يكون دستوفيسكي المبجّل و المشهور، هو نفسه متهماً بشكل غامض، بميل دنس لسرقة وقتل العجائز، وليام فوكنر بكل تأكيد كان على هذا االنحو أو ذاك، متورطاً قليلاً بغشيان المحارم، ونابوكوف بمضاجعة القاصرات، وكافكا لا شك ان متهم في الشرطة( اذ لا دخان بلا نار) وأ.ب. يهوشواع بحرق أحراش الكيرن كيمت(يوجد دخان و توجد نار)، ناهيك عما فعله سوفوكليس لوالده وعما فعله هو لأمّه،إذ لولا ذلك كيف نجح في وصف كل ذلك بشكل حيّ، لا ليس حيّاً فحسب بل حيّاً أكثر مما يحدث في الحياة الواقعية.”
― Amos Oz, quote from A Tale of Love and Darkness
“It had taken skill, tact, an ability to choose friends well, and a great deal of luck... Luck was always part of it, one way or another”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“To marry and have children, that is the common lot of women. Only one woman in a hundred--more, in a thousand, can make for herself a name and position as you have done.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Evil Under the Sun
“I got what I needed instead of what I wanted and that's just about the best kind of luck you can have.”
― Cormac McCarthy, quote from The Sunset Limited
I Capture the Castle
Swann's Way
The Bean Trees
Wicked Lovely
War and Peace
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