Quotes from The Spook's Apprentice

Joseph Delaney ·  336 pages

Rating: (36K votes)


“And an unaware witch means a witch who doesn't know she's a witch, and because she's a women that makes her double trouble. Never trust a women."
My mothers a women," I said, suddenly feeling a little angry, "and I trust her."
Mothers are usually women," said the Spook. "And mothers are usually quite trustworthy, as long as your their son. Otherwise look out!”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice


“How can you be lonely? You've got yourself, haven't you? If you ever lose yourself, then you'll really be lonely...”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice


“He who never makes a mistake never makes anything. It's part of learning the job.”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice


“You never know just what you can do until you try.”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice


“He who never makes a mistake, never makes anything.”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice



“I like to keep my books in my library, he said, 'and I like my library to get bigger rather than smaller.”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice


“Well, you’re safe until you make another silly mistake,’ the Spook added. ‘And don’t say you won’t. He who never makes a mistake never makes anything. It’s part of learning the job.”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice


“Sometimes, when something bad leaves the world, something good enters in its place. I've seen it happen before . - Mam”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice


“How can you be lonely? You've got yourself, haven't you? If you ever lose yourself, then you'll really be lonely.”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice


“My dad once told me that women know things that men don't. That sometimes they have a certain look in their eyes, but when you see it, you should never ask them what they're thinking. If you do they might tell you something you don't want to hear.”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice



“Have you ever felt time slow so much that that it almost appears to stop? Ever listened to a clock when the next tick seems to take forever to follow the last tock?”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice


“If we're afraid, sometimes there are things that can feed on that fear. Fear makes it worse for us. The trick is to concentrate on what you can see and stop thinking about yourself. It works every time...”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice


“Everybody tells lie sometimes, she replied . Wouldn't be human if you didn't. But mostly I tell the truth. - Alice”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice


“Alice might end up neither good nor bad. She might end up somewhere in between. That would make her very dangerous to know. That girl could be the bane of your life, a blight, a poison on everything you do. Or she might turn out to be the best and strongest friend you’ll ever have. Someone who’ll make all the difference in the world. I just don’t know which way it will go. I can’t see it, no matter how hard I try.”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice


“Everyone has his price. It's just a case of making an offer that pleases him but doesn't hurt you too much. - Dad”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice



“Lonely? How can you be lonely ? You've got yourself, haven't you? If you ever lose yourself, then you'll really be lonely. In the meantime, stop complaining. You're nearly a man now, and a man has to work. Ever since the world began, men have been doing jobs they didn't like. Why should it be any different for you? You're the seventh son of a seventh son, and this is the job you were born to do. - Mam”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice


“He who never makes a mistake never makes anything. It's part of learning the job. - Spook”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice


“Maybe, but she knows too much and she's clever too. She's just a girl now, but one day she'll be a woman and a clever woman's dangerous.”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice


“We depend on neither man nor beast to get us where we need to go. If you rely on your own two good legs, then they won’t let you down.”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from The Spook's Apprentice


About the author

Joseph Delaney
Born place: in Preston, The United Kingdom
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“There is one notable exception to Jablonski and Chaplin’s equation—and it’s the exception that proves the rule. The Inuit—the indigenous people of the subarctic—are dark-skinned, despite the limited sunlight of their home. If you think something fishy’s going on here, you’re right. But the reason they don’t need to evolve the lighter skin necessary to ensure sufficient vitamin D production is refreshingly simple. Their diet is full of fatty fish—which just happens to be one of the only foods in nature that is chock-full of vitamin D. They eat vitamin D for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so they don’t need to make it. If you ever had a grandmother from the Old World try to force cod liver oil down your throat, she was onto something for the same reason—since it’s full of vitamin D, cod liver oil was one of the best ways to prevent rickets, especially before milk was routinely fortified with it.   IF YOU’RE WONDERING how people who have dark skin make enough vitamin D despite the fact that their skin blocks all those ultraviolet rays, you’re asking the right questions. Remember, ultraviolet rays that penetrate the skin destroy folate—and ultraviolet rays that penetrate the skin are necessary to create vitamin D. Dark skin evolved to protect folate, but it didn’t evolve”
― Sharon Moalem, quote from Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease


“A voice may whisper that it was no image, but only imagination; it was a mirage, a fantasy. But as the water settles, with gentle ripples still visible where the arrows went in, the image will return. We will gaze at it once more, and know that in the Lord our labour is not in vain.”
― N.T. Wright, quote from The Resurrection of the Son of God


“A Stalin functionary admitted, "Innocent people were arrested: naturally - otherwise no one would be frightened. If people, he said, were arrested only for specific misdemeanours, all the others would feel safe and so become ripe for treason.”
― Paul Johnson, quote from Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties


“Do you know what I miss most about Rosemary? Simply knowing she was there.”
― David Ebershoff, quote from The 19th Wife


“...left to ourselves we lapse into a kind of collusion with entrophy, acquiescing in the general belief that things may be getting worse but that there's nothing much we can do about them. And we are wrong. Our task in the present...is to live as resurrection people in between Easter and the final day, with our Christian life, corporate and individual, in both worship and mission, as a sign of the first and a foretaste of the second.”
― N.T. Wright, quote from Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church


Interesting books

What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal]
(16.1K)
What Was She Thinkin...
by Zoë Heller
His Last Bow
(26.9K)
His Last Bow
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Breathing Underwater
(7.2K)
Breathing Underwater
by Alex Flinn
The Edible Woman
(24.7K)
The Edible Woman
by Margaret Atwood
Skybreaker
(10.3K)
Skybreaker
by Kenneth Oppel
Blue Diary
(6.5K)
Blue Diary
by Alice Hoffman

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.