The Ring of Solomon Quotes

“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, The Ring of Solomon

“Besides, if you're going to die horribly, you might as well do it with style.”
― Jonathan Stroud, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, The Ring of Solomon

“Her clarity gave her purpose and her purpose gave her clarity.”
― Jonathan Stroud, 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, 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, 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, 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, The Ring of Solomon

“Peace and quiet. That’s one thing to be said for deserts. They give you a chance to get away from the everyday pressures of life. And when those everyday pressures consist of seven furious djinn and one apperplectic master magician, a few hindered thousand square miles of sand, rock, wind, and desolation is exactly what you need.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Ring of Solomon

“Probing psychological analysis is one thing: namely impartial observation, liberally spiced with sarcasm and personal abuse — let’s face it, I’m good at all that — constructive suggestions, quite another.”
― Jonathan Stroud, 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, Bartiméus. L'Anneau de Salomon (Wiz)

“Wenn man schon eines grässlichen Todes sterben muss, sollte man wenigstens einen stilvollen Abgang hinlegen.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Ring of Solomon

“This emptiness you talk about,” I said, “I think you’re getting too worked up about it.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Ring of Solomon

“By his account, Faquarl’s first summoning was in Jericho, 3015 BC, approximately five years before my initial appearance in Ur. This “made him, allegedly, the ‘senior’ djinni in our partnership. However, since Faquarl also swore blind he’d invented hieroglyphs by ‘doodling with a stick in the Nile river-mud’ and claimed to have devised the abacus by impaling two dozen imps along the branches of an Asiatic cedar, I regarded all his stories with a certain scepticism.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Ring of Solomon

“The truth was that an odd, fatalistic exhilaration had begun to seize hold of me. The sheer magnitude, the sheer dumb audacity of what I was now attempting was beginning to exert its own appeal. Okay, the certain-death part wasn't so hot, but given that I had no choice in the matter, I found I rather relished the challenge of my night's work.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Ring of Solomon

“Yesterday afternoon? The one just gone?”
“Well how many others are there? Yes, the yesterday just gone. Look at me! I’m wearing the same clothes.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Ring of Solomon

“Can you define ‘plan’ as a loose sequence of manifestly inadequate observations and conjectures held together by panic, indecision, and ignorance? If so, then it was a very good plan.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Ring of Solomon

“If you think I suddenly trust you, Bartimeaus —“
“Oh, don’t trust me, whatever you do. Trust your summons. I’m charged to keep you safe at this point, aren’t I?”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Ring of Solomon

“If you think I suddenly trust you, Bartimeaus —“
“Oh, don’t trust me, whatever you do. Trust your summons. I’m charged to keep you safe at this point, aren’t I?”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Ring of Solomon

“Of course I can cope with it, I’m not an idiot.”
“And yet in so many ways, you are.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Ring of Solomon

“How old’s Bulkus, exactly? Thirty? Forty, tops? Well listen, I’ve got two-thousand years of accumulated wisdom here, and I get it wrong sometimes. For instance, I thought you had something to you when I met you in the gorge: intelligence, flexibility of mind — hah! How misinformed was I?”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Ring of Solomon

“But death, in the end, had not come. Bartimeaus had instead.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Ring of Solomon

“One other thing, Esmira,” Solomon said as they stepped through. “I’m not your master. If this should be the last hour of your life, try not to need one.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Ring of Solomon

“Zealots: wild-eyed persons afflicted with incurable certainty about the workings of the world – a certainty which can lead to violence when the world doesn’t fit.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Ring of Solomon