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.

I—though forced through lack of space to assume the form of a stoic guinea pig crouched between the girl’s shoe and the glove compartment—was my usual dignified self.

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...

listen, a goad’s anything that provokes or incites an enemy—let me have a go: cursed deamon! you have met your end! the shivering fire awaits you! i shall spread your vile essance across this hall...

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...

When you go out hunting wicked spirits, it’s the simple things that matter most. The silvered point of your rapier flashing in the dark; the iron filings scattered on the floor; the sealed canisters of...

John Mandrake was an attractive young man, and the scent of power hung about him, sweet and intoxicating, like honeysuckle in the evening air.

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,...

Literature offers the thrill of minds of great clarity wrestling with the endless problems and delights of being human. To engage with them is to engage with oneself, and the lasting rewards are not confined...

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

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

Lockwood gave a sudden exclamation; when I looked at him, his eyes were shining. ‘On second thoughts, we can scrap my last suggestion,’ he said. ‘Stuff the mingling. Who wants to do that? Boring. George...

If anyone else asked that question, O He Who Is Terrible and Great, I would have said they were an ignorant fool; in you it is a sign of the disarming simplicity which is the...

There was a profound silence, abruptly broken by an enormously loud rumble from George’s stomach. Plaster didn’t actually fall from the ceiling, but it was close.

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.

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

The Amulet of Samarkand. It was Simon Lovelace’s. Now it is yours. Soon it will be Simon Lovelace’s again. Take it and enjoy the consequences.

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

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.

The bristling eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. Mesmerized, the boy watched them disappear under the hanging thatch of white hair. There, almost coyly, they remained just out of sight for a moment, before suddenly...

Check out that one at the end. He’s taken the form of a footstool. Weird…but somehow I like his style.””That is a footstool.

In my youth, I was always one for the dramatic entrance. Now, in keeping with my character, I gravitate more toward the subtle and refined. Okay, with the occasional feathered serpent thrown in.