Ben Aaronovitch Quotes
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For a certain generation of African immigrants cleaning offices became part of the culture like male circumcision and supporting Arsenal.
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In the 1960s the planning department of the London County Council, whose unofficial motto was Finishing What the Luftwaffe Started, decided that what London really needed was a series of orbital motorways driven through its heart.
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Normally the police like to turn up nice and early, preferably around 6 a.m., because not only are people liable to be actually at home but that early in the morning they’re rarely playing with a full deck. Today we were going in Sunday lunchtime because we weren’t looking for shock and awe but aiming for sinister and creepy instead.
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Which artfully combines a complete lack of aesthetic quality with a total disregard for the utilitarian function for which it is built.
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Right from the start Abigail used to moan and fidget as her hair was relaxed or braided or thermally reconditioned, but her dad was determined that his child wasn’t going to embarrass him in public. That all stopped when Abigail turned eleven and calmly announced that she had ChildLine on speed‑dial and the next person who came near her with a hair extension, chemical straightener, or, God forbid, a hot comb, was going to end up explaining their actions to Social Services.
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The white boys knew they had my attention now, but hesitated -- that's the trouble with being a racist in the white heartlands, you don't get a lot of practical experience.
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Missing kids are tough cases. I mean, murder is bad but at least the worst has already happened to the victim—they’re not going to get any deader. Missing kids come with a literal deadline, made worse by the fact that you don’t get to learn the timing until it’s too late.
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Ghosts, I was thinking, memories - I wasn't sure there was a difference.
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Apparently after six days baking pigs and herding bricks, the inhabitants would kick back with a spot of cock-fighting, bullbaiting, and ratting. It was the sort of place an adventurous gentleman might venture only if he didn’t mind being beaten, rolled, and catching an exciting venereal disease.
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What frustrated me was the thought that with three thousand years of history someone in China, some monk in a monastery halfway up a mountain, must have developed a magic kata, a physical expression of formae. Or at least have got close enough to explain all those legendary swordsmen and their inexplicable desire to roost on the tops of bamboo trees.
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The world was different before the war. We didn't have this instantaneous access to information that your generation has. The world was a bigger, more mysterious place - we still dreamed of secret caves in the Mountains of the Moon, and tiger hunting in the Punjab.
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Here's a comforting thought for you, Peter,' he said. 'However long you may live, the world will never lose its ability to surprise you with its beauty.
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Despite my mum being from a small village in the middle of a forest, I'm not a country person. I don't like my bacon sandwich to be curiously snuffling at my fingers. But sometimes being police means holding your breath and fondling a pig.
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That which does not kill us does not kill us.
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Bollocks, I thought, or testiculi or possibly testiculos if we were using the accusative.
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I headed over the river to the address listed on Mr Wilkinson's driving licence to see whether there was anyone who loved him enough to kill him.
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Zach looked at Carey in consternation, obviously wondering if we were using the rare good cop/loony cop interrogation technique.
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That’s the nature of the beast. We are what we are.
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As Martin noted, to the detective conducting his interview, it was a good thing he'd been inebriated, because otherwise he would have wasted time screaming and running about- especially once he realized he was standing in a pool of blood.
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I’d found a seventeenth-century map of the rivers of London.
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We were suffering a standard gray London drizzle, the sort that makes it clear that it can keep it up all day if needs be.
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This is a speech we've all heard before. From the con artists who aren't like the burglars, who aren't like the armed robbers, who only ever broke a bone if the victim had it coming and the murderers who made 'one mistake' and are forced to pay for it for the rest of their lives. They want to know what you're doing about the real criminals, the rapists and the paedophiles. Who want to know why you're wasting resources on them when we should be tackling female genital mutilation or political corruption.
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I've already told the police what happened, they didn't believe me. Why should you.
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In home furnishing terms, past a certain point, more money doesn’t get you anything except an increase in insurance premiums.