Ben Aaronovitch Quotes
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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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Good at his job, I guessed, but probably not at ease with things that fall outside his comfort zone. He was going to love us.
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Well, our victim had a thirst for knowledge. He was a student at St. Martins College.
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There's nothing quite like Latin for disguising the fact that you're making it up as you go along.
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As Martin noted, to the detectives 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. Instead, with the slow methodical patience of the drunk and terrified, Martin Turner dialed 999 and asked for the police.
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That’s the nature of the beast. We are what we are.
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This is why you have procedure, training and drill, so that you do things when your brain is too shocked to think for itself—ask any soldier.
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THE TROUBLE with the old boy network is you can never be really sure whether it’s switched on or not and whether it’s operating in your interest or some other old boy’s.
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Most people don’t want to fight, especially when evenly matched. A mob will tear an individual to pieces and a man with a gun and a noble cause is happy to kill ever so many women and children, but risking a fair fight—not so easy. That’s why you see those pissed young men doing the dance of “don’t hold me back” while desperately hoping someone likes them enough to hold them back.
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Sometimes I wonder whether, if I’d been the one that went for coffee and not Lesley May, my life would have been much less interesting and certainly much less dangerous. Could it have been anyone, or was it destiny? When I’m considering this I find it helpful to quote the wisdom of my father, who once told me, ‘Who knows why the fuck anything happens?’ Covent
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First law of gossip - there's no point knowing something if somebody else doesn't know you know it.
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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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So that's when I came up with the most ridiculous plan since I'd decided to take a witness statement from a ghost. It was a plan so stupid that even Baldrick would have rejected it out of hand.
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This is where the whole ape-descended thing reveals its worth, I thought madly. Sucks to be you, quadruped. Opposable thumbs - don't leave home without them.
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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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Gave us the traditional look of weary outrage that you always get from someone who thinks they don’t have time for this shit.
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There’s nothing like having your girlfriend talk in geological time to make you feel insignificant.
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Was it better to die in the illusion of sunshine and warmth or face death in a cold darkness of reality? Was it better to die in happy ignorance or terrified knowledge? The answer, if you're a Londoner, is that it's better not to die at all.
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Despite what you think you know, most people don't want to fight, especially when evenly matched. … That's why you see those pissed young men doing the dance of "don't hold me back" while desperately hoping someone likes them enough to hold them back.
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One thing for certain, Abigail who lived up the road was going on my watch list. In fact I was going to create a watch list just so I could put Abigail at the top of it.
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Jeremy Beaumont-Jones had been lucky enough to be born rich. He wasn’t in the mad oligarch class but once you’re past a certain point, the sheer weight of your money sucks in wealth like a financial singularity. If you’re sensible enough not to blow it on race horses, cocaine or musical theatre, then it becomes a perpetual-motion money making machine.
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Coffee arrived and the espresso was excellent, like an aromatic electric fence.
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Questions would be asked. Answers would be ignored.
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I don’t mind getting drunk, but there always comes a moment in the evening when I find myself watching myself bumping into things and thinking—I’m bored of this, can I have full control of my brain back, please?