Ben Aaronovitch Quotes
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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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Zach looked at Carey in consternation, obviously wondering if we were using the rare good cop/loony cop interrogation technique.
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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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So Newton, like all good seventeenth-century intellectuals, wrote in Latin because that was the international language of science, philosophy and, I found out later, upmarket pornography.
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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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Tolkien and my dad had weirdly convergent ideas about the musical nature of the universe, although my dad would probably have been more forgiving of Melkor’s improvisation. You know, providing it didn’t step on his solo.
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I’d found a seventeenth-century map of the rivers of London.
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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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Bollocks, I thought, or testiculi or possibly testiculos if we were using the accusative.
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I ended up learning magic because you can’t trust the British to keep to an agreement over the long term.
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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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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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First law of gossip - there's no point knowing something if somebody else doesn't know you know it.
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Questions would be asked. Answers would be ignored.
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Ghosts, I was thinking, memories - I wasn't sure there was a difference.
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Well, our victim had a thirst for knowledge. He was a student at St. Martins College.
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The main purpose of an administrative meeting is to establish collective guilt for whatever fuck-up arises out of its decisions.
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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?
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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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There’s nothing like having your girlfriend talk in geological time to make you feel insignificant.
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He said it was wife’s idea to name their daughter after him but I didn’t believe him. Could have been worse, I decided. It could have been Nigella.
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Five story Georgian terrace whose elegant proportions would have caused the most hardened Canadian property developer’s soul to weep to see such beauty—just prior to having the place gutted and filled with the latest in personality-free interior design.
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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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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.