Ben Aaronovitch Quotes
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You do magic by learning formae which are like shapes in your mind that have an effect on the physical universe.
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I didn't think that Herefordshire Social Services would be best pleased about me dumping a poorly socialised pre-teen with mind control powers on them.
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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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Then Beverley Brook stepped onto the footplate and pointed a shotgun straight at the Queen’s head – I recognised the Purdey from my trunk. It was nice to see it getting an airing. Beverley herself was wearing an oversized leather jerkin and jeans. Her dreads had been tied into a plait down her back and a pair of antique leather and brass goggles were pushed up onto her brow. ‘Put your hands on your head,’ she said, ‘and step away from the boyfriend.’ The Queen hissed and gripped the rope harder.
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The bungalow was a hideous red-brick structure built, if I had to guess, in the early 1980s by some hack architect who’d been aiming at art deco and hit Tracy Emin instead.
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A lifetime of disappointment had made him cynical, but you don’t stay an activist without a core of stubborn belief that things can get better – it’s a bit like being a Spurs supporter really.
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I don’t know why Nightingale was so surprised—I barely knew four and a half spells and you couldn’t have got me to give it up, and that’s despite close brushes with death by vampire, hanging, malignant spirit, riot, tigerman, and the ever-present risk of overdoing the magic and getting a brain aneurysm.
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He asked if we were really ghost hunting, and I said we were. “What, like officially?” “Officially secret,” I said because discretion is supposed to be, if not our middle name, at least a nickname we occasionally answer to when we remember.
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I suspected Molly wanted the pictures to send to her friends on Twitter and Facebook, the ones that I was not supposed to know about. I didn’t dare ask because we have an unspoken agreement—I don’t question what she does on my computer when I’m out and, in return, she doesn’t murder me in my sleep. Back
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Oh shit, I thought, if this isn’t the Low King of the Dwarves then I’m the President of the Cricklewood Branch of the Women’s Institute.
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This is why magic is worse even than quantum physics. Because, while both spit in the eye of common sense, I've never yet had a Higgs bosun turn up and try to have a conversation with me.
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Caratacus suffered the double indignity of being taken to Rome in chains and having an opera written about him by Elgar.
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Or at least of fending him off for long enough that we can sweep in heroically like the Seventh Cavalry.’ Burning tipis and shooting women and children, I thought.
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Blackstone's Police Operational Handbook recommends the ABC of serious investigation: Assume nothing, Believe nothing, and Check everything.
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Because were were both probationary constables, an experienced PC had been left to supervise us - a responsibility he diligently pursued from an all-night cafe on St. Martin's Close.
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As a typical Londoner, Gurcan had a high tolerance for random thoughtlessness; after all, if you live in the big city there's no point complaining that it's a big city, but even that tolerance has its limit and the name of that limit is 'taking the piss'.
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he had the startled-rabbit look that civilians get after five minutes of helping the police with their inquiries. If they stay calm for too long it’s a sign that they’re professional villains or foreign or just plain stupid. All of which can get you locked up if you’re not careful. If you find yourself talking to the police, my advice is to stay calm but look guilty; it’s your safest bet.
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He called it potentia because there's nothing quite like Latin for disguising the fact you're making it up as you go along.
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The majestic equality of the law forbids rich and poor alike from pissing in the streets, sleeping under bridges, and stealing bread.
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We seem to be sitting around waiting for the next fucking disaster, which went into the official log as - DCI Seawoll felt that our operational posture was too reactive.
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But as the wise man said, life’s too short to drink bad wine. Regret is a terrible vintage.
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It’s not like me and Lesley are inconspicuous. Nightingale had winced, as he always does, at my incorrect use of the accusative pronoun but I think I’m beginning to wear him down.
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You know, your species humans has the most amazing capacity for self-deception, matched only by its ingenuity in trying to destroy itself.
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On the plus side, there were no rioters in sight but on the minus side this was probably because everywhere I looked was on fire.