Ben Aaronovitch Quotes
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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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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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Classic grooming behavior, Dr. Walid told me later, something our fellow primates indulge in to maintain troop cohesion. Dr. Walid said human beings use language for the same purpose—which is why you find yourself talking total bollocks to people you meet at a bus stop and then wonder what the fuck did I do that for?
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Pictures of Cheam adorn the walls of planning offices of every Home County to serve as an awful warning.
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Bollocks, I thought, or testiculi or possibly testiculos if we were using the accusative.
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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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I heard a woman scream with rage and frustration and then grunt like a tennis player.
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I took the swab using the collection kit that I’d borrowed from Dominic who, I realized, had left the Boy Scout scale behind and was now verging on Batman levels of crazy preparedness.
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If you ask any copper why they stick at a job which exposes them to abuse from everyone from petty criminals all the way down to government ministers, they’ll say it’s the variety.
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So into the woods we went—it was surprisingly noisy. Especially one loud bird whose chirping sounded far too cheerful for the middle of the night.
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Being a seasoned Londoner, Martin gave the body the ‘London once-over’ – a quick glance to determine whether this was a drunk, a crazy or a human being in distress. The fact that it was entirely possible for someone to be all three simultaneously is why good-Samaritanism in London is considered an extreme sport – like base-jumping or crocodile-wrestling.
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Even at ten o’clock in the morning it was going to be full of members of the public. Rich, influential members of the public, many of them foreign, a lot of them with some level of diplomatic immunity. ‘What I’m saying here,’ Seawoll had said, ‘is try to limit the amount of damage you do to none fucking whatsoever.’ I don’t know where I got this reputation for property damage, I really don’t.
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Like young men from the dawn of time, I decided to choose the risk of death over certain humiliation.
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Fuck me, I thought. I can do magic.
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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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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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My dad was a fairy," said Zach. "And by that I don't mean he dressed well and enjoyed musical theatre.
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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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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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As property prices started rising, developers snatched up bomb sites and derelict buildings and erected the shapeless concrete lumps that have made the ’70s the shining beacon of architectural splendor that it is.
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It had a long and varied history, mostly involving crime, prostitution and the theater.
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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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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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We can't have your people fighting each other," I said. The 'royal we' is very important in police work; it reminds the person you're talking to that behind you stands the mighty institution that is the Metropolitan Police, robed in the full majesty of the law and capable, in manpower terms, of invading a small country. You only hope when you're using that term that the whole edifice is currently facing in the same direction as you are.