Ben Aaronovitch quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Ben Aaronovitch

Ben Aaronovitch Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Ben Aaronovitch on Wise Famous Quotes.

Peter Grant,' I said. 'Recent arrival, slacker and man of very little fame.

Boss,' I said into my Airwave. 'It's getting needlessly metaphysical out here.

For a certain generation of African immigrants cleaning offices became part of the culture like male circumcision and supporting Arsenal.

He called it potentia because there's nothing quite like Latin for disguising the fact you're making it up as you go along.

I did feel a 'something', like a catch in the silence at the moment of creation.

Sinister is Latin for 'left', making it the sort of enjoyable schoolboy pun that is such an advert for mixed-gender education.

The motto of West African cooking is that if the food doesn't set fire to the tablecloth the cook is being stingy with the pepper.

I was pleased to see that even back in the glory days of the Folly people left their mugs of tea on their magical textbooks.

My milkshake brings all the gods to the yard.

Street towards Covent Garden. There was

Like young men from the dawn of time, I decided to choose the risk of death over certain humiliation.

Caratacus suffered the double indignity of being taken to Rome in chains and having an opera written about him by Elgar.

Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale - to the Jag mobile.

It's a police mantra that all members of the public are guilty of something, but some members of the public are more guilty than others.

Vikings," said Lesley. "Precisely," said Nightingale. "Bloodthirsty, but surprisingly erudite in a limited fashion." Well

NIGHTINGALE AND I did what all good coppers do when faced with a spare moment in the middle of the day - we went looking for a pub.

This I know for a fact: the reason African women have children is so that there's someone else to do the housework.

Coffee arrived and the espresso was excellent, like an aromatic electric fence.

He was calling it an atonic seizure because, even if he didn't know why it had happened, it was important to give it a cool name.

I don't like my bacon sandwich to be curiously snuffling at my fingers.

You have to call me Master." "Master?" "That's the tradition," said Nightingale. I said the word in my head and it kept on coming out massa.

As Conan the Barbarian famously said, That which does not kill us does not kill us.

I saw a dark void under the platform and had just enough time to think: Fuck me he's a earthbender.

Fuck me, I thought. I can do magic.

Ethically challenged magical practitioners," I said.

her hair was piled up under a broad-brimmed

The night may be dark and full of terrors, I thought, but I've got a big stick.

I gave the prescribed Metropolitan Police "first greeting".
"Oi!" I said "What do you think you're doing?

It had a long and varied history, mostly involving crime, prostitution and the theater,

Carnivorous unicorns, I thought.

It's a sad fact of modern life that if you drive long enough, sooner or later you must leave London behind.

A major investigation, once it gets underway, is as exciting as watching reruns of Big Brother, although possibly involving less sex and violence.

The evening was still warm enough for shirtsleeves, and the city was clinging to summer like a wannabe trophy wife to a promising center forward.

The voice belonged to a plump, round-faced woman of the sort that develops a good personality because the alternative is suicide.

For a terrifying moment I thought he was going to hug me, but fortunately we both remembered we were English just in time. Still, it was a close call.

Don't ask me why I know what an Edwardian smoking jacket looks like: let's just say it has something to do with Doctor Who and leave it at that.

It was a good plan, and like all plans since the dawn of time, this would fail to survive contact with real life.

The rules of English grammar are largely an artificial construct with little or no bearing on the language as it is spoke.

History happens," said the Doctor. "Even when I'm not around."

"Only by accident," said Kadiatu...

Dr Walid walked me past the security at reception and introduced me to today's dead body.

It's strictly constables, sergeants, and lunatics. We'll keep the kettle on for you.

In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold.

Fuck me,' I said to Toby. 'We're living in Isengard.

So, actions were still being actioned and me and Guleed were actioning them, and the wheels of justice ground on. Albeit in first gear. So

Zach looked at Carey in consternation, obviously wondering if we were using the rare good cop/loony cop interrogation technique.

Somebody doesn't know they're not in Kansas anymore,' said Stephanopoulos.

The main purpose of an administrative meeting is to establish collective guilt for whatever fuck-up arises out of its decisions. That

The Fire Brigade recognise only two kinds of people at a fire, victims and obstacles, and if you don't want to be either it's best to stay back.

Bollocks, I thought, or testiculi or possibly testiculos if we were using the accusative.

With a grunt he levered himself to his feet, causing the chair to bang against the bookcase behind him and set the various objet d'bollocks rattling.

Richmond won on points, but only because one of them had a flask full of coffee.

Pictures of Cheam adorn the walls of planning offices of every Home County to serve as an awful warning.

First law of gossip - there's no point knowing something if somebody else doesn't know you know it.

I think becoming a wizard is about discovering what's real and what isn't.

insouciance. But there's just something uniquely intimidating about

Blackstone's Police Operational Handbook recommends the ABC of serious investigation: Assume nothing, Believe nothing, and Check everything.

A romantic," said Nightingale much, much later. "The most dangerous people on Earth.

The study of the victim is called victimology because everything sounds better with and ology tacked on the end.

There's nothing quite like Latin for disguising the fact that you're making it up as you go along.

If you find yourself talking to the police, my advice is to stay calm but look guilty; it's your safest bet.

There's more to life than just London," said Nightingale.
"People keep saying that," I said. "But I've never actually seen any proof.

Questions would be asked. Answers would be ignored.

He was from Yorkshire, or somewhere like that, and like many Northerners with issues, he'd moved to London as a cheap alternative to psychotherapy.

I left in a hurry before he could change his mind, but I want to make it clear that at no point did I break into a skip

That's because they don't know,' said Tyburn. 'It's like economics. Everybody's got a theory, and some people make it their religion.

Ghosts, I was thinking, memories - I wasn't sure there was a difference.

Well, our victim had a thirst for knowledge," said Stephanopoulos. "He was a student at St. Martins College.

I'd found a seventeenth-century map of the rivers of London.

One of the first rules of police work is that trouble will always come looking for you, so there's no point looking for it.

Zap,' I said. 'That's the technical term for it, is it? What do you call someone who's been zapped?'

'Mr. Crispy,' said Kumar.

Whatever you see, he'd said, take as long a look as you need to get used to it, to accept it, and then move on as if nothing has changed.

The clever people at CERN are smashing particles together in the hope that Doctor Who will turn up and tell them to stop

Keep breathing,' I said. 'It's a habit you don't want to break.

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.

The designer had probably been going for Turkish Bath but had hit Czech Porn Shoot instead.

I woke in the hour before dawn, stuck in that strange state where the memory of your dreams is still powerful enough to motivate your actions.

Jazz vampires,' said Stephanopoulos.
'I wish I hadn't started calling them that,' I said.

He threw a fireball at me. I threw a chimney stack at him - that's the London way.

You do magic by learning formae which are like shapes in your mind that have an effect on the physical universe.

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.

Officially she was there to liaise with me on the case, but really she was there for the wide-screen TV, takeaways and the unresolved sexual tension.

He was transparent, the way holograms in films are transparent.Three dimensional, definitely really there and fucking ... transparent.

This is your brain on magic.

I, Anna Maria de Burgh Coppinger Isis solemnly swear on

My dad was a fairy," said Zach. "And by that I don't mean he dressed well and enjoyed musical theatre.