Ben Aaronovitch

"Foxholes might breed belief, but trench systems are full of fatalistic cynics."

"This guy [Security Guard] was in a navy suit with an unfortunate orange tie, and was nearing us with the caution of a man on a minimum wage zero hours contract who planned to give his employers exactly what they paid for."

"I pointed out that, according to Bev, half the ecological disasters in the world occurred when people removed “pests” or predators without thinking through the consequences."

"I found that if you voluntarily take on a chore somebody else doesn’t want to do, they don’t check the results too closely—in case they have to do it again themselves."

"Common sense said I should scarper. But is anyone will tell you, me and common sense have always had an open relationship."

"“A romantic,” said Nightingale. “The most dangerous people on earth.”"

"“Anything else to report?” he asked. “A creeping sense of existential dread,” I said. “Apart from that I’m good.”"

"I’m all for courageous action, in moderation, Peter. But you have an alarming tendency toward heroics."

"None of this was real. But I’ve learned that just because something isn’t real doesn’t mean it’s not important."

"“Police work,” said Stefan, “is ninety per cent paperwork, nine per cent bullshit and one per cent horror.”"

"“He believed in a mystical connection between the farmer and the soil.” “And you don’t?” I asked. “I believe there’s a connection,” she said. “I just happen to believe it’s biochemical.”"

"It’s like with germ warfare. They weaponise germs for aggression and we say we study weaponised germs purely for defensive purposes. Nobody likes to admit they’re doing it but everybody knows everybody else is doing it."

"Gaston did betray an abstracted quality that might have been the result of magic. But was more likely down to consuming, I suspected, a tremendous amount of recreational chemicals."

"As police you can live with the violence, the squalor and the stupidity—it’s the waste of people’s futures that really grinds you down."

"Not everything that’s unexplained is caused by magic."

"The more power something has, the less the actual facts matter."

"“There’s paperwork for magic? asked Vanessa. “Not so glamorous now, eh?” I said."

"It’s one of those weird truths you learn early on as police that quite a high percentage of the public have all the survival instinct of a moth in a candle factory. They run the wrong way, they refuse to move, some will run toward the danger, and others will instantly whip out their phones and take footage."

"Old Street roundabout is a diamond-shaped circulatory system designed in the late 1960s to thin out the number of cyclists heading in and out of the City. In line with the then-current planning conventions they added a series of mugger-friendly underpasses, an insufficiently wide entrance to Old Street Underground station, and a small shopping arcade lined with urine-attracting beige tile.… You can say what you like about late-sixties architecture, but when they baked in the ugly they baked it in good."

"I asked Reynolds if she could put the bodyguards on what we’d taken to calling the Unreality List of people that might be magical, members of the demi-monde or suspiciously weird. “It would save ever so much time,” Reynolds had said when we set it up, “if we just added the population of Florida right at the start.”"

"“An AGI?” I asked, because at the Serious Cybernetics Corporation it was important to make a distinction between Artificial General Intelligence and ordinary AI. AGI being the sort that was self-aware enough to pass the Turing test and ask difficult philosophical questions before going “Daisy-Daisy” and trying to wipe out humanity, while ordinary AI mainly tried to sell you books on Amazon."

"“That’s assuming that the Singularity hasn’t already happened,” said Victor. “And we’re not sentient virtual personalities inhabiting a simulation of reality.” “How would we know?” I said."

"“Not your type?” “I’m strictly a case by case kind of guy. But if I had a type it wouldn’t be him.”"

"And what they don’t want you to know, you definitely want to know."

"There were a couple of mentions of drones, but the assumption was that they were operated by the police, the gangs, space lizards or all three at once. The media were continuing their comforting lack of interest in things that didn’t fit their various agendas."

"From a policing point of view, 3-D printers were your classic new technology. Everybody knew they were going to be used by criminals for something, but nobody was sure what."

"“The timing might not be significant,” I said. “Just because two things happen at the same time doesn’t mean they’re related.” Abigail gave me a withering look. But everyone assumes causation when they should be thinking coincidence, and correlation when they should be asking whether Twitter is really a reliable source of information."

"“Are you smarter than me?” “I’ll answer that when you give me a working definition of intelligence.”"

"The problem with troubleshooting is that trouble shoots back. —Anonymous"

"He’d obviously wanted to tell someone about it for a long time and I was a convenient ear. I get that a lot. Stephanopoulos calls it my secret weapon. “It’s that vacant expression,” she said. “People just want to fill the empty void.”"

"“I’m a magician, I am,” he said. “I can see things that are really there.”"

"“There’s no glamour in infrastructure,” he said as he filled our glasses again. “Steve and wee little William, right? They make stuff everyone uses every day but nobody thinks about the plumbing until it goes wrong.”"

"What was a billionaire supposed to do? There was a limit to the effectiveness of charity, and paying more taxes just meant the government wasted your money on bureaucracy and cushy jobs for civil servants."

"God, I thought, Mum’s going to be upset if the rapture arrives and Jesus looks like Robin Williams."

"Nothing beats a long wait at a bus stop as a reality check."

"Miss Karmargi who’d been my Religious Education teacher at school. An avowed atheist who’d once said that she respected all religions equally—“which is more than can be said for most religions,” she’d added."

"The prisons are full of people with poor impulse control and a lack of foresight."

"The first rule of Big Brother is that Big Brother is never watching when you want him to."

"“When you say shades, what do you mean?” I asked. “Do you mean Fae?” “I mean everything that’s not normal,” said Mrs. Chin. “Like New Jersey,” said Stephen."

"I’m sorry, I couldn’t find “a good song” in your music. —Siri"

"Still magic, like policing, has always been much more about the practice than the theory."

"Been there, I thought, done that, read The Silmarillion."

"After that I was up and ready for action. It might have been a Saturday, but below the rank of chief inspector weekends are an entirely notional concept."

"Policing is about moving from the unknown to the known and then further—to the provable."

"“But I want you to be cautious.” “Hey,” I said. “Cautious is my middle name.” “But your first name is Never Knowingly,” said Stephanopoulos. Which got all the laughs it deserved."

"With a rich history like that there was nothing to be done except flatten it and replace it with a shopping arcade designed in the who-the-fuck-cares school of retail architecture. The result was a two-story warehouse with a flat roof designed to maximise floor space and nothing else."

"“I’m interested in history,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me what happened.” “Why would a young man like you be interested in history?” “So I can avoid repeating it.”"

"“He was a Parisian,” he said. “You can never be sure what Parisians believe in—beyond Paris of course.”"

"He didn’t have “instincts”, he had thirty years of experience—which was much more reliable."

"The perennial problem for retailers the world over are the customers. Not only do they clutter up the shop, but they also demand to be reminded of the title of a book they read a review about in the Telegraph, given directions to The Lion King, helped to find a book their mum will like and, occasionally, purchase some actual merchandise. All of this customer-facing activity gets in the way of the shelving, merchandising, sticking, destickering, table pyramiding and stock returning that is necessary for the smooth operation of a modern bookshop."