Ben Aaronovitch

"I wasn’t ready to believe in ghosts, but that’s the thing about empirical experience: it’s the real thing."

"She 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."

"“I’ve been told to take the day off,” said Leslie. “Compassionate—don’t get on media’s radar—leave.” That I could understand. A family annihilation involving charismatic rich people was going to be a news editor’s dream story. Once they’d picked over the gruesome details, they could extend the mileage by asking what the tragic death of the Coopertown family told us about our society and how this tragedy was an indictment of modern culture/secular humanism/political correctness/the situation in Palestine—delete where applicable. About the only thing that could improve the story would be the involvement of a good-looking blonde WPC out, I might add, unsupervised on a dangerous assignment."

"Questions would be asked. Answers would be ignored."

"It’s a bland box of a building built in the 1970s; it was considered to be so lacking in architectural merit that there was talk of listing it so that it could be preserved for posterity as an awful warning."

"My hand was shaking a little and the pin proved harder to pull than I expected—I guess that’s a safety feature on a grenade."

"I’m not a peacock, but on occasion I like to dress to impress, although like most coppers I don’t wear much in the way of bling. The rule being never wear something around your neck that you don’t want to be strangled with."

"“Your father,” I said. “What does he really want?” “What any father wants,” said Oxley. “The respect of his children.” I nearly said that not all fathers were worthy of respect, but I managed to keep my gob shut and anyway not everyone had a dad like mine."

"As a typical Londoner, Gurcan had a high tolerance threshold 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."

"Sometimes when someone tells you not to go somewhere, it’s better not to go there."

"“Do you have another plan?” I asked. “No,” said Leslie. “I just want you to be careful. Just because you think you know what you’re doing doesn’t mean you actually know what you’re doing.” “I’m glad we clarified that,” I said."

"There we continued the time-honored tradition of brazenly lying through our teeth while telling nothing but the truth."

"Apparently he was a bit of a connoisseur, having been introduced to Verdi soon after having risen to the rank of commander. A sudden attack of culture snobbery is a common affliction among policemen of a certain rank and age; it’s like a normal midlife crisis, only with more chandeliers and foreign languages."

"Nobody likes a riot except looters and journalists."

"Nobody had a clue what had happened, so the pundits were out in force, explaining how the riot was caused by whatever sociopolitical factor their latest book was pushing. It was certainly a searing indictment of some aspect of modern society—if only we knew what."

"Given that he was writing in the late eighteenth century, I like to cut him slack."

"“Lives to act, poor thing, it’s all he ever wanted out of life.” “Except he’s dead,” I said. “I know,” said Mr. Punch. “Isn’t the universe wonderful.”"

"“Have you ever been to London?” I asked. “No,” said Ash. “I’ve never even been in town before. Our dad doesn’t hold with that sort of thing.” “Don’t worry, it’s basically just like the country,” I said. “Only with more people.”"

"Men have died for this music. You can’t get more serious than that. —Dizzy Gillespie"

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

"“You can’t die of jazz,” said Dr. Walid. “Can you?” I thought of Fats Navarro, Billie Holiday, and Charlie Parker who, when he died, was mistaken by a coroner for a man twice his real age. “You know,” I said, “I think you’ll find you can.”"

"“Cyrus was a musician?” I asked. “He played the alto sax.” “And he played jazz?” Another brief smile. “Is there any other kind of music?”"

"Why would someone use magic to kill a jazz musician in the middle of his set? I mean, I have my problems with the New Thing and the rest of the atonal modernists but I wouldn’t kill someone for playing it–at least not if I wasn’t trapped in the same room."

"“You shouldn’t make jokes about these things,” she said. “Science doesn’t have all the answers, you know.” “It’s got all the best questions, though.”"

"When you’re a musician free is a magic number."

"The police can live with looking corrupt, bullying, or tyrannical, but looking stupid is intolerable. It has a tendency to undermine public faith in the forces of Law and is deleterious to public order."

"I rang her and left a message identifying myself and giving an impression of urgency without actually saying anything concrete. Never record anything you wouldn’t want turning up on YouTube is my motto."

"Five hundred years ago the notoriously savvy Henry VIII discovered an elegant way to solve both his theological problems and his personal liquidity crisis—he dissolved the monasteries and nicked all their land. Since the principle of any rich person who wants to stay rich is, never give anything away unless you absolutely have to, the land has stayed with Crown ever since."

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

"“The world was different before the war,” he said. “We didn’t have this instantaneous access to information that your generation has. The world was a bigger, more mysterious place—we still dreamed of secret caves in the Mountains of the Moon, and tiger hunting in the Punjab.”"

"Ghosts, I was thinking, memories—I wasn’t sure there was a difference."

"The difference between stripping and burlesque, as far as I could tell, was class."

"I’m an old-fashioned copper–I don’t believe in breaking the laws of thermodynamics."

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

"“Do you feel guilty?” “No,” I said. “I didn’t do it to them and I did my best to stop it. But I feel guilty that I don’t feel guilty, if that helps.”"

"“The chicken in that is embalmed, dried and pressed very flat, and then sprinkled with extra chemicals,” she said. “Too hungry to care,” I said."

"“The old days,” said Smith. “Isn’t that what you’re asking about? Because I was a respectable businessman.” “But Smithy,” said Stephanopoulis. “I don’t believe in respectable businessmen. I’ve been a copper for more than five minutes. And the constable here doesn’t think you’re respectable either, because it happens he is a card-carrying member of the Workers’ Revolutionary Party and so regards all forms of property as a crime against the proletariat.” That one caught me by surprise and the best I could manage was “Power to the people.”"

"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."

"“Shouldn’t I know about these things?” I said. “The list of things you need to know about, Peter, is extraordinarily long,” said Nightingale."

"First law of gossip—there’s no point knowing something if somebody else doesn’t know you know it."

"Anything that can go wrong with armed men in the light can go twice as wrong in the dark."

"Have you noticed that about journalists—all they really want to talk about is themselves."

"It’s no fun looking down on people if you can’t let them know you’re above them."

"There were screams and yells from the street below as people saw what was happening. There would be lots of phone-camera footage on the news that night from people with more media-savvy than brains."

"It’s always better to tell a half-truth than a half-lie."

"“If they were ugly, Peter, would you care half so much?” asked Nightingale. “There are some hideous things out there that can talk and reason, and I wonder if you would be quite so quick to rush to their defense.” “Maybe not,” I said. “But that just makes me shallow, it doesn’t make me wrong.”"

"Back in the summer I’d made the mistake of telling my mum what I did for a living. Not the police bit, which of course she already knew about, having been at my graduation from Hendon, but the stuff about me working for the branch of the Met that dealt with the supernatural. My mum translated this in her head to “witchfinder,” which was good because like most West Africans, she considered witchfinding a more respectable profession than policeman."

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

"So just chalk it up to pixie dust or quantum entanglement, which was the same thing as pixie dust except with the word “quantum” in it."

"Could it have been anyone, or was it destiny? When I’m considering this I find it helpful to quote the wisdom of my father, who once told me, “Who knows why the fuck anything happens?”"