Ben Aaronovitch

"“Is that your professional opinion?” “Yes.” “Which as usual,” said Seawoll, “is as about as useful as a chocolate teapot.”"

"“He did some drugs at university,” I said. “Isn’t that what it’s for?”"

"Low sample size—one of the reasons why magic and science are hard to reconcile."

"“It’s one of those paradox thingies,” I said. “What happens when the unstoppable cook meets the unfillable stomach?”"

"All diplomatic cars have distinctive plates that indicate status and nationality, for the ease and convenience of terrorists and potential kidnappers."

"I looked at Lesley—surely nobody could really be that stupid? She shrugged. Lesley has a much lower opinion of humanity than I do."

"You don’t actually know enough about me to insult me properly."

"Was it better to die in the illusion of sunshine and warmth or face death in a cold darkness of reality? Was it better to die in happy ignorance or terrified knowledge? The answer, if you’re a Londoner, is that it’s better not to die at all."

"A lot of people have died in the Underground, through accidents, stupidity, or suicide. All the one-unders whose dying wish had been to make other people late for work."

"“I want assurances,” said Zach. “You can have my word,” I said. “No disrespect, Peter,” he said, “but I don’t want a promise from the monkey, I want it from the organ grinder.”"

"“Fortunately,” said Nightingale, “seeing isn’t always believing.”"

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

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

"Half-caste, I thought. I hadn’t heard that one in a while. Not since Mum fell out with Aunty Doris, who having grown up in Jamaica in the 1950s regarded political correctness as something that happened to other people."

"Dedication: This book is dedicated to all the people who get up and do something about it, whatever it is and however small the thing is they do."

"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."

"We did not tell him we were witch hunting, as that sort of thing tends to cause alarm."

"Technically, you don't have to have a corpse to convict for murder but detectives always feel better when they've found your actual victim—they're superstitious like that."

"Keeping a secret always makes the police suspicious. And while we’re willing to believe in the possibility of a totally innocent explanation, we never think that’s the way to bet."

"Charing Cross Road was once the bookselling heart of London and disreputable enough to avoid the multinational chains in their unceasing quest to turn every street of every city into a clone of every other."

"I didn’t bother calling Nightingale on the mobile I’d got him for Christmas because he only turns it on when he wants to call someone—the new technology being strictly there for his convenience, not anybody else’s."

"Most people don’t see half of what’s in front of them. Your visual cortex does a shit load of imaging processing before the signal even gets to your brain, whose priorities are still checking the ancestral savannah for dangerous predators, edible berries and climbable trees. That’s why a sudden cat in the night can make you jump and some people when distracted, can walk right out in front of a bus. Your brain just isn’t interested in those large moving chunks of metal or the static heaps of brightly colored stuff that piles up in drifts around us. Never mind all that, says your brain, it’s those silent fur-covered merchants of death you’ve got to watch out for."

"You don’t get to be a senior investigating officer unless you have a degree in skepticism, an MA in distrust and your CV lists suspicious bastard under your hobbies."

"Nightingale had taught me to be cautious of the early sources. “A great deal of it is accurate,” he said. “And a great deal is less so. Unfortunately it can be difficult to determine which is which.”"

"Landscaping is the great cardinal sin of modern architecture. It’s not your garden, it’s not a park—it’s a formless patch of grass, shrubbery and the occasional tree that exists purely to stop the original developer’s plans from looking like a howling concrete wilderness."

"The narrow hallway was lined with framed photographs while the far end was dominated by a faux movie poster for Gone with the Wind starring Ronald Reagan sweeping Margaret Thatcher off her feet while a mushroom cloud bloomed behind them. She promised to follow him to the end of the world. He promised to organize it."

"“You know how some people work at being stupid?” she asked. “If you give them a clear, common sense choice they give it a lot of thought and then choose stupid.”"

"Even hardened professional villains consent to be policed. This is clear from the way they complain that nonces, rapists and bankers get shorter sentences than decent ordinary criminals. It’s the same with all the other criminals, the weekend shoplifters, the drunk drivers, the overexcited protesters and executives who pop in to the loo for a quick snort. When it’s their stuff that goes walkies, or their car that’s damaged, when their kids go missing and their briefcases gets snatched, they all seem to be pretty consensual about the police. Everyone consents to the police. It’s just the operational priorities they argue about."

"I find you get two types of police, those that don’t want to know and those that do. Unfortunately, dealing with things you don’t want to know about is practically a definition of policing."

"His big claim to fame, beyond writing the first ever vampire novel, is his work attempting to classify where whatever it is that powers magic comes from. He called it potentia because there’s nothing quite like Latin for disguising the fact you’re making it up as you go along."

"We were pretty certain we knew roughly where he’d been, but members of the public have an unnerving tendency to switch straight from lying to your face to telling you what they think you want to hear—with no intervening period of veracity at all."

"Nightingale says that conspiracies of silence are the only kind of conspiracies that stand the test of time."

"I am a goddess, Peter, a creature of temperament and whimsy. I’m supposed to be arbitrary and mercurial—it’s practically my job description."

"“Come on then,” yelled Beverley, for whom de-escalation was something that happened to other people."

"“How about this then, Peter,” she said. “You’ve been part of something that no wizard has ever been part of before. You know something that’s not in their books.” I wanted to say that lots of things weren’t in the libraries of the wise, including plate tectonics, molecular biology and the complete works of J. K. Rowling. But she’d probably say that I was missing the point."

"Taking a statement from anyone can be a long process on account of the fact that your average member of the public wouldn’t know the truth if it donned a pink tutu and danced in front of them singing the Chicken Song."

"One of the advantages of being the police is that when you want to buy something slightly dodgy, you generally know where to shop."

"“Any abductions?” I asked. “Loads,” he said. “But none verified.”"

"“Of course now I realize it was a telepathic compulsion.” I was afraid to ask from who—but I had to know. “From aliens,” she told me. “Aliens?” “I’m not mad, you know,” she said. “I’ve been sectioned. They put me in for four weeks’ ‘evaluation’ and at the end the top shrink calls me into her office and looks me in the eye and says, ‘you’re saner than I am—go away.’” “Did you tell them about the aliens?” I asked. “I may have glossed over some of the details,” she said."

"The Daily Mail had the scoop but the media had caught the smell of blood in the water and twenty-four-hour news outlets were running the bulletin every half an hour, with a teaser on the quarter in case your attention span was that short."

"“They’ve got me reviewing statements during the initial investigation,” he said. “Occasionally I punch myself in the face to keep awake.”"

"“So the moon effects magic, why?” “I’m working on several theories,” I said. “But I’m currently favoring the hypothesis that the moon has a seemingly arbitrary effect on magic because it likes to piss me off.” “That’s a theory with a high degree of applicability to other spheres of life,” he said."

"This was the Wyldewood, spelt with a Y, that once covered the Island of Britain and would again, once the pesky tool-using primates had done the decent thing and exterminated themselves."

"I’ll say this for the Queen. She was brave—or possibly stupid. It’s easy to mistake the two."

"“I’ve loaded this particular gun with scrap iron,” she said. “Now, I don’t know if a shot to the head will kill you or not. But just consider how much fun we can have finding out.”"

"Dedication: This book is dedicated to all librarians everywhere—for they are the true keepers of the secret flame and not to be trifled with."

"Now, I have - as Beverley says - views about architecture. But there's modern stuff I like. The Gherkin, the Lloyd's Building, even the Shard - despite the nagging feeling I get that Nazgûl should be roosting at the top. But the truth is that in the case of One Hyde Park my boy Sir Roger was definitely just putting in the hours for the pay check. It's not ugly as such...it's just not anything in particular."

"In home furnishing terms, past a certain point, more money doesn’t get you anything except an increase in insurance premiums."

"I considered lying for all of about two nano-seconds, but I don’t have a death wish—not even a figurative one. Of course, philosophically speaking, truth is a slippery concept and one should always be alive to nuance."

"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?”"