Screenwriters From England

"But this was the eighteenth century, when life was cheap and ambition unlimited."

"This is what’s known as operational flexibility, and definitely not making it up as you go along."

"You make a plan without intelligence—you might as well not have a plan at all."

"Police doctrine is, even if you’re waiting for someone to do something violent to your suspect, you should de-escalate the situation because at the very least a peaceful solution produces a ton less paperwork."

"“Are you a practitioner?” I ask. “A wizard?” “Sorceress, my dear,” she says. “Practitioner is how the gentlemen have styled themselves, as quacks now style themselves as physicians.”"

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

"After a slow start the police have taken to mobile technology in a big way—mainly because it means you can pretend to work anywhere: at home, the canteen, the local boozer."

"Inside he had the soul of an accountant, but alas none of the facility with numbers."

"None of those choices seemed likely, but if I’ve learned one thing on the job, it is that a coincidence can kill someone just as easily as malice."

"Ask not for whom the buck stops, I thought, it stops for thee."

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

"It’s a police rule of thumb that anything involving members of the public takes twice as long as you think it will."

"The media always calls this sort of thing senseless, but the motive made sense—it was just stupid, is what it was."

"“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.”"

"“Unless you believe it was a coincidence that Melvin the Rat turned up at a party we were hosting.” Actually I thought it probably was, but I found that when people are nursing a grievance it’s a waste of time trying to explain the ubiquitous nature of coincidence in the universe. People always want things to happen for a reason."

"It was already one of the hazards of being police that you became suspicious of the everyday. You didn’t have to spend much time on the job before realising that professional criminals are comparatively rare and that crime is something committed by ordinary people."

"“You’re probably wondering why I decided to grace you with my presence,” he said. Which was true, since DCIs spend most of their life in their offices or, worse, in other people’s offices and conference rooms. “Playing,” Seawoll once said, “pin the fucking buzzword on the sodding flow chart.”"

"“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.”"

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

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

"From a policing point of view, guns are a pain. Once someone is known to be tooled up, your operational priorities are suddenly fucked up. It all becomes about managing whoever was stupid enough to pull a gun in central London and your number one priority is public safety, followed closely by officer safety and then, not so closely, by the safety of the moron with the gun."

"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?”"

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

"“Like when you kiss me,” she said. “Is it enjoyable because of the physical sensation or is it because you think it should be enjoyable?” Good question, and we quickly developed experimental protocol which unfortunately left us too knackered to record our results properly and thus invalidated any conclusions. We have faith in the methodology, though, and continue to repeat the experiment on a regular basis. And people say science is dull."

"The house was neat and well cared for, but to my eye the Heywoods were losing the battle against the four-year-old agent of entropy who was living with them"

"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."

"“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?”"

"“My mum is game for any branch of Christianity that involves singing and hellfire,” I said. “She likes churches so much she switches to a new one twice a year.”"

"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."

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

"“Somebody’s lying,” I said, which got me a look of amused indulgence from Stephanopoulos and a snort from Seawoll. Of course somebody was lying—we were the police—somebody was always lying to us."

"“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."

"I wondered, not for the first time, whether all farmers become obsessed or if only obsessive people become farmers."

"The ABC of policing literally goes: Assume nothing, Believe no-one, Check everything."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"And having made sure my attention was focused in one direction the universe, which likes a good laugh, smacked me in the face from the other side."

"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."

"“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."

"“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."

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

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

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

"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."

"Nobody likes a riot except looters and journalists."

"“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.”"

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

"“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.”"

"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."