Screenwriters From England

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

"I asked whether the High Fae came into the pub. Lulu gave me a crooked smile. “High Fae?” She asked. “You know,” I said. “The gentry, elves, those posh gits with extradimensional castles, stone spears and unicorns.” “You mean them what step between worlds?” “Could be.” “Who walk on paths unseen and wax and wane with the moon?” “Them sort of people,” I said. “Yeah.” “Not in here, squire,” she said. “I run a respectable pub.”"

"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."

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

"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."

"“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.”"

"My recent experience trying to explain magic to people who really would rather it didn’t exist has given me an arsenal of euphemisms. I’m particularly proud of “initial incident” although “subjective perception threshold” runs a close second."

"“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."

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

"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."

"“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.”"

"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.”"

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

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

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

"“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?”"

"Few buildings evoke the sinister horror of 1950s municipal architecture more strikingly than the flat roofed pub. Thrown up in their thousands wherever the working class were being rehoused, it’s hard to imagine that the architects were not secret teetotallers looking to make the whole pub experience as grim as possible."

"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."

"“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.”"

"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."

"Here the bland 1930s art deco stylings of the station gave way to the horror that was the 1980s where every public building was deliberately crafted to look as much like a urinal as possible."

"“Giant squids are pretty alien,” I said. “Not to another giant squid,” said Beverley."

"“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.”"

"Guleed went home because she has, she says, a deep and mystical understanding of the work-life balance. A concept I once tried explaining to Nightingale with the aid of the big whiteboard in the visitors' lounge. I think he grasped it in the end, and said he was all in favour as long as I understood that this in no way applied to apprentices."

"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 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."

"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?”"

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

"You see, the trouble with detectives is that they’re detectives and are literally trained not to believe anything they haven’t verified themselves."

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

"“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.”"

"“Are there aliens?” Simon asks Indigo. “Not that I know of,” she says. “Unless you count cats.”"

"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."

"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.”"

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"“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."

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

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

"The trouble with turning a blind eye is that people often take the opportunity to punch you in the face."