Ben Aaronovitch

"God, money is so wasted on the rich."

"For police officers, “close relative” frequently rhymes with “prime suspect.”"

"There’s nothing like having your girlfriend talk in geological time to make you feel insignificant."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"“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."

"“Flexible,” I said. “Meaning we’re making it up as we go along.”"

"Hyde Park Corner is what happens when a bunch of urban planners take one look at the grinding circle of gridlock that surrounds the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and think—that’s what we want for our town."

"Now, personally, I’d have been happier driving an armored personnel carrier in through the front door. But since we’re the Met, and not the police department of a small town in Missouri, we didn’t have one."

"“Peter,” said Tyburn. “I need you to stop just pretending to be clever and actually be clever.”"

"A promise is a promise, or as Nightingale put it, “either your word is good or it’s worthless.”"

"“Nice,” said Abigail. “Very plausible.” “Yeah, but just because it’s plausible doesn’t mean it’s true.”"

"“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” I said. “I was gathering intelligence.”"

"The railway hit Harrow on the Hill in 1880 and it’s been downhill ever since, culminating in one of those formless red brick shopping centres which artfully combines a complete lack of aesthetic quality with a total disregard for the utilitarian function for which it is built."

"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."

"I’ve always believed that my dad is right about one thing—your life is your solo and whatever song you choose to sing you only get to do it once."

"Nightingale has always been reluctant to let me loose on the library and I must have frowned or something because he went on, “My worry with you, Peter, is not what you would learn but that, should you go into the library, you might never emerge again.”"

"I didn’t dare ask because we have an unspoken agreement—I don’t question what she does on my computer when I’m out and, in return, she doesn’t murder me in my sleep."

"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"

"When you’re four, forever and ever can mean yesterday."

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

"Or my gut was wrong. Confirmation bias has put more innocent people in prison than malice."

"“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."

"Dedication: This book is dedicated to all the people whose job it is to rush into danger when everybody else is running in the other direction."

"“They’re all so ridiculously young,” said Nightingale. “They” were mostly Police Staff, what we’re not supposed to call civilian workers any more—analysts and data entry specialists—who’d got the boot when the government decided that in the light of an increased security threat what London needed was a smaller police force."

"This sort of thing is pretty common—people often draw more attention to themselves trying to hide their activities than whatever it was they were up to would. Plus sometimes the cover-up is more illegal than the thing they were covering up. Still, if people were brighter routine police work would be much harder."

"Most archaeology in London these days is rescue archaeology—projects designed to preserve as much as possible from the relentless cash-driven redevelopment. It’s not a new problem. Ask a medievalist about Victorian cellars or an Iron Age specialist about medieval ploughing—but take snacks, because you’re going to be there for a while."

"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."

"I checked in the next morning to see if we knew the whereabouts of Zachary Palmer, the demi-monde's very own go-to guy for ducking and diving, bar work, fixing and general dishonesty. Due to a lucrative consultation contract with Crossrail, currently worth three hundred large a year, he didn't actually have to do any ducking and diving. That he still fiddled his change and sold dodgy goods on the Portobello Road while the money piled up in a low interest building society account seemed to wind up Seawoll no end."

"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."

"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.”"

"The bell sang with the first hammer and screamed with the second. And within the scream I heard a familiar laugh and the jingle of merry bells."

"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."

"I asked Oxley to ask Beverley to bring Abigail home. Then I showered, changed and drove back to London. And if you're the woman who, driving along the A4155 that afternoon, found herself inexplicably picking up a pair of hitchhikers and driving them all the way into London, I'm really, really sorry - I assumed Beverley would organise a lift from one of her relatives."

"Anyone who’s taken statements from multiple witnesses to the same event will know how malleable memory is."

"We headed off to do some community outreach. This involves meeting people, listening to their stories and memorizing their names and faces in case you have to come back and arrest them at a later date."

"Nightingale ignored that thread because when the suspect - I mean interviewee - wants to talk about something it's a good idea to frustrate them a little bit. That way you can get more later than they intended. Seawoll calls it the 'fuck all the cows' interview approach."

"Despite being the oldest part of London, the Square Mile has a faster architectural churn than anywhere else in the city. Occasionally it throws up something exciting, innovative and modern…but mostly it doesn’t. Architects like a bit of volume, and financiers like floor space. The easiest way to maximize both is to build a cube—which is why ninety-nine per cent of all office buildings are boxes with lobbies."

"Lots of angled struts, planes of glass and random spikes. It was, as architectural theorists like to say, a bold statement and the statement was: “Fuck truth and beauty. We’ve got money and loads of it.”"

"Nothing attracts the powerful quite like more power."

"I could see the cartoon slot machine flicker behind his eyes. Nightingale was offering what the ridiculously rich always crave—a chance to be exclusive."

"“These people are not to be trusted,” I said. “These people?” “People with…” I looked over at the poshest person I’ve ever met and tried to think of the right word. “Entitlement,” I said. “They’re not good at keeping promises."

"That at least we can leave to Abdul and the irrepressible Dr Vaughan," said Nightingale. "Who no doubt will be delighted to extend the boundaries of their empire of information." "Their knowledge base," I said. "I believe that's what I said."

"Upstairs, MOLA’s offices had the same open-plan cubicle based workspace that has been the delight of code monkeys and low-level paper pushers since one time and motion consultant said to another, “Hey, you know, I don’t think we’ve really dehumanized these white collar drones enough.”"