People From London

"If I made a list of all the things in life I thought were coincidences and then looked back at them, I would see that they weren't coincidences at all."

"The Koran cannot be translated. That is the belief of old-fashioned Sheykhs and the view of the present writer. The Book is here rendered almost literally and every effort has been made to choose befitting language. But the result is not the Glorious Koran, that inimitable symphony, the very sounds of which move men to tears and ecstasy. It is only an attempt to present the meaning of the Koran – and peradventure something of the charm – in English. It can never take the place of the Koran in Arabic, nor is it meant to do so."

"There has been no satisfaction, and I will not absolve them."

"For the Name of Jesus and the protection of the Church I am ready to embrace death."

"I am ready to die for my Lord, that in my blood the Church may obtain liberty and peace. But in the name of Almighty God, I forbid you to hurt my people whether clerk or lay."

"We’re at an interesting time where women have been told to take the pill is cool, to sleep with whom­ever you want, or wear what you want. But if you’re naked, it can be offensive or sexist in some way. That’s the last step our culture needs to deal with. We have this culture of men, especially, watching pornography, but then offended by a classic nude portrait or photograph, and I’ve never felt that way."

"I dreamed of you for the first time the other night. You were swaddled in a blanket and floating. Your hair was dark brown before it curled and turned blonde, just like your father's. I brought my head down to my clavicle and nuzzled you, melting a little. I told you, or did you tell me that it wasn't time yet? We are waiting for you, wondering who you will be. I've made a habit of Googling strange changes in my body in the off chance they might be connected to your existence. Too much saliva, bleeding gums, muscle pains in the lower abdomen. Every time, no matter how seemingly random, all of these symptoms are correct, connected to the making of you. I'm reminded my body is marching onward without any help from me. There is a quietness that comes with pregnancy, a humbling. I'm listening for you. I'm full of wonder. Mornings and nights, my stomach grows. It's getting colder, an election is coming. I feel you flutter underneath my belly button. I want you to see the world's potential. You feel like the world's potential. I'm driving through Manhattan, looking out the backseat window of my friend's car, studying pedestrians as they move through the city. A man crosses the street in glasses, another jogs in place, his eyes focused ahead of him. I stare at these strangers. Will that be you? I wonder. I'm in the shower, rearranging all the names I'm thinking of for you in my head. I peer down at my belly and say one of them aloud to see if it fits. Water steadily beats against my back. In that moment I can't feel it myself or the space around me. Just you. Hello, I think, is that you? My chest swells and my eyes sting with the thought that one day soon, so very soon, your presence will be real. I close my eyes and try to imagine you moving through the pixelated darkness of my mind's eye. I cannot wait to see who you will be."

"I love sci-fi and fantasy but I don’t think that’s the reason I took on the projects I’ve been involved in. With those projects their genres give them a wonderful quality of escapism and an incredible capacity to imagine worlds that are other than our own. At the same time both of them are good stories to tell because they ground themselves in human character and emotion. I’ve never had to not play a human, I don’t know what that would feel like. I think they are very valuable stories to tell. A new environment with very human stories."

"When you spend six months working on a movie with someone you get to know them very well whether you like it or not."

"We are witnessing in the West the appearance of an at present thin but slowly deepening current of interest in those very thoughts and ideas which the young men of India are today doing their best to reject as inadequate to their needs and which constitute the faith and religious traditions of their forefathers."

"For Indian culture is fruitful in the domain of psychology, philosophy, and religion, so fruitful that there are few doctrines which appeared out of original Western sources that have not already been anticipated and developed .. .in India."

"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."

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

"“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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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.”"

"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."

"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."

"“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 a police mantra that all members of the public are guilty of something, but some members of the public are more guilty than others."

"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."

"“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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"“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?”"

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

"“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.”"

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

"“The scope of your ignorance, Peter,” said Seawoll, “is truly frightening.”"

"“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."