Lesley Thomson > Quotes

“Independent bookstore are a valuable asset to any city, town or village. They offer us the latest literary releases, a meeting point where authors share their work and meet new readers and fans. They offer us a rich ‘bookish’ environment in which to browse before we buy. I love to sip coffee and leaf through my new purchase. I can be sure that independent booksellers know their stock, they suggest new authors and broaden my reading. Along with public libraries they are key to our communities.”
― Lesley Thomson

“The power to concentrate exists in everyone, but few people can concentrate sufficiently to drive a motor car with complete mastery in all circumstances.
Roadcraft The Police Driver's Manual, 1960”
― Lesley Thomson, Ghost Girl

“Where were the years? Were they in the rustling leaves of the ash, the chunks of soil, the lichen-covered stone? Were they around her now, the hundreds of minutes experienced, the birthdays, the family holidays or Sunday lunches? Moments like this, when sitting still she could hear the engines and gears of all the lived lives?”
― Lesley Thomson, A Kind of Vanishing

“Success breeds expectation”
― Lesley Thomson, Death of a Mermaid

“he’d”
― Lesley Thomson, The Death Chamber

“I knew he had a hold on her, I wasn't clear what it was, she said it was better that I didn't know. But what you don't know, you make up”
― Lesley Thomson, The Mystery of Yew Tree House

“Her mum said there was no crisis so large that you forgot your manners”
― Lesley Thomson, The Mystery of Yew Tree House

“Pay attention to the irrelevant, the peripheral and the outlandish, it can lead to the truth”
― Lesley Thomson, The Distant Dead

“Children's games were not imitations of adult reality. Children adapted props, dressing up clothes and toys as signs and signifiers to construct a situation they could control, a reality without coercions or sanctions”
― Lesley Thomson, The Mystery of Yew Tree House

“The Mermaids were three women who'd chosen different seas”
― Lesley Thomson, Death of a Mermaid

“decent bloke wanting a job done. ‘It will be expensive,’ she warned, rat-a-tatting the page with her ballpoint. Were Jackie here she would suggest Stella talk up the benefits of Clean Slate so when she priced the work the client was primed to think it worth every penny. She had killed the job. Barlow nodded. ‘I want it sorted.’ He repeated, more to himself, ‘I will pay.’ Reprieve. Stella flipped open her Filofax. They decided on two sessions a week. She scratched out a recruitment meeting with Jackie that clashed with one day. Standing in a shaft of sunlight from the conservatory, Barlow enquired: ‘Who will be coming?’ Stella looked out at a green lawn so neat it”
― Lesley Thomson, Ghost Girl

“Cotton could only think that one thing worse than failing to solve a murder was when you had solved it and the solution was worse than the not knowing”
― Lesley Thomson, The Distant Dead

“Rules have exceptions and exceptions are the rule”
― Lesley Thomson, The Distant Dead

“Long ago I learnt if you don't rely on others, they can't let you down”
― Lesley Thomson, Death of a Mermaid

“Murder ensnares those with secrets of their own”
― Lesley Thomson, The Distant Dead

“Rules offer opportunities not restrictions”
― Lesley Thomson, The Mystery of Yew Tree House

“For the guilty, time knows no statute of limitation, the clock of crime is always ticking”
― Lesley Thomson, The Distant Dead

“Never go back, you can't cheat the passing of time”
― Lesley Thomson, The Distant Dead

“Stella was unfazed by murder, it was life and all it threw at her from which she shrank”
― Lesley Thomson, The Distant Dead

“Obviously, he was innocent, but almost because of that, he was wide open to looking as guilty as hell. Malcolm had said everything you did was out of character until you did it. Murder was no exception”
― Lesley Thomson, Death of a Mermaid

“voice low to avoid the neighbours hearing. The voice”
― Lesley Thomson, Ghost Girl

“It's easier to cry for our own dead at other funerals. Many will be in fear that it will soon be their loved one they mourn”
― Lesley Thomson, The Mystery of Yew Tree House

“We kill time, we waste time and we fill in time. Beware, we cannot defy time”
― Lesley Thomson, The Distant Dead

“Grief could be caustic. War had brought people together and it had driven them far apart”
― Lesley Thomson, The Mystery of Yew Tree House

“Recently, with Ricky away more frequently and in a bad mood when he was on shore, Toni had begun to question the wisdom of her move to the coast. She valued London's anonymity over the seaside town of best-forgotten faces. The answer lay in the darkness beyond the beach. As the crews worked on in comparative silence, Toni caught the hush and push of the tide. She smelled seaweed on the swift breeze. She'd been lured by another kind of siren to the blues and twos. The sea had called her home”
― Lesley Thomson, Death of a Mermaid

“Bravery is a quality attributed by others in retrospect, terror consumes in real-time”
― Lesley Thomson, The Distant Dead

“It takes ten seconds for patients and loved ones and inspectors to decide about your establishment. We are influenced by what we see, hear and smell. You want that first impression to be positive.”
― Lesley Thomson, The Death Chamber

“understands that the only way to appreciate a story is to read each word, from the start to the end.”
― Lesley Thomson, The Detective's Daughter

“You don't make memories, you either remember or you forget”
― Lesley Thomson, The Mystery of Yew Tree House

“You're only harmless when you're dead”
― Lesley Thomson, The Mystery of Yew Tree House