Mark Billingham > Quotes

“Life isn’t fair. Fair is somewhere you go to ride the dodgems and win a goldfish.”
― Mark Billingham, Rush of Blood

“London was a city of ghosts, some deader than others.
Thorne knew that in this respect, it wasn't unlike any other major city - New York or Paris or Sydney - but he felt instinctively that London was .... at the extreme. The darker side of that history, as opposed to the parks, palaces and pearly kings' side that made busloads of Japanese and American tourists gawk and jabber. The hidden history of a city where the lonely, the dispossessed, the homeless, wandered the streets, brushing shoulders with the shadows of those that had come before them. A city in which the poor and the plague-ridden, those long-since hanged for stealing a loaf or murdered for a shilling, jostled for position with those seeking a meal, or a score, or a bed for the night.
A city where the dead could stay lost a long time”
― Mark Billingham, Scaredy Cat

“He was a big man; fifty or so, with greased-back grey hair and an expression that looked as if it had been kicked into position.”
― Mark Billingham, In The Dark

“It was like being some not quite all-knowing, not quite all-seeing force, hamstrung by the missing pieces of the jigsaw. Omnipotent and impotent. Like being God with Alzheimer’s.”
― Mark Billingham, Scaredy Cat

“Thirty-Four The Third Day Thirty-Five Thirty-Six Thirty-Seven Thirty-Eight Thirty-Nine Forty Forty-One Forty-Two Forty-Three Forty-Four”
― Mark Billingham, The Bones Beneath

“INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: TUTORIAL 6 – had been enough on their own to fill Miller with an apocalyptic dread, but the content, delivered in an unfortunate monotone that sounded like a Dalek on Mogadon, was an altogether different level of horrific. ‘As an IT infrastructure technician, you’ll be supporting clients, assisting with troubleshooting and providing solutions so as to problem-solve business-wide infrastructure concerns.’ ‘I think I’m actually slipping into a coma,’ Miller said. ‘You’ll be responsible for workflow management, as well as applying structured IT techniques to both common and non-routine computing issues . . .”
― Mark Billingham, The Last Dance

“None of it’s about what God wants, it’s just about men wanting to run everything and girls like me knowing their place. Behaving PROPERLY.”
― Mark Billingham, Love Like Blood

“Well, I suppose not . . . not even in a Travelodge.”
― Mark Billingham, The Last Dance

“There are some people who want to throw their arms round you simply because it is Christmas; there are other people who want to strangle you simply because it is Christmas.’
ROBERT WILSON LYND”
― Mark Billingham, Afraid of the Christmas Lights: An Anthology of Crime Stories

“pointless spunktrumpet.”
― Mark Billingham, The Last Dance

“Governments have short memories.”
― Mark Billingham, Rabbit Hole

“We take the piss out of someone else because it makes us feel better about the stuff that’s screwing us up.”
― Mark Billingham, Cry Baby

“Different is liberating. Who the hell would want to be the same as everyone else?”
― Mark Billingham, Cry Baby

“very”
― Mark Billingham, Lifeless

“Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane.’ H. P. LOVECRAFT”
― Mark Billingham, The Last Dance

“It was relaxed. It was coffee and biscuits and comfy-chairs casual. But Thorne could hear the tension and defensiveness in everything Roper said. The same way that a Parisian would always hear Thorne’s London accent, however fluently he might speak French.”
― Mark Billingham, Buried

“The whole scene seemed lit by a thousand dusty, forty-watt lightbulbs. He had to make a move. ‘I need to get to my officer,’ he said. Palmer didn’t appear to be listening. Thorne took a step forwards, and in a second the gun was levelled at him. ‘No!’ Palmer shouted. Thorne was genuinely surprised. ‘What are you playing at, Martin?’ Palmer said nothing.”
― Mark Billingham

“I”
― Mark Billingham, Rabbit Hole

“Books do furnish a room.”
― Mark Billingham, Time of Death

“It might not feel like that now, but it's always so much better to know what the problem is.”
― Mark Billingham, Rabbit Hole

“Grief was as individual as a fingerprint.”
― Mark Billingham, Die of Shame

“Miller had accepted the plaudits with his customary modesty: holding both arms aloft and punching the air like he'd just snogged a supermodel or scored the winner in the dying seconds of the FA cup final”
― Mark Billingham, The Wrong Hands

“A recent survey claimed that two thirds of young British Asians believe that families should live according to the concept of honour. Seventy per cent of Sikhs and Muslims. Three per cent said that they sanctioned honour killings.”
― Mark Billingham, Love Like Blood

“There's no stigma when you're all in the same boat.”
― Mark Billingham, Rabbit Hole

“This Christmas will be dramatically different for most of us from our Christmases past. But the comfort of reading is a constant. It’s a salve for isolation and a haven when we need to escape into someone else’s imagination.”
― Mark Billingham, Afraid of the Christmas Lights: An Anthology of Crime Stories

“I mean, apparently a lot of people working in mental health used to be patients, so I wouldn't be surprised. Poacher turned gamekeeper sort of thing”
― Mark Billingham, Rabbit Hole

“Death hit people differently. She was getting by. He had all but given up.

There was no middle ground as woman. She was used to it, but it still pissed her off. Frigid, or a slag. Girly, or one of the boys. Hrad, or emotionally unstable.

When USA sneezed , the UK caught the cold.

Her face was often difficult to read, but at that moment it told him whatever McEvoy found Margie Knight o not, she'd tear every dodgy sauna, massage parlour and tin-pot knocking shop in the city apart trying.

It might have been a few minutes, it might have been an hour, when he heard Holland's voice...

The mood she is in right now, Holland, if you're so much as suggest that it might be her time of the month, I'm guessing she'll kill you on the spot.

I think the poison inside me has eaten away every ounce of courage there might ever have been. I need to find just a little more.

"Look, I'm getting tired of saying sorry"
"Well I'm not tired of hearing you say it, OK?"

Maybe they bred them somewhere, taught then how to put their hair in a bun and look down their pointed noses, before sending them out into the world with a pair of bug glasses, a fondness for tweed and something uncomfortable up their backside.

"I'm going to kill Holland. No, I'm going to make him listen to some proper country music and then I'm going to kill him."
"Actually, fuck that, the music would be wasted on him anyway. I'll just kill him."

"fuckfuckbullocksfuck..."

"What? I make you sick? I make you want to hurt me?"

"You knock, you wait, you get asked to come in, you come in. It's pretty bloody straightforward."

...sat at home like Tom Throne, trying to keep the rest of the world well away.

Police officer and prison staff are old enemies. The finders and the keepers resenting each other.

'Everybody says it switches around when you get old and they have to look after you. The parent becomes the child...It's non sense though., it really is. Even when they're cooking for you and getting your shopping in, you know? Even when they're doing up the buttons on your pyjamas and pretending to listen to your stupid stories, even when they're wiping your arse, you're still the father--It never stops, never. You're still the father and he's still the son. Still the son...'


A thin layer across the top of the cistern in the ladies, invisible unless used in some of the more drugs-conscious clubs.

...Depending on how it looks, thy either do nothing, or break it again, re-set it.'
'Do they need volunteers?'

"Don't talk to me. Not like that, do you understand? Not 'are you all right?' Not 'sorry'..."
"I don't..."
"Talk to me like a murdered."


Holland couldn't believe what he was hearing. Palmer?

'Sorry?' Throne shouted. 'Fucking sorry...?'

'Shut your fucking stupid cunt's mouth. I will kill you, is that clear? I'm not afraid, certainly not of you. I don't care what happens. He can shoot the pair of us, I don't give a fuck. But if I hear so much as a breath coming out of you before this is finished, a single poisonous whisper, I'll rip your face off with my bare hands. I'll take it clean off, Nicklin, I'll make you another nice, new identity...”
― Mark Billingham, Scaredy Cat

“forty-”
― Mark Billingham, The Wrong Hands

“Wayne Cutler’s”
― Mark Billingham, The Last Dance

“No, he needed to mould the context, to shape his environment in a way that would stimulate and spark, that would challenge and charge him.”
― Mark Billingham, Scaredy Cat