Andrew Barrett > Quotes

“Use your intuition. Picture how things happen, why they happen. Don’t stick rigidly to first impressions, and once you’ve read the rule book, throw it away. Better still, burn the bastard.”
― Andrew Barrett, A Long Time Dead

“Some things in life could not be solved or even contemplated by a rational mind. Roger’s mind, however, had ceased being anywhere near rational about half a bottle of Grand Marnier ago.”
― Andrew Barrett, Stealing Elgar

“Fear was a wonderful propellant, and such a strong exponent of survival, even at the cost of others. Civility, it seemed, was the first to perish in a disaster.”
― Andrew Barrett, Stealing Elgar

“The Troll was well over seven feet tall, and smelled of body odour and Germolene.”
― Andrew Barrett, A Splendid Salmagundi

“No one mentioned the sad piece of tinsel, naked in places, hanging across the chimneybreast, nor that Twelfth Night was a week ago. No one mentioned the two Christmas cards on the mantelpiece. No one mentioned them because inside they were blank.”
― Andrew Barrett, A Long Time Dead

“Far as I know, Legal Aid was invented to help poor people fight wrongs; [the criminals] are abusing the system, and the damned lawyers help them do it. They’re all sticking two fingers up at them who pay their taxes. And I’ll tell you sommat for free, Sir George, them who pays the taxes are eventually going to get fed up of it.”
― Andrew Barrett, The Third Rule - The Complete Story

“The bullet smashed through the right lens of Winston’s glasses and slammed him back against the lounge wall. Ozzy was expressionless as his old friend slid down the wall leaving a smear of red behind him. Above his creased body, a gob of pale tissue clung onto the light switch. “Aw, Winston,” he said, “you did have a brain after all!”
― Andrew Barrett, Stealing Elgar

“…but his problem was infinity; his problem was time running along the x-axis versus stress running along the y-axis, and there never seemed to be time without stress. Stress was a constant.”
― Andrew Barrett, The Third Rule - The Complete Story

“Henry was now very annoyed; he had dug himself into a hole so deep that they didn’t make a rope long enough.”
― Andrew Barrett

“I am not their f*****g entertainment. And I am not a f*****g hero! Given the choice, a hero would do exactly the same again. I wouldn’t. Okay?”
― Andrew Barrett, The Third Rule - The Complete Story

“She smiled as though someone had just offered her, the oldest virgin in town, a fully functioning Kingsize Vibro vibrator and a deluxe inhibition bypass.”
― Andrew Barrett, The Third Rule - The Complete Story

“People who go to jail breed people who go to jail.”
― Andrew Barrett, The Third Rule - The Complete Story

“It had been more or less the same for Jilly. Except that she had her parents there to field any phone calls, to accept the flowers at the door and pick up the cards that dropped like tears through the letterbox. She sat before her dressing table mirror in bra and pants and let time drip away, watching a face she didn’t recognise and feeling raw emotions eat away at the drugs she was on. The emotions were gradually winning.”
― Andrew Barrett, The Third Rule - The Complete Story

“Like a submarine ejecting ballast, he bobbed to the surface as another sense pulled his eyelids all the way open like roller blinds in the old cartoons.”
― Andrew Barrett, The Third Rule - The Complete Story

“If you want to kill serious crime, you have to kill serious criminals!”
― Andrew Barrett, The Third Rule - The Complete Story

“There was noise in the corridor outside Alice’s office; and though it was nothing of concern, they separated. Roger stood, fingers tucked into his waistcoat pockets, admiring prints on the wall that held no interest for him. The noise was Melanie, but her voice, a length of razor wire wrapped in a soufflé, eventually faded.”
― Andrew Barrett, A Long Time Dead

“Oh God, please, I have to, please, just once more; I have to see her again. He marched onwards, his crippled leg dragging behind; his good leg hauling his exhausted body through the kind of pain he didn’t think existed. He reached out, grasped clumps of hope with bloodied hands, and pulled himself onwards.”
― Andrew Barrett, Stealing Elgar

“Yep,” Eddie said, “if you wanted a change from intelligence, then CID is the place to be.”
― Andrew Barrett, This Side of Death

“No one took any notice of you if your lobotomy still seemed to be working.”
― Andrew Barrett, This Side of Death

“He couldn’t read her these days; it was as though she’d been taken away from him, and in her place some alien had dropped a figure that looked like Alice, but was a cheap imitation of her with half the emotions missing or malfunctioning.”
― Andrew Barrett, The Third Rule - The Complete Story

“She had known it was bad, call it a mother’s instinct, but she’d known this was the knock that was going to scoop her insides out and leave her barely able to stand; merely a shell with nothing good inside anymore.”
― Andrew Barrett

“the temperature dropped by ten degrees just because they were so fucking cool.”
― Andrew Barrett, The Note

“And one of those preliminary things included getting a tent up over the deceased as quickly as possible. If you’ve ever put up a marquee in your back garden, you’ll know it’s almost impossible to do by yourself, so I was hoping that CID had finished playing cards by now, or some back-up for the PCSO and the copper might show up before this place succumbed to a drunken uprising”
― Andrew Barrett, The Note

“common sense a brief strut across the stage as it auditioned for the part of spontaneity.”
― Andrew Barrett, The Pain of Strangers: The most dangerous deal is the one you can't refuse

“Sometimes, hate bites so deep that killing someone else is the only way to prise the teeth out of your heart.”
― Andrew Barrett, This Side of Death

“the Geneva convention: thou shalt not stab thine enemy with a rusty bayonet, lest he catch blood poisoning.”
― Andrew Barrett, The Third Rule - The Complete Story

“Both eyes were open. They didn’t have fear in them, no terror. No scream. But they had something in them that Eddie recognised. They wore regret like an old overcoat, as if taking cover in the emotion… no, no, they wore regret like a comfy pair of slippers, like it was good to be home in them once more. This man lived with regret like it was his wife.”
― Andrew Barrett, Ledston Luck

“Eddie!” Miriam shouted. “Stop it. I’m trying to do my job, here. I’m asking for your help.”
Eddie stared at her. She was almost pleading. Most gaffers didn’t want to hear your opinion outside of the crime scene. To them you were a necessary evil, an added extra; you were the heartburn after eating onions, and your opinions were never sought; your opinions were discouraged, drowned in Pepto Bismal.”
― Andrew Barrett, This Side of Death