Benedict Brown > Quotes

“just how precious a resource our fellow humans are.”
― Benedict Brown, Murder at the Spring Ball

“In an act of rebellion, I waited a good five seconds before doing as I’d been told.”
― Benedict Brown, The Mystery of Mistletoe Hall

“If my tone isn’t clear enough, I think it’s fair to say that I’ve never been a fan of my school’s educational methods. Though my father always insisted that Oakton Academy was where he learnt to be a man, I’ve yet to discover exactly what he would have turned into otherwise.”
― Benedict Brown, Murder at the Spring Ball

“Do you know what gaslighting is?” He showed no fear as he answered. “Yes. It’s the fact of denying someone’s reasonable accusations and suggesting they are mad in order to gain influence over them. The term comes from a very enjoyable horror film from the fifties.”
― Benedict Brown, A Corpse for Christmas

“Chrissy, m’boy. I would like to tell you that oars are pilchard stew.” “Pilchard stew?” He shook his head, his eyes never quite settling on me for a moment. “No, no, boy. I wanted to tell you that I saw a picture of you… in the newspaper. You looked most apple light and runcible.” He had a metal tankard in his hand – his own personal one which he took to the pub each day – and he waved it about in the air so that drops of beer splashed about the place. “Apple light and runcible?” I asked to check that it wasn’t my hearing that was the problem. “What do you mean, boy?” He examined me as if I were quite mad. “I said you looked upright and respectable. I haven’t used the word runcible in my life. I don’t even know what it means.” He stopped then and gazed about the room as though unsure what he was doing there. “Anyway, as I was saying, there was a phonograph…” I understood this slurred word without asking for clarification. “… of you with your grasshopper.” It went on like this for quite some time. I particularly enjoyed a story he told from when he was a child on his family’s grand estate. He was playing with his two best friends – a unicorn and a hacksaw – and they discovered a purple blancmange. By this point, I had given up asking what he really meant and tried to enjoy the bizarre story for what it was.”
― Benedict Brown, The Christmas Candle Murders

“There will never be a shortage of idiots in this world. Never underestimate just how naïve, arrogant and short-sighted people can be.”
― Benedict Brown, The Hurtwood Village Murders

“He stopped speaking then. I think my eyes might have glazed over – as is the right of any adolescent when an older relative starts reminiscing about their youth.”
― Benedict Brown, Murder at the Spring Ball

“Any man who has excelled in his field will have spent years mastering his craft, whether he be a worn-out old copper or a young prodigy. Without time, commitment and practice, even the most innate talent will go to”
― Benedict Brown, The Curious Case of the Templeton-Swifts

“afraid I’m a bit confused by the whole”
― Benedict Brown, A Corpse Called Bob

“the intoxicating flush of young love that we had once enjoyed may have gone, but it had been replaced by something so much stronger. She was the land upon which my life had been built and, without her there to support me, I was lost at sea.”
― Benedict Brown, What the Vicar Saw

“Talking to her was like looking into a mirror that only shows you beautiful things.”
― Benedict Brown, A Corpse Called Bob

“Humans are built with just enough resilience to tolerate the passing of older generations, but nothing can prepare us for the loss of a child.”
― Benedict Brown, What the Vicar Saw

“I need to know why he killed our father.”
― Benedict Brown, Arsenic and Old Lies

“Now go out there and win, lose, come somewhere in the middle or give up halfway. It won’t reflect on your worth as a human being in the slightest.”
― Benedict Brown, A Body at a Boarding School

“I’m going to take them back to my garden in town and throw them at the neighbour’s cats. I hate those cats.”
― Benedict Brown, The Christmas Candle Murders

“I'm a cog in a machine. That's not actually true. I'm more like the pin that holds a single cog in place, and even that suggests I'm in some way pivotal to the functioning of the machine. If anything, I'm one of those bits of transparent plastic that you get on the front of a router when the broadband company decides to send you a new one. If someone removed me, no one would notice the difference.”
― Benedict Brown

“I’m sure such officers had their uses, though I couldn’t imagine what they were.”
― Benedict Brown, Death at Silent Pool: A 1920s Mystery

“Apparently, actors aren’t the cleverest people.”
― Benedict Brown, The Curious Case of the Templeton-Swifts

“would excel, but I was still only sixteen. I was just starting out in the world and you shouldn’t write a good man off before he’s had the chance to do so himself.”
― Benedict Brown, Murder at the Spring Ball

“still occasionally wake up feeling dread at the thought of going to work before remembering I have a different life now.”
― Benedict Brown, A Corpse from the Past: A Funny, Twisty Murder Mystery

“There’s a lot of money to be made from war. Plenty of people would be happy if such suffering and instability were never to end.”
― Benedict Brown, The Castleton Affair

“six days and six nights,”
― Benedict Brown, The Christmas Candle Murders

“his mind was a place to marvel at, but never visit.”
― Benedict Brown, A Body at a Boarding School

“The whole garden was a fake, a fraud; a mirage of a verdant landscape created with wood, cotton and silk. I hadn’t questioned it at first, as I had no reason to do so, but I now saw the place for what it really was.”
― Benedict Brown, A Killer in the Wings

“In my book, modesty is tantamount to lying.”
― Benedict Brown, Death on a Summer’s Day

“Uncle Terry was at the front, pointing out beloved sights from his youth that were no longer there.”
― Benedict Brown, The Christmas Candle Murders

“don’t mean to sound unprofessional, but really! Whose favourite food is turnips?”
― Benedict Brown, The Christmas Candle Murders

“But, you hide your gifts so well, don’t you, darling? Evidently your grandfather has wormed them out of you.”
― Benedict Brown, Murder at the Spring Ball

“too”
― Benedict Brown, The Mystery of Mistletoe Hall

“from”
― Benedict Brown, What the Vicar Saw