Michael Dibdin > Quotes

“He certainly seemed to have all the qualities of a gentleman, but the interesting kind who knows exactly when to stop behaving like one.”
― Michael Dibdin, Medusa

“Criminals have the same aspirations as everyone else. That's why they become criminals.”
― Michael Dibdin, Ratking

“He liked the fog, the world quietened down and closed in. Glossy turned to matt, every stridency was muted, substance leached out of the brute matter all around. Things became notions, the brash present a vague memory.

By some parallel process of slippage, his innumerable childhood memories of foggy days morphed into other memories. The fog of illness, real or feigned, of fevers and flu and febrility.”
― Michael Dibdin, Medusa

“With the True and the Beautiful which Keats said were one and the same.'
Browning shot me a keen look.
'Bravo. Any friend of John Keats is a friend of mine. But the problem with his famous definition - which, incidentally, I most fervently believe to be as true as it is beautiful - is that like all great truths it balances perilously above an abyss of nonsense, where most of those who quote it quite lose their heads. What did Keats mean? That there is a class of things which we call true because they take after their ideal parent, and which you may recognize by their pretty features? Because in that case he was talking nonsense - and cloying, feeble, wishy- washy nonsense at that.'
'But I believe he was saying something much stronger and stranger. I believe Keats meant that Truth is Beauty: that anything-literally anything- is beautiful, provided only that we are forced to recognize it - at gunpoint, or pen-point! - as true. In that moment of recognition the foulest of passions, the most loathsome cruelties, the dreariest depths of a madman's soul, assume the quality we call Beauty. Not because they cease to be evil, but because they tell us about what it means to be human - about ourselves.”
― Michael Dibdin, A Rich Full Death

“Imagine living in a country where the cops are all people who're cut out for the job.”
― Michael Dibdin, Ratking

“Books were another form of fog, dipping down to infiltrate and insidiously undermine the authoritative, official version, showing it up for the sham it was. He knew the stories were all made up, the characters puppets, the outcome predetermined, so why did they seem more real than reality? And why was no one else shocked by this gleeful scandal?”
― Michael Dibdin, Medusa

“In pained tones, Ottavio outlined his opinion that people were not eating enough these days. All they ever thought about was their figures, a selfish, shortsighted view contributing directly to the impoverishment of restaurateurs and the downfall of civilization as we know it. What the Goths, the Huns, and the Turks had failed to do was now being achieved by a conspiracy of dietitians who were bringing the country to its knees with all this talk of cholesterols, calories, and the evils of salt.”
― Michael Dibdin, Ratking

“I know I should be reassuring him that everything's all right, that he needn't worry, but I can't. Instead I'm talking to someone I don't know who isn't even there. Thank you, I'm saying. Thank you for Lucy, thank you for Claire and for Daniel, thank you for this cold and this blood and this pain. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
― Michael Dibdin, Thanksgiving

“These were crowded with traders and their customers, mostly short, stout, elderly women enveloped in utilitarian fur coats from which their head and legs protruded as stubby appendages, giving them the appearance of so many furry pods.”
― Michael Dibdin

“I love you madly.’ ‘ Carissimo! And I love you sanely. A winning combination, don’t you think?”
― Michael Dibdin, Medusa

“An oily fog had mystified the streets, sheathing the façades to either side, estranging familiar landmarks and coating the windows with a skein of liquid seemingly denser than water.”
― Michael Dibdin, Medusa

“Lestrade: I have a good mind to arrest you for impersonating a police officer.
Holmes: But I wouldn't dream of trying to impersonate a police officer Lestrade! I leave that to you.”
― Michael Dibdin, The Last Sherlock Holmes Story

“Porphyria's lover was mad, of course, but what lover is completely sane?”
― Michael Dibdin, A Rich Full Death

“my house?’ Moscati gestured regretfully. ‘It’s out of my hands, Zen. Now this new squad exists, all applications for protection have to be routed through them. It’s so they can draw up a map of potential threats at any given time, then put it on the computer and see if any overall patterns emerge. Or so they claim. If you ask me, they’re just protecting their territory. Either way, my hands are tied, unfortunately. If I start allocating men to protection duties they’ll cry foul and we’ll never hear the end of it.’ Zen nodded and turned to leave. From a bureaucratic point of view, the logic of Moscati’s position was flawless. He knew only too well that it would be a sheer waste of time to point out any discrepancy between that logic and common sense. As the working day for state employees came to an end, doors could be heard opening all over the Ministry. The corridors began to hum with voices which, amplified by the resonant acoustic, rapidly became a babble, a tumult which prefigured the crowds surging invisibly towards the entrance hall where Zen stood waiting. Within a minute they were everywhere. The enormous staircase was barely able to contain the human throng eager to get home, have lunch and relax, or else hasten to their clandestine afternoon jobs in the booming black economy, ‘the Italy that works’,”
― Michael Dibdin, Vendetta

“a masterly performance. Fulsome and vapid, laden with insincere warmth and hidden barbs, his introductory speech had nevertheless left no legitimate grounds for complaint.”
― Michael Dibdin, Ratking