Colin Bateman > Quotes

“If you dwell in the darkness, you can see in the dark and look into the light.
But in choosing the darkness, you know you are destined to walk alone.”
― Colin Bateman, Mystery Man

“Books are precious things and cannot be selected like tinned peas in Tesco.”
― Colin Bateman

“Bookselling is like prostitution, you sell your wares, you close your eyes, and you never fall in love with the clients. You also keep your fingers crossed that they won't ask for anything perverted.”
― Colin Bateman, Mystery Man

“I then swept the crumbs into my palm and opened one of the empty drawers and poured them in. I was working on the theory that if I collected enough crumbs, eventually I could make my own Twix. It's good to have a purpose in life.”
― Colin Bateman, Nine Inches

“He was the type of man women said they hated, they absolutely hated, they absolutely and categorically hated, and then they went to bed with him. I was the type of man women said they hated, and then they went home.”
― Colin Bateman, Mystery Man

“Serial Killer Week got off to an inauspicious start when the opening wine and bean evening was invaded by a former prisoner who misinterpreted the poster, but he was at least able to give us the professional's view of the genre.”
― Colin Bateman, Mystery Man

“They asked me how I would be paying and I told them that if past experience was anything to go by probably with my life and the thin girl with the thick spectacles reached deep into her soul for a smile and repeated the question.”
― Colin Bateman

“Life is too short to spend an hour and a half on a mystery that will ultimately be solved by a cat.”
― Colin Bateman, Mystery Man

“He had started out the way nearly all writers do, and I'd seen it a hundred times--amateurs transformed into gibbering wrecks by actually being published; what once they'd done for fun ruined forever by the burden of expectation, the hope of sales and good reviews and riches, hobbyists turned authors made bitter by the knowledge that they'd missed their main chance.”
― Colin Bateman, Dr. Yes

“Also, I have a mornid fear of rates, and mice, and nettles and wasps and jagged cans and rotting food and damp newspapers and the unemployed.”
― Colin Bateman, Mystery Man

“And nobody has ever gotten emotional over a James Patterson novel.”
― Colin Bateman, Mystery Man

“It was teenage partying on adult paycheques.”
― Colin Bateman, Divorcing Jack

“Anything with the word 'Tesco' or 'Weight Watchers' on the label should be viewed with some suspicion.”
― Colin Bateman, Mystery Man

“You need your thumbs. They are one reason cats can't make omelettes.”
― Colin Bateman, Mystery Man

“But it was a shouldn’t with a hint of should.”
― Colin Bateman, Divorcing Jack

“They are way too happy.”
― Colin Bateman, TITANIC 2020

“and i especially don´t like talking to old people. i don´t like having to shout to be heard. i don´t like their turned milk and their soft biscuits. i don´t like their fishy cats and youth dew perfume that smells of mothballs. i don´t like that they grown every time they sit down or stand up., or how loud they have their tv and how much they complain about what´s on tv or how they boast about having their own teeth or why i should be interested in the fact that they can still spell when they´re 89 years old. i´m with the eskimos putting their useless grandparents on ice floes and waving goodbye. this may be monstrous slander on eskimos. it could just as easily be some other tribe with access to large bodies of ice, or just plain water, with crocodiles.”
― Colin Bateman, Mystery Man

“We compromised on my withdrawal. I didn’t. We British don’t withdraw from Ireland.”
― Colin Bateman, Divorcing Jack

“Books are precious things, and cannot be selected like tinned peas in Tesco.”
― Colin Bateman, Mystery Man

“Coffee is coffee to me, I don't mind what country it comes from, who picks it or under what conditions, and I really don't give a damn who serves it or what they're getting paid as long as they get it right.”
― Colin Bateman, Mystery Man

“Two big bottles of this and you wake up in the morning with a pile of vomit in your slippers and six hours pregnant.”
― Colin Bateman, Divorcing Jack

“Having to say 'so and so can't be with us tonight, but I would like to accept this murder charge on his behalf' would have been rather anticlimactic.”
― Colin Bateman, Mystery Man

“Alison was snoring gently, and I was thinking about what would happen if I pinched her nose. And covered her mouth. The head is so full of holes, and the ear, nose and throat are supposedly connected; you would wonder why it isn’t possible to breathe through your ears.”
― Colin Bateman, The Day of the Jack Russell

“I could have volunteered everything I had discovered during the course of The Case of the Dancing Jews at any point during the eight hours he kept me in a cold police cell without access to a lawyer or Twix...”
― Colin Bateman, Mystery Man

“By pressing our faces against the wire we could clearly see, nestling amongst torn bin liners, a red-splashed pot of discarded paint. I immediately directed Jeff to climb the fence to retrieve it. I would have done it myself, but my back had not been good for several days, mostly through shifting unsold copies of Hannibal Rising from the front of the shop to the rear. Also, I have a morbid fear of rats, and mice, and nettles and wasps and jagged cans and rotting food and damp newspapers and the unemployed.”
― Colin Bateman, Mystery Man