Caroline Graham > Quotes

“One would have thought that not even Joyce could have maltreated a salad to the point where it became inedible, but one would have been wrong. Abustle with wild life, it was also soaked in a vinegary dressing. Barnaby lifted a soggy lettuce leaf. A small insect emerged, valiantly swimming against the tide.”
― Caroline Graham, The Killings At Badger's Drift

“We try on many masks throughout our lives. Eventually we find one that fits so well we never take it off.”
― Caroline Graham, Death in Disguise: Inspector Barnaby #3 (Inspector Barnaby Mysteries)

“Crashingly insensitive to the feelings of others, Troy’s own sensibilities were fragile to a fault. He was on his high horse at the merest hint of criticism.”
― Caroline Graham, Death in Disguise: Inspector Barnaby #3 (Inspector Barnaby Mysteries)

“Brian, about as deep as clingfilm but not nearly so useful, gave a falsely deprecating shrug.”
― Caroline Graham, Written in Blood: Inspector Barnaby #4 (Inspector Barnaby Mysteries)

“The library at Madingley Grange was rarely used. The pristine books in their diamond-paned cases seemed never to have been sullied by anything so coarse as the perusal of the human eye.”
― Caroline Graham, Murder At Madingley Grange

“I was reading this article on how to be sexually spontaneous. In the hairdresser’s.’ ‘Who the hell wants to be sexually spontaneous in the hairdresser’s?”
― Caroline Graham, Written in Blood: Inspector Barnaby #4 (Inspector Barnaby Mysteries)

“Everyone had helped themselves to something with the exception of Fred, who had helped himself to everything.”
― Caroline Graham, Murder At Madingley Grange

“They had always seemed to Brenda antiseptically unaware that such a thing as romance existed.”
― Caroline Graham, Faithful Unto Death

“Ah—that’s the beauty of higher education, sergeant. Never use two simple words when one really complicated one will do.”
― Caroline Graham, Written In Blood

“argument before he was”
― Caroline Graham, A Place Of Safety

“All theatricals are round the twist, Troy,’ said Barnaby, tugging at the doors that led to the foyer. ‘If they weren’t they’d get out of the business and into real estate.”
― Caroline Graham, Death of a Hollow Man

“The stars in their courses, never all that concerned with the welfare of the human race, tonight looked especially indifferent.”
― Caroline Graham, Death of a Hollow Man

“In his experience people (hardened criminals apart) who had something to hide and people who had nothing to hide had one thing in common. Faced by a policeman asking questions, they could never remain silent for long.”
― Caroline Graham, The Killings at Badger's Drift

“oleaginous”
― Caroline Graham, The Killings at Badger's Drift

“In a community as small as Badger’s Drift, everyone will know what you’re about. Someone who has killed once and who thinks he can protect himself by killing a second time will not hesitate to do so. And don’t forget’—he turned and they walked together towards the exit—‘that if Miss Simpson knew the murderer very well, so do you.”
― Caroline Graham, The Killings at Badger's Drift

“Nicholas, who had never seen the willingness to embrace septicemia as one of the more obvious qualities a young actor might find useful, jibbed at this robust assertion. “There.”
― Caroline Graham, Death of a Hollow Man

“Many were in it for the power it gave them, the opportunity to forge relationships where they would always be in charge. These were the sort of people whose personality and talents made it highly unlikely that, in the normal run of things, they would ever have authority over anything more charismatic than the office cat. With them, compassion was merely a mask for condescension.”
― Caroline Graham, A Place Of Safety

“unbuttoning a cream trench coat of martial cut embellished with epaulettes, buckles, a belt of highly polished leather and pockets so wide and deep they could well have contained reinforcements from the US cavalry.”
― Caroline Graham, Written in Blood: Inspector Barnaby #4 (Inspector Barnaby Mysteries)

“The garden settled round him as gardens will. Indifferent and harmonious; consolingly beautiful.”
― Caroline Graham, The Killings at Badger's Drift

“He had always wanted to be a policeman, loved being a policeman, would never wish to be anything else. But there were times when the carping, the paper work, the brown nosing and double-declutch handshakes, the soft attitudes of outsiders who never had to scrape up the mess, the political in-fighting, the need to button your lip if you wanted to get on and a thousand other day-to-day irritations all coalesced and threatened to overwhelm him.”
― Caroline Graham, Death In Disguise

“And even, come to that, for the repellent Mr Rainbird.”
― Caroline Graham, The Killings at Badger's Drift

“Where are you coming from on this?’ cried Heather, tossing her head back and revealing briefly an embryonic suggestion of what might have been, in the fullness of time, given intensive exercise and a great deal of hugely expensive plastic surgery, the whimsical beginnings of a chin. Ken”
― Caroline Graham, Death in Disguise: Inspector Barnaby #3 (Inspector Barnaby Mysteries)

“a trouble shared is a trouble halved’.”
― Caroline Graham, The Killings at Badger's Drift

“Naturally it was thought, for there is nothing more conservative than an English village, that such a man must be in need of assistance.”
― Caroline Graham, Faithful Unto Death

“A stranger in a small community is always an object of keen interest and he had seen more than one curtain twitch as he passed by.”
― Caroline Graham, The Killings at Badger's Drift

“Violet had a foolish, doll-like face and primrose colored hair in lifeless curls pinned all over her head like synthetic sausages. She opened her tiny wet mouth like a sea anemone and spoke.”
― Caroline Graham

“Unburdened by any medical knowledge, what would they think of Karen's strange ramblings? The answer came quickly enough. They would think she was making it up. What an imagination, they would say. And if it all went a stage further? Would they see this as genuine derangement, as he had done? Probably not. They would say she'd been watching too much telly. Or eating cheese before bedtime.”
― Caroline Graham, A Ghost In The Machine

“beaten up, raped, murdered, arsonised—if there was such a word—yet the confidence of the human race that they, their loved ones and acquaintances had personally been granted divine immunity was uncrackable.”
― Caroline Graham, Faithful Unto Death

“comprehend. I’ve no doubt”
― Caroline Graham, Death in Disguise: Inspector Barnaby #3 (Inspector Barnaby Mysteries)

“you want”
― Caroline Graham, The Killings at Badger's Drift