Nicholas Blake > Quotes

“I see you have the advantage of me,' he said. 'Very well. I'll make it as brief as I can. I'll tell you the plain facts and I only hope you won't draw the wrong conclusions from them. George Rattery had been making advances to my wife for some time. She was amused, intrigued, gratified by it - any woman might be, you know; George was a handsome brute, in his way. She may even have carried on a harmless flirtation with him. I did not remonstrate with her: if one is afraid to trust one's own wife, one has no right to be married at all. That's my view, at any rate.”
― Nicholas Blake, The Beast Must Die

“Poor devil! None of us can have the remotest idea of the agony it is to be despised and rejected of men. A cancer in the soul and then madness. The feeling of there being a curtain, more invisible than gauze, stronger than iron, between one’s self and one’s fellow man. To cry out of the abyss and to know that there will be no answer, that one is buried alive.”
― Nicholas Blake, A Question of Proof

“Like the first symptoms of a plague, ugly incidents began to break out sporadically over the country; a riot here, an attempted assassination or unexplained piece of sabotage there, sudden panics on the Stock Exchange, hints and rumours flawing the calm surface of English life. Public opinion was bewildered and growing resentful... This inarticulate resentment was cleverly exploited by the E.B., whose policy was, by constantly embarrassing the present government, to discredit the principle of parliamentary government altogether.”
― Nicholas Blake, The Smiler With the Knife

“Major Keston is a man with a grudge and considerable organizing talent. As you know, he was politely sacked from the Indian Police. He's just the kind of material the big people in this movement can use. Don't underestimate him and his like. They're probably quite sincere. Nothing easier than to turn a personal grievance the other way up and see it as patriotism.”
― Nicholas Blake, The Smiler With the Knife

“A question of proof. That's a good title for a detective story, if you ever write one.”
― Nicholas Blake, A Question of Proof

“Each man’s morality, thought Georgia, is a compromise between the strength of his character and the strength of his environment. Where you have no character to fix the ratio, you get the genius and the lunatic, to whom morality is meaningless.”
― Nicholas Blake, The Smiler with the Knife

“My studies in criminology have suggested to me that only generals, Harley Street specialists and mine owners can get away with murder successfully.”
― Nicholas Blake, The Beast Must Die

“Dedektiflik Antik Yunan eğitimi alan birine uygun olan tek meslek gibi görünüyor bana. Latince bir metni çözmek durumunda kaldıysanız, dedektiflik yapmakla kesin bir benzerlik taşıdığını anlarsınız. Karşınızda devrik cümlelerle dolu uzun bir ibare vardır. İlk başta karmaşadan ibaret bir kelime yığını gibi görünür. Başlangıçta işlenen suç da böyledir. Özne kurban, fiil cinayet yöntemi, nesne ise cinayetin gerekçesidir. Bu üçü bütün cümlelerin ve suçların esasıdır. Önce özneyi bulursun, sonra fiili ararsın ve bu ikisi seni nesneye götürür. Ama suçluyu, yani cümlenin anlamını henüz keşfetmemişsindir. İpucu mahiyetinde ya da dikkat dağıtıcı birkaç yan cümle vardır; bunları aklını kullanarak birbirinden ayırman, sonra bütünün anlamına uyacak ve o anlamı açıklayacak şekilde yeniden yapılandırman gerekir. Bu bir analiz ve sentez uygulamasıdır; dedektiflerin alabileceği en iyi eğitimdir.”
― Nicholas Blake, There's Trouble Brewing

“This room was a veritable jungle of heirlooms, and an admirable setting for Lady Marlinworth, who, in spite of her age, had lost none of her agility in climbing up and down family trees.”
― Nicholas Blake, Thou Shell of Death

“For the price of a few battleships, we could give you a healthy nation. We have the knowledge, the skill, the material resources; but those in power prefer to use them for destroying their competitors and safeguarding their own profits.”
― Nicholas Blake, There's Trouble Brewing

“Knott-Sloman was looking displeased. He had not liked Starling’s breaking into his anecdote, nor the perfunctory nod with which the little don acknowledged their introduction. Nigel was conscious of an immediate antipathy between the two— the antipathy, perhaps, between the conversationalist, who lives by give-and-take, and the man who must have monologue or nothing.”
― Nicholas Blake, Thou Shell of Death

“Deliberately and rudely, Nigel got up, turned the back of his chair to the house. He had seen it last June, lapped in its rose sleep. He had seen it last week, looking flushed, a little frowsty, but more vital, more of this world, as if it had just wakened up. And this afternoon, Plash Meadow was changed again for him. It had come nearer. It was appealing now, he fancifully put it, not through its beauty any more, but out of its frailty: the fine features, the disdainful look had melted into an expression of pretty helplessness. Or was it something worse? Was it apprehension? Panic? Guilt?”
― Nicholas Blake, Head of a Traveler