Sarah > Sarah's Quotes

“In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Broken Homes

“For a terrifying moment I thought he was going to hug me, but fortunately we both remembered we were English just in time. Still, it was a close call.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“I gave the prescribed Metropolitan Police "first greeting".
"Oi!" I said "What do you think you're doing?”
― Ben Aaronovitch

“The clever people at CERN are smashing particles together in the hope that Doctor Who will turn up and tell them to stop”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“My Dad says that being a Londoner has nothing to do with where you're born. He says that there are people who get off a jumbo jet at Heathrow, go through immigration waving any kind of passport, hop on the tube and by the time the train's pulled into Piccadilly Circus they've become a Londoner.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“Could it have been anyone, or was it destiny? When I'm considering this I find it helpful to quote the wisdom of my father, who once told me, "Who knows why the fuck anything happens?”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Midnight Riot

“Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale - to the Jag mobile.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Whispers Under Ground

“Fuck me, I thought. I can do magic.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Midnight Riot

“The motto of West African cooking is that if the food doesn't set fire to the tablecloth the cook is being stingy with the pepper.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Midnight Riot

“This is why magic is worse even than quantum physics. Because, while both spit in the eye of common sense, I've never yet had a Higgs bosun turn up and try to have a conversation with me.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Whispers Under Ground

“Questions would be asked. Answers would be ignored.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Midnight Riot

“If you just warn people, they often simply ignore you. But if you ask them a question, then they have to think about it. And once they start to think about the consequences, they almost always calm down.

Unless they're drunk, of course.

Or stoned.

Or aged between fourteen and twenty-one.

Or Glaswegian.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“It’s a truism in policing that witnesses and statements are fine, but nothing beats empirical physical evidence. Actually it isn’t a truism because most policemen think the word ‘empirical’ is something to do with Darth Vader, but it damn well should be.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“If you find yourself talking to the police, my advice is to stay calm but look guilty; it's your safest bet.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Midnight Riot

“That which does not kill us,” I said, “has to get up extra early in the morning if it wants to get us next time.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Broken Homes

“We were aiming for a cross between Kafka and Orwell, which just goes to show how dangerous it can be when your police officers are better read than you are.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“He was calling it an atonic seizure because, even if he didn't know why it had happened, it was important to give it a cool name.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“I have an idea," I said.

"This better not be a cunning plan," said Leslie.

Nightingale looked blank, but at least it got a chuckle from Dr Walid.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Midnight Riot

“On the plus side, there were no rioters in sight but on the minus side this was probably because everywhere I looked was on fire.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Midnight Riot

“It's a sad fact of modern life that if you drive long enough, sooner or later you must leave London behind.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“There's more to life than just London," said Nightingale.
"People keep saying that," I said. "But I've never actually seen any proof.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“Why would a young man like you be interested in history?"
"So I can avoid repeating it."
"Then stay away from men who talk about the fatherland," he said. "That's my advice.”
― Ben Aaronovitch

“He threw a fireball at me. I threw a chimney stack at him - that's the London way.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.”
― Neil Gaiman

“Life is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal.”
― Neil Gaiman

“When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. As far as I can tell so far, it seems to involve lots of foreign travel and not having to get up too early in the morning.”
― Neil Gaiman, Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions

“Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft were written by men.”
― Neil Gaiman

“Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it's always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.”
― Neil Gaiman

“I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane