Ben Aaronovitch Quotes & Sayings

In some households you only have to turn up three times before you're expected to make your own tea, draw up a chair in front of the telly and call the cat a bastard. — Ben Aaronovitch

You have to call me Master." "Master?" "That's the tradition," said Nightingale. I said the word in my head and it kept on coming out massa. — Ben Aaronovitch

Scrumpy," said Beverley. "What's the difference?" Beverley thought about it for a moment or two. "It's not made in a factory," she said. "So, no quality control then?" "Are you going to talk about it or drink it?" I took a swig - it was tart, alcoholic and tasted of apples. About what I look for in a cider, really. — Ben Aaronovitch

This I know for a fact: the reason African women have children is so that there's someone else to do the housework. — Ben Aaronovitch

I think becoming a wizard is about discovering what's real and what isn't. — Ben Aaronovitch

From then on, it was even twistier B-roads through a country so photgenically rural that I half expected to meet Bilbo Baggins around the next corner - providing he'd taken to driving a Nissan Micra. — Ben Aaronovitch

Fuck me,' I said to Toby. 'We're living in Isengard. — Ben Aaronovitch

Caratacus suffered the double indignity of being taken to Rome in chains and having an opera written about him by Elgar. — Ben Aaronovitch

Because who is more oppressed," exclaimed Leslie. "Those that seek nothing but entitlements for themselves or those that claim for everything, social security, housing benefit, disability and pay for nothing." One — Ben Aaronovitch

When you're a boy your life can be measured out as a series of uncomfortable conversations reluctantly initiated by adults in an effort to tell you things that you either already know or really don't want to know. — Ben Aaronovitch

A London copper doesn't like to intrude upon a traveller camp with anything less than a van full of bodies in riot gear - it's considered disrespectful otherwise. — Ben Aaronovitch

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

History happens," said the Doctor. "Even when I'm not around."

"Only by accident," said Kadiatu... — Ben Aaronovitch

But . . ." Dominic floundered around for a bit before pointing at me accusingly. "You said that there's weird shit, but it normally turns out to have a rational explanation."
"It does," said Beverley. "The explanation is a wizard did it. — Ben Aaronovitch

One of the first rules of police work is that trouble will always come looking for you, so there's no point looking for it. — Ben Aaronovitch

Richmond won on points, but only because one of them had a flask full of coffee. — Ben Aaronovitch

The very rich, having fundamentally missed the point of urban living, have long been frustrated by the fact that it's impossible to squeeze the amenities of a country mansion - car showroom, swimming pool, cinema, servants quarters etc. - into the floor space of your average London terrace. Those without access to trans-dimensional engineering, a key Time Lord discovery, have had to resort to extending their houses into the ground. Thus proving that all that stands between your average rich person and a career in Bond villainy is access to an extinct volcano. They — Ben Aaronovitch

If you ask any copper why they stick at a job which exposes them to abuse from everyone from petty criminals all the way down to government ministers, they'll say it's the variety. — Ben Aaronovitch

Welcome to the Folly," he said. "Official home of English magic since 1775." "And your patron saint is Sir Isaac Newton?" I asked. Nightingale grinned. "He was our founder and the first man to systemize the practice of magic." "I was taught that he invented modern science," I said. "He did both," said Nightingale. "That's the nature of genius." Nightingale — Ben Aaronovitch

Vikings," said Lesley. "Precisely," said Nightingale. "Bloodthirsty, but surprisingly erudite in a limited fashion." Well — Ben Aaronovitch

Most people don't see half of what's in front of them. Your visual cortex does a shit load of imaging processing before the signal even gets to your brain, whose priorities are still checking the ancestral Savannah for dangerous predators, edible berries and climable trees. That's why a sudden cat in the night can make you jump and some people when distracted, can walk right out in front of a bus. Your brain just isn't interested in those large moving chunks of metal or the static heaps of brightly colored stuff that piles up in drifts around us. Never mind all that, says your brain, it's those silent fur-covered merchants of death you've got to watch out for. — Ben Aaronovitch

Inside, it was very dark but I am, if not exactly a master, then definitely an apprentice in the secret arts. And as such I laugh in the face of darkness. — Ben Aaronovitch

I think it's designed to flower open like a Chocolate Orange."
Me and Lesley then had to explain Terry's Chocolate Orange to Nightingale.
"Not unlike a practitioner's hand opening to reveal a werelight," said Nightingale.
"Not unlike at all," I said. Yeah, exactly like that I thought. — Ben Aaronovitch

The Fire Brigade recognise only two kinds of people at a fire, victims and obstacles, and if you don't want to be either it's best to stay back. — Ben Aaronovitch

MIU was still stuffed into their overheated office space. Luckily somebody had sprung for an industrial-sized cooling fan with a face the same diameter as a dustbin lid and an unfortunate tendency to blow any unsecured paperwork out the nearest window. If we'd had a green screen we could have shot the live elements to a low budget disaster movie. — Ben Aaronovitch

Zach looked at Carey in consternation, obviously wondering if we were using the rare good cop/loony cop interrogation technique. — Ben Aaronovitch

Oh shit, I thought, if this isn't the Low King of the Dwarves then I'm the President of the Cricklewood Branch of the Women's Institute. — Ben Aaronovitch

Before London swallowed it whole, Camden Town was the fork in the road best known for a coaching inn called the Mother Red Cap. It served as a last-chance stop for beer, highway robbery and gonorrhoea before heading north into the wilds of Middlesex. — Ben Aaronovitch

Bollocks, I thought, or testiculi or possibly testiculos if we were using the accusative. — Ben Aaronovitch

The mark was from the glue that once held a folder into which a library card would have fitted back in the day when dinosaurs roamed the earth and computers were the size of washing machines. — Ben Aaronovitch

People are conditioned by the media to think that black women are all shouting, and head shaking and girlfriending and "oh no you didn't" and if they're not sassy, then they're dignified and downtrodden and soldiering on and "I don't understand why folks just can't get along." But if you see a black woman go quiet the way Tyburn did, the eyes bright, the lips straight and the face still as a death mask, you have made an enemy for life, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred. Do — Ben Aaronovitch

Are they really gods?"
"I never worry about theological questions," said Nightingale. "They exist, they have power and they can breach the Queen's peace - that makes them a police matter. — Ben Aaronovitch

He's been banned,' said Lesley. 'Until he passes the advanced driver's course.' 'Is that because you crashed that ambulance into the river?' asked Abigail. — Ben Aaronovitch

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

Your ghost,' she said, 'Nicholas Nickleby. Do you think he might still be at the crime scene?' 'How should I know?' I said. 'I don't even believe in ghosts. — Ben Aaronovitch

Sinister is Latin for 'left', making it the sort of enjoyable schoolboy pun that is such an advert for mixed-gender education. — Ben Aaronovitch

This is your brain on magic. — Ben Aaronovitch

As Conan the Barbarian famously said, That which does not kill us does not kill us. — Ben Aaronovitch

Five hundred years ago the notoriously savvy Henry VIII discovered an elegant way to solve both his theological problems and his personal liquidity crisis - he dissolved the monasteries and nicked all their land. Since the principle of any rich person who wants to stay rich is, never give anything away unless you absolutely have to, the land has stayed with Crown ever since. — Ben Aaronovitch

The Metropolitan Police has a very straightforward approach to murder investigations, not for them the detective's gut instinct or the intricate logical deductions of the sleuth savant. No, what the Met likes to do is throw a shitload of manpower at the problem and run down every single lead until it is exhausted, the murderer is caught or the senior investigating officer dies of old age. — Ben Aaronovitch

Are there rules?'
'No gods, no staffs, first man to stay down for the count loses and we suspend the contest if the building collapses.'
- on magical duels — Ben Aaronovitch

Perhaps, I thought, the dead god gets folded into the existence of the new god, the way a dormant genetic variation can exist within an organism's DNA - hanging about like an actor's understudy until the right environmental conditions give it expression and - hey presto - suddenly a bacteria is heat resistant, our Chloe gets her big break on Broadway and a sniper for hire gets an unexpected half a meter of cold steel through the chest. Perhaps — Ben Aaronovitch

You put a spell on the dog," I said as we left the house.
"Just a small one," said Nightingale.
"So magic is real," I said. "Which makes you a ... what?"
"A wizard."
"Like Harry Potter?"
Nightingale sighed. "No," he said. "Not like Harry Potter."
"In what way?"
"I'm not a fictional character," said Nightingale. — Ben Aaronovitch

I may be a city boy, but I'm fairly certain that the greasy purple and red squishy bits are supposed to stay inside the sheep and not be sprayed across a surprisingly large area.
"Animal attack?" I asked. — Ben Aaronovitch

I don't know why Nightingale was so surprised - I barely knew four and a half spells and you couldn't have got me to give it up, and that's despite close brushes with death by vampire, hanging, malignant spirit, riot, tigerman, and the ever-present risk of overdoing the magic and getting a brain aneurysm. — Ben Aaronovitch

I didn't think that Herefordshire Social Services would be best pleased about me dumping a poorly socialised pre-teen with mind control powers on them. — Ben Aaronovitch

The narrow hallway was lined with framed photographs while the far end was dominated by a faux movie poster for Gone with the Wind starring Ronald Reagan sweeping Margaret Thatcher off her feet while a mushroom cloud bloomed behind them. She promised to follow him to the end of the world. He promised to organise it. — Ben Aaronovitch

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

Somebody doesn't know they're not in Kansas anymore,' said Stephanopoulos. — Ben Aaronovitch

With a grunt he levered himself to his feet, causing the chair to bang against the bookcase behind him and set the various objet d'bollocks rattling. — Ben Aaronovitch

Zap,' I said. 'That's the technical term for it, is it? What do you call someone who's been zapped?'

'Mr. Crispy,' said Kumar. — Ben Aaronovitch

Blackstone's Police Operational Handbook recommends the ABC of serious investigation: Assume nothing, Believe nothing, and Check everything. — Ben Aaronovitch

There was a list, Kimberley imagined, and in an obscure subsection of that list, a section that had not been properly updated since George Bush was President, — Ben Aaronovitch

The media response to unusual weather is as ritualized and predictable as the stages of grief. First comes denial: "I can't believe there's so much snow." Then anger: "Why can't I drive my car, why are the trains not running?" Then blame: "Why haven't the local authorities sanded the roads, where are the snowplows, and how come the Canadians can deal with this and we can't?" This last stage goes on the longest and tends to trail off into a mumbled grumbling moan, enlivened by occasional ILLEGALS ATE MY SNOWPLOW headlines from the *Daily Mail ... * — Ben Aaronovitch

One Hyde Park squatted next to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel like a stack of office furniture, and with all the elegance and charm of the inside of a photocopier. Albeit a brand new photocopier that doubled as a fax and document scanner. — Ben Aaronovitch

The rest of the band faded down to almost nothing while my dad did his best Bill Evans impression - except hopefully without the untreated hepatitis. — Ben Aaronovitch

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

You never said you used to play Dungeon and Dragons, Lesley had said when I explained my reasoning. I'd been tempted to tell her that I was thirteen at the time, and anyway it was Call of Cthulhu, but I've learned from bitter experience that such remarks generally only make things worse. — Ben Aaronovitch

He was from Yorkshire, or somewhere like that, and like many Northerners with issues, he'd moved to London as a cheap alternative to psychotherapy. — Ben Aaronovitch

We'd considered wearing uniform but Lesley said, what with her mask and everything, she'd look like a plastic cop monster from Doctor Who. I managed to restrain myself from telling her their real name. — Ben Aaronovitch

As soon as we stopped sleeping with our cousins and build walls, temples and a few decent nightclubs, society became too complex for any one person to grasp all at once, and thus bureaucracy was born. A bureaucracy breaks the complexity down into a series of interlocking systems. You don't need to know how the systems fit together, or even what function your bit of the system has, you just perform your bit and the whole machine creaks on. — Ben Aaronovitch

Whatever you see, he'd said, take as long a look as you need to get used to it, to accept it, and then move on as if nothing has changed. — Ben Aaronovitch

For a certain generation of African immigrants cleaning offices became part of the culture like male circumcision and supporting Arsenal. — Ben Aaronovitch

Conflict resolution,' said Nightingale. 'Is this what they teach at Hendon these days?'
'Yes, sir,' I said. 'But don't worry, they also teach us how to beat people with phone books and the ten best ways to plant evidence. — Ben Aaronovitch

In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold. — Ben Aaronovitch

Pictures of Cheam adorn the walls of planning offices of every Home County to serve as an awful warning. — Ben Aaronovitch

The railway hit Harrow on the Hill in 1880 and it's been downhill ever since, culminating in one of those formless red brick shopping centres which artfully combines a complete lack of aesthetic quality with a total disregard for the utilitarian function for which it is built. As a result, your average shopper has only to spend ten minutes inside to be reduced to a state of quiet desperation. Primark has the right idea, being right by the entrance so that fleeing punters would grab the closest approximation to whatever it was they wanted before running screaming into the night. I'm — Ben Aaronovitch

There's nothing quite like Latin for disguising the fact that you're making it up as you go along. — Ben Aaronovitch

I'd been too intent on the room to hear her coming up the stairs. Leslie said that the capacity not to notice a traditional Dutch folk dancing band walk up behind you was not a survival characteristic in the complex, fast-paced world of the modern policing environment. I'd like to point out that I was trying to give directions to a slightly deaf tourist at the time, and anyway it was a Swedish dance troupe. — Ben Aaronovitch

I looked into the literature on this," said Nightingale, "and it wasn't very helpful."
"There's a literature about this?"
"You'd be amazed, Constable, about what there's a literature on. — Ben Aaronovitch

Can you sacrifice people?' I asked. 'Take their magic that way?'
'Yes,' he said. 'But there's a catch.'
'What's the catch?'
'You get hunted down even unto the ends of the Earth and summarily executed. — Ben Aaronovitch

I woke in the hour before dawn, stuck in that strange state where the memory of your dreams is still powerful enough to motivate your actions. — Ben Aaronovitch

Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale - to the Jag mobile. — Ben Aaronovitch

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

Ethically challenged magical practitioners," I said. — Ben Aaronovitch

Boss,' I said into my Airwave. 'It's getting needlessly metaphysical out here. — Ben Aaronovitch

So, actions were still being actioned and me and Guleed were actioning them, and the wheels of justice ground on. Albeit in first gear. So — Ben Aaronovitch

Carved above the lintel were the words SCIENTIA POTESTAS EST. Science points east, I wondered? Science is portentous, yes? Science protests too much. Scientific potatoes rule. Had I stumbled on the lair of dangerous plant geneticists? — Ben Aaronovitch

I took the swab using the collection kit that I'd borrowed from Dominic who, I realized, had left the Boy Scout scale behind and was now verging on Batman levels of crazy preparedness. — Ben Aaronovitch

The word 'bollocks' is one of the most beautiful and flexible in the English language. It can be used to express emotional states ranging from ecstatic surprise to weary resignation in the face of inevitable disaster. And — Ben Aaronovitch

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

I know it's hard, Peter," she'd said. "But if you could contain your erudition and ready wit for just a little while we'd be most grateful." "Am I allowed to be cheeky?" I'd asked. "No you're fucking not," said Seawoll. "I'm — Ben Aaronovitch

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

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

As I stepped onto the gloomy landing a word formed in my mind: two syllables, starts with a V and rhymes with dire. I froze in place. Nightingale said that everything was true, after a fashion, and that had to include vampires, didn't it? I doubted they were anything like they were in books and on TV, and one thing was for certain - they absolutely weren't going to sparkle in the sunlight. — Ben Aaronovitch

The British have always been madly overambitious, and from one angle it can seem like bravery, but from another it looks suspiciously like a lack of foresight. — Ben Aaronovitch

Officially she was there to liaise with me on the case, but really she was there for the wide-screen TV, takeaways and the unresolved sexual tension. — Ben Aaronovitch

I didn't tell him that it was all stored as binary information on rapidly spinning shiny discs, partly because I'd have to look up the details myself, but mostly because by the time he'd understood the technology it would have been replaced by something else. — Ben Aaronovitch

The general public have a warped view of the speed at which an investigation proceeds. They like to imagine tense conversations going on behind the venetian blinds and unshaven, but ruggedly handsome, detectives working themselves with single-minded devotion into the bottle and marital breakdown. The truth is that at the end of the day, unless you've generated some sort of lead, you go home and get on with the important things in life - like drinking and sleeping, and if you're lucky, a relationship with the gender and sexual orientation of your choice. — Ben Aaronovitch

My dad was a fairy," said Zach. "And by that I don't mean he dressed well and enjoyed musical theatre. — Ben Aaronovitch

It's a sad fact of modern life that if you drive long enough, sooner or later you must leave London behind. — Ben Aaronovitch

As a typical Londoner, Gurcan had a high tolerance for random thoughtlessness; after all, if you live in the big city there's no point complaining that it's a big city, but even that tolerance has its limit and the name of that limit is 'taking the piss'. — Ben Aaronovitch

I suspected Molly wanted the pictures to send to her friends on Twitter and Facebook, the ones that I was not supposed to know about. I didn't dare ask because we have an unspoken agreement - I don't question what she does on my computer when I'm out and, in return, she doesn't murder me in my sleep. Back — Ben Aaronovitch

First law of gossip - there's no point knowing something if somebody else doesn't know you know it. — Ben Aaronovitch

We can't have your people fighting each other, I said. The 'royal we' is very important in police work; it reminds the person you're talking to that behind you stands the mighty institution that is the Metropolitan Police, robed in the full majesty of the law and capable, in manpower terms, of invading a small country. You only hope when you're using that term that the whole edifice is currently facing in the same direction as you are. — Ben Aaronovitch

The evening was still warm enough for shirtsleeves, and the city was clinging to summer like a wannabe trophy wife to a promising center forward. — Ben Aaronovitch

The rules of English grammar are largely an artificial construct with little or no bearing on the language as it is spoke. — Ben Aaronovitch

Ghosts, I was thinking, memories - I wasn't sure there was a difference. — Ben Aaronovitch

The bouncer scrutinized my face. "Do I know you?" he asked. No, I thought, but you might remember me from such Saturday-night hits as "Would you please put that punter down I'd like to arrest him," "You can stop kicking him now, the ambulance has arrived," and the classic "If you don't back off right now I'm going to nick you as well. — Ben Aaronovitch

I was tempted to tell her it was because we were British and actually had a sense of humour, but I try not to be cruel to foreigners, especially when they're that strung out. — Ben Aaronovitch