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

People don't like to speak ill of the dead even when they're monsters, let alone when they're loved ones. People like to forget any bad things that someone did and why should they remember? — 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

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

Landscaping is the great cardinal sin of modern architecture. It's not your garden, it's not a park - it's a formless patch of grass, shrubbery and the occasional tree that exists purely to stop the original developer's plans from looking like a howling concrete wilderness. — Ben Aaronovitch

I texted Nightingale to let him know our change in disposition and then I picked up my Pliny, because nothing says stuck all alone in your flat like a Roman know-it-all — Ben Aaronovitch

Jeremy Beaumont-Jones had been lucky enough to be born rich. He wasn't in the mad oligarch class but once you're past a certain point, the sheer weight of your money sucks in wealth like a financial singularity. If you're sensible enough not to blow it on race horses, cocaine or musical theatre, then it becomes a perpetual-motion money making machine. — 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

Fuck me, I thought. I can do magic. — Ben Aaronovitch

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

Whatever was in the sandwiches, you didn't want them getting too warm and going off, or starting to smell, or spontaneously mutating into a new life form. — Ben Aaronovitch

You know there's always things in life that you have to do despite the fact that you know for certain the outcome is going to be messy, painful, humiliating, or all three. — Ben Aaronovitch

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

Unless the Labour leadership candidates decide to settle the issue through televised mud-wrestling (Adam Boulton, I think, for referee, and he may even take part) they will find it hard to gain massive attention for their utterances. Nor would the wannabes be wise to sign up to Lord Adonis's optimistic gloom about the coalition not lasting. Watching David Laws this week going about deficit reduction with an avidity bordering on the erotic, I realised that there are very good reasons why the centre should hold. — David 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

I happened to know for a fact that the whole of Belgravia nick were running a pool on how long I would last and how I would go - the options being death, medical discharge (physical), medical discharge (psychological), indefinite disciplinary suspension, sacked for misconduct, secondment to Interpol and, with just one vote, ascension to a higher plane of existence. I suspected the last one was a bit unlikely. Guleed — 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

I've already told the police what happened, they didn't believe me. Why should you,' he said.
'Because we're the people that believe people that other people don't believe,' I said.
'How can I know that?' he asked.
'You're just going to have to believe me,' I said. — Ben Aaronovitch

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

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

Apparently after six days baking pigs and herding bricks, the inhabitants would kick back with a spot of cock-fighting, bullbaiting, and ratting. It was the sort of place an adventurous gentleman might venture only if he didn't mind being beaten, rolled, and catching an exciting venereal disease. — Ben Aaronovitch

It's like hypnotism,' I told Warwick, after the two had been dispatched off to drink more coffee. But Warwick wasn't buying.
'Hypnotism doesn't work like that,' she said.
'And that's the way it's not like hypnotism,' I said. — 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

She got me logged in, which was a suspicous amount of help and attention from a Detective Inspector, and explained the priority codes to me.
'Officially, low means we want it within a week,' said Stephanopoulos. 'Medium is five days and high priority is three.'
'And really?' I asked.
'Today, now and 'I want it bloody yesterday. — 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

her hair was piled up under a broad-brimmed — 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

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

Abigail stared suspiciously at Lesley. "Why are you wearing a mask?" she asked.
"Because my face fell off," said Lesley.
Abigail considered this for a moment and then nodded. "Okay," she said. — 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

The bungalow was a hideous red-brick structure built, if I had to guess, in the early 1980s by some hack architect who'd been aiming at art deco and hit Tracy Emin instead. — 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

What's the biggest thing you've zapped with a fireball?' I asked.
'That would be a tiger,'said Nightingale.
'Well don't tell Greenpeace,' I said. 'They're an endagered species.'
'Not that sort of tiger,' said Nightingale. 'A Panzer-kampfwagen sechs Ausf E.'
I stared at him. 'You knocked out a Tiger tank with a fireball?'
'Actually I knocked out two,' said Nightingale. 'I have to admit that the first one took three shots, one to disable the tracks, one through the driver's eye slot and one down the commander's hatch - brewed up rather nicely. — Ben Aaronovitch

There are people who have been touched by, let's call it for the sake of argument, magic to the point where they're no longer entirely people even under human rights legislation. Nightingale calls them the fae but that's a catch-all term like the way the Greeks used the word "barbarian" or the Daily Mail uses "Europe. — 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

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

It's important for a man to know his limitations, and my limitations started at moving to Peckham and hanging around with yardies, postcode wannabes and those weird, skinny white kids who don't get the irony in Eminem. — Ben Aaronovitch

There's a goddess of the river," I said. "Yes - Mother Thames," he said patiently. "And there's a god of the river - Father Thames." "Are they related?" "No," he said. "And that's part of the problem." "Are they really gods?" "I never worry about the theological questions," said Nightingale. "They exist, they have power and they can breach the Queen's Peace - that makes them a police matter." A — 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

He was transparent, the way holograms in films are transparent.Three dimensional, definitely really there and fucking ... transparent. — 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

insouciance. But there's just something uniquely intimidating about — Ben Aaronovitch

Being a seasoned Londoner, Martin gave the body the "London once-over" - a quick glance to determine whether this was a drunk, a crazy or a human being in distress. The fact that it was entirely possible for someone to be all three simultaneously is why good-Samaritanism in London is considered an extreme sport - like BASE jumping or crocodile wrestling. — Ben Aaronovitch

If you find yourself talking to the police, my advice is to stay calm but look guilty; it's your safest bet. — 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

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 night may be dark and full of terrors, I thought, but I've got a big stick. — Ben Aaronovitch

Despite what you think you know, most people don't want to fight, especially when evenly matched. ... That's why you see those pissed young men doing the dance of "don't hold me back" while desperately hoping someone likes them enough to hold them back. — 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

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

Fish and chip night was a Kumar family tradition that dated back to when Jaget was courting his wife and they used to meet in the last white English-owned fish and chip shop in Wembley on the basis that none of their relatives would go in there. "It — Ben Aaronovitch

but the first rule about a black woman's hair is you don't talk about a black woman's hair. And the second rule is you don't ever touch a black woman's hair without getting written permission first. And that includes after sex, marriage, or death for that matter. This courtesy is not reciprocated. — Ben Aaronovitch

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

My mum translated this in her head to "witchfinder," which was good because like most West Africans, she considered witchfinding a more respectable profession than policeman. — 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

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

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

Or at least of fending him off for long enough that we can sweep in heroically like the Seventh Cavalry.' Burning tipis and shooting women and children, I thought. And — Ben Aaronovitch

The police never saw a noun they didn't want to turn into a verb, so it quickly became "to action", as in you action me to undertake a Falcon assessment, I action a Falcon assessment, a Falcon assessment has been actioned and we all action in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine.
This, to review a major inqurity is to review the list of "actions" and their consequences, in the hope that you'll spot something that thirty-odd highly trained and experienced detectives didn't. — 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

Like young men from the dawn of time, I decided to choose the risk of death over certain humiliation. — 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

If you overdo it, there are consequences.
What kind of consequences?
Strokes, brain hemorrhages, aneurysms ...
How do you know when you have overdone it?
When you have a stroke, brain hemorrhage or an aneurysm. — Ben Aaronovitch

The voice belonged to a plump, round-faced woman of the sort that develops a good personality because the alternative is suicide. — Ben Aaronovitch

Despite my mum being from a small village in the middle of a forest, I'm not a country person. I don't like my bacon sandwich to be curiously snuffling at my fingers. But sometimes being police means holding your breath and fondling a pig. — 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

The principal advantages of living in your station's section house is that it is cheap, close to work and it's not your parents' flat. The disadvantages are that you're sharing your accommodation with people too weakly socialised to live with normal human beings, and who habitually wear heavy boots. The weak socialisation makes opening the fridge an exciting adventure in microbiology, and the boots mean that every shift change sounds like an avalanche. — Ben Aaronovitch

It's a police mantra that all members of the public are guilty of something, but some members of the public are more guilty than others. — Ben Aaronovitch

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

This is a huge strategic problem for Labour. Mr Laws is a magnificent deployer of Tina; every particular cut he makes, every specific tax increase, is justified on the basis that There Is No Alternative, and that anyone who says different is a Flat Earther. But if Labour complains, it encounters Tina's new boy-friend Alf - All Labour's Fault. — David Aaronovitch

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

Seen something?" asked Nightingale, making me jump. "Jesus Christ," I said. "Not on this river," said Nightingale. "Not even Blake thought that was possible." We — Ben Aaronovitch

Ever since mankind stopped wandering around aimlessly and started cultivating its own food, society has been growing more complex. As soon as we stopped sleeping with our cousins and built 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. — Ben Aaronovitch

I don't like my bacon sandwich to be curiously snuffling at my fingers. — Ben Aaronovitch

I'd found a seventeenth-century map of the rivers of London. — Ben Aaronovitch

A major investigation, once it gets underway, is as exciting as watching reruns of Big Brother, although possibly involving less sex and violence. — Ben Aaronovitch

Norwich station has your standard late-Victorian brick, cast-iron, and glass shed retrofitted with the bright molded plastic of various fast-food franchises. I gratefully staggered in the direction of Upper Crust and considered asking if I could stick my head under their coffee spigot but settled for a couple of double espressos and a chicken tikka masala baguette instead. — Ben Aaronovitch

So that's when I came up with the most ridiculous plan since I'd decided to take a witness statement from a ghost. It was a plan so stupid that even Baldrick would have rejected it out of hand. — 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

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

You shouldn't make jokes about these things," she said. "Science doesn't have all the answers, you know."
"It's got all the best questions, though, — Ben Aaronovitch

Keep breathing,' I said. 'It's a habit you don't want to break. — Ben Aaronovitch

Urban Outfitters, eh," said Beverley. "That explains the Dr Denim shirt."
"My mum bought me that," I said.
"And you think that's less embarrassing? — 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