London Crime Quotes & Sayings

Cos there's holes in this world,see. Holes. And the likes of Thommo, and Keith, and me, and Kenny, we just sort of fall through em. We weren't never bad kids, we just didn't have nothing to hold on to, that's all. — Ian Ayris

Should there be cameras everywhere in outdoor streets? My personal view is having cameras in inner cities is a very good thing. In the case of London, petty crime has gone down. They catch terrorists because of it. And if something really bad happens, most of the time you can figure out who did it. — Bill Gates

The mayors fund for London will be a streamlined vehicle for getting money from the wealth creating sector to communities across London that are facing hardship and deprivation and are the victims of crime. — Boris Johnson

As I've said before," she scoffed, "you're different."
"How am I different?" his exasperation was clear.
"Well, it seems you are my partner in crime." She smiled then, a beaming grin not unlike the one he'd seen her give Oxford earlier.
He lost his bluster at the words, feeling the full force of her pleasure like a blow, and a nonsensical wave of pride coursed through him... pride at being the one he would turn to with such excitement, pride at being the one she would turn to with such excitement, pride at being the one she would ask to escort her on such an adventure. And, in that sun-filled moment, with all of London mere inches away from their hiding place, he was struck by her beauty- her bright brown eyes and her hair, gleaming auburn in the light and her mouth, wide and welcoming and enough to bring a man to his knees.
She was really quite extraordinary. — Sarah MacLean

If you turn a blind eye to fare evasion, if you accustom people to getting away with minor crime, you are making it more likely that they will go on to commit more serious crimes. That is why we have so much disorder in London. It is a disgrace. — Boris Johnson

Never patronize your readers. That means don't talk down to them. — Tom Greer

I looked for any footmarks of course, but naturally, with all this rain, there wasn't a sign. Of course, if this were a detective story, there'd have been a convenient shower exactly an hour before the crime and a beautiful set of marks which could only have come there between two and three in the morning, but this being real life in a London November, you might as well expect footprints in Niagara. I searched the roofs right along - and came to the jolly conclusion that any person in any blessed flat in the blessed row might have done it. — Dorothy L. Sayers

It was one of those late summer days trying its best to convince everyone that winter would never seep through and ravage the earth. — A.J. Waines

Are they not fresh and beautiful?" [Watson] cried ...
Holmes shook his head gravely.
" ... You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed bu their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed here ... They always filled me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson ... that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beauty of the countryside ... But the reason is obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I liked the idea of a person shedding their life, and someone else putting it on.
-Oliver Harris on writing The Hollow Man for Crime Time online magazine — Oliver Harris

This isn't some LA country rock jam reminiscing on the pyschtotropic pot pansies of Haight Ashbury . This is the soot and smut of London mate ! — Saira Viola

When I began to write, I was surprised at how little London had been used in crime fiction. Places such as Edinburgh or Oxford or L.A. seemed to have stronger identities. — Mark Billingham

The man pervades London, and no one has heard of him. That's what puts him on a pinnacle in the records of crime. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Everything begins with chioce. — S.J. Wardell

- Rape is a unique crime, representing both a physical and psychological violation.
More than with any other crime the victim can experience reporting rape as a form of revictimisation.
l In no other crime is the victim subject to so much scrutiny at trial, where the most likely defence is that the victim consented to the crime. Powerful stereotypes function to limit the definition of what counts as 'real rape'."
Kelly, L., Lovett, J., & Regan, L. (2005). A gap or a chasm?: attrition in reported rape cases. London: Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate. — Liz Kelly

It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal. — Arthur Conan Doyle

THAT NIGHT, AT ONE OF LONDON'S OPEN-MIC SESSIONS, A YOUNG comedian enjoyed his first success, telling the tale of the naked Yank who mugged him for a tuxedo. — Anthony Chapman

My London constituency in Hackney has one of the highest levels of gun crime in the country. But the problem is no longer confined to inner city areas. Gun crime has spread to communities all over Britain. — Diane Abbott

The Thames Torso murders almost fell into my lap. After deciding to use a real historical crime as the focus for the book, I went to Google and searched for unsolved murders in Victorian London, and they basically popped out at me about halfway down the first results page. — Sarah Pinborough

ALBINOS DEMAND ACTION ON MOVIE SLUR The albino community demanded action yesterday to stop their unfair depiction as yet another movie featured an albino as a deranged hitman. "We've had enough," said Mr. Silas yesterday at a small rally of albinos at London's Pinewood Studios. "Just because of an unusual genetic abnormality, Hollywood thinks it can portray us as dysfunctional social pariahs. Ask yourself this: Have you ever been, or know anyone who has ever been, a victim of albino crime?" The protest follows hot on the heels of last week's demonstrations when Colombians and men with ponytails complained of being unrelentingly portrayed as drug dealers. - Extract from The Mole, July 31, 2003 — Jasper Fforde

[Soho] is all things to all men, catering comprehensively for those needs which money can buy. You see it as you wish. An agreeable place to dine; a cosmopolitan village tucked away behind Piccadilly with its own mysterious village life, one of the best shopping centres for food in London, the nastiest and most sordid nursery of crime in Europe. Even the travel journalists, obsessed by its ambiguities, can't make up their minds. — P.D. James

The part of London where I grew up has the highest crime rates in the country. — Leona Lewis

The first song is called 'London.' It's about two Russian soldiers who desert the Russian army and escape to London, where they indulge in a life of crime. — Neil Tennant

Last summer, in London at least, the hoodie was transformed from a benign piece of leisurewear into a uniform for the disaffected, the angry, the malevolent. So much so that 'hoodie' was no longer a piece of clothing. It was a whole person. A hoodie was somebody likely to steal, plunder and do you unimaginable harm.

People were crossing the street when a hoodie crossed their path - even if it was a 70-year-old gentleman walking his dog. That's how quickly the fear had permeated the collective consciousness. And lifting the hood was tantamount to cocking a gun. — Mark Capell

The clouds of night opened like ink blossoming in water. — Christopher Fowler

Be informed, also, that this good and savoury Parish is the home of Hectors, Trapanners, Biters who all go under the general appelation of Rooks. Here are all the Jilts, Cracks, Prostitutes, Night-walkers, Whores, Linnen-lifters, who are like so many Jakes, Privies, Houses of Office, Ordures, Excrements, Easments and piles of Sir-reverence: the whores of Ratcliffe High-way smell of Tarpaulin and stinking Cod from their continuall Traffick with seamen's Breeches. There are other such wretched Objects about these ruined Lanes, all of them lamentable Instances of Vengeance. And it is not strange (as some think) how they will haunt the same Districts and will not leave off their Crimes until they are apprehended, for these Streets are their Theatre. Theft, Whoredom and Homicide peep out of the very Windows of their Souls; Lying, Perjury, Fraud, Impudence and Misery are stamped upon their very Countenances as now they walk within the Shaddowe of my Church. — Peter Ackroyd

None of these apparent sightings interested Hawksmoor, since it was quite usual for members of the public to come forward with such accounts and to describe unreal figures who took on the adventitious shape already suggested by newspaper accounts. There were even occasions when a number of people would report sightings of the same person, as if a group of hallucinations might create their own object which then seemed to hover for a while in the streets of London. And Hawksmoor knew that if he held a reconstruction of the crime by the church, yet more people would come forward with their own versions of time and event; the actual killing then became blurred and even inconsequential, a flat field against which others painted their own fantasies of murderer and victim. — Peter Ackroyd

Like crime, terrorism is a fact of life. I grew up in Israel, where every unattended bag was a suspected bomb; when my family moved for a few years, it was to London in the early years of 'the Troubles.' — Yochai Benkler

I want you to know that I have nothing against Orlando, though you are, of course, far more likely to get shot or robbed there than in London. — Boris Johnson

When you reach England, if you come to London, pass through it quickly, for I do not at all like that city. All sorts of men crowd together there from every country under the heavens. Each race brings its own vices and its own customs to the city. No-one lives in it without falling into some sort of crime. Every quarter of it abounds in grave obscenities. The greater a rascal a man is, the better a man he is accounted. I know whom I am instructing. You have a warmth of character beyond your years, and a coolness of memory; and from these contrary qualities arises a temperateness of reasoning. I fear nothing for you, unless you live with evil companions, for manners are formed by association. — Richard Of Devizes