Ben Aaronovitch Quotes

What do you think you're doing?

Coffee arrived and the espresso was excellent, like an aromatic electric fence.

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

This is your brain on magic.

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.

Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale - to the Jag mobile.

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.

The clever people at CERN are smashing particles together in the hope that Doctor Who will turn up and tell them to stop

That which does not kill us has to get up extra early in the morning if it wants to get us next time.

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

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

...good-Samaritanism in London is considered an extreme sport - like base-jumping or crocodile-wrestling.

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.

You know, your species [humans] has the most amazing capacity for self-deception, matched only by its ingenuity in trying to destroy itself.

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.

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.

Questions would be asked. Answers would be ignored.

The study of the victim is called victimology because everything sounds better with and ology tacked on the end.

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

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

Every male in the world thinks he's an excellent driver. Every copper who's ever had to pick an eyeball out of a puddle knows that most of them are kidding themselves.

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

...don't ask me why I know what an Edwardian smoking jacket looks like: let's just say it has something to do with Doctor Who and leave it at that.

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.

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

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

He was a Parisian, ’ he said. ‘You can never be sure what Parisians believe in – beyond Paris of course.

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.

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.

The white boys knew they had my attention now, but hesitated -- that's the trouble with being a racist in the white heartlands, you don't get a lot of practical experience.

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.

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.

That’s because they don’t know, ’ said Tyburn. ‘It’s like economics. Everybody’s got a theory, and some people make it their religion.

This is where the whole ape-descended thing reveals its worth, I thought madly. Sucks to be you, quadruped. Opposable thumbs - don't leave home without them.

He called it potentia because there's nothing quite like Latin for disguising the fact you're making it up as you go along.

I did feel a 'something', like a catch in the silence at the moment of creation.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.