Home > Author > Ben Aaronovitch
1 " 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 , Foxglove Summer (Rivers of London, #5)
2 " 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 (Rivers of London, #2)
3 " 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 , Whispers Under Ground (Rivers of London, #3)
4 " 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. "
― Ben Aaronovitch
5 " We stopped and listened. Just on the cusp of hearing I detected a rhythmic pounding, more a vibration in the concrete than a sound.'Drums,' I said and then because I couldn't resist it. 'Drums in the deep.''Drum and Bass in the deep,' said Kumar. "
6 " 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. "
7 " 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 , Rivers of London (Rivers of London, #1)
8 " Fuck me, I thought. I can do magic. "
9 " I did feel a 'something', like a catch in the silence at the moment of creation. "
10 " The problem with the so-called bloody surveillance state is that it’s hard work trying to track someone’s movements using CCTV – especially if they’re on foot. Part of the problem is that the cameras all belong to different people for different reasons. Westminster Council has a network for traffic violations, the Oxford Street Trading Association has a huge network aimed at shop-lifters and pickpockets, individual shops have their own systems, as do pubs, clubs and buses. When you walk around London it is important to remember that Big Brother may be watching you, or he could be having a piss, or reading the paper or helping redirect traffic around a car accident or maybe he’s just forgotten to turn the bloody thing on. "
― Ben Aaronovitch , Broken Homes (Rivers of London, #4)
11 " He called it potentia because there's nothing quite like Latin for disguising the fact you're making it up as you go along. "
12 " 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. "
13 " 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. "
14 " 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. "
15 " 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. "
16 " 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. "
― Ben Aaronovitch , The Hanging Tree (Rivers of London, #6)
17 " It’s a good thing that the sheep are all so law abiding "
18 " 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. "
19 " 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. "
20 " Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale - to the Jag mobile. "
