“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.”

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

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.

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.

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.

A physical expression of formae. Or at least have got close enough to explain all those legendary swordsmen and their inexplicable desire to roost on the tops of bamboo trees.

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.

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.

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

This is your brain on magic.

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

My dad once told me that the secret to a happy life was never to start something with a girl unless you were willing to follow wherever it led. It’s the best piece of advice he has ever given me, and probably the reason I was born.

I gave the prescribed Metropolitan Police “first greeting”. “Oi!” I said “What do you think you’re doing?

Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale – to the Jag mobile.

The worst part is staying in the room after you’ve broken the news, so that you’re forced to be there when someone’s life disintegrates around them. Some people say it doesn’t bother them – such people are not to be trusted.

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.

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.

I can’t do this because I can’t…I can’t be the man I want to be with you. And that means that this – this just becomes…another reminder of what I am not.

Elixir’ means magical potion, so I wanted to depict the kind of bottle that was used in ancient times, but that looked modern and chic as well. I also wanted it to have a golden tint to evoke the memories of sands and sunsets.

Do you think the bible is accurate? I mean, do you think it’s real?” ” i think pastor calvin is hot. In a fortysomething way. That pretty much sums up my religious conviction

It points to no single instance where this end has justified that means, where appeasement has led to more than a sham peace. Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only other alternative.

The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.

They used to say that knowledge is power. I used to think so, but I know now they mean money.

The imagination is the spur of delights… all depends upon it, it is the mainspring of everything; now, is it not by means of the imagination one knows joy? Is it not of the imagination that the sharpest pleasures arise?

Once war is forced upon us, there is no alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War’s very object is victory-not prolonged indecision.