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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.

Ben Aaronovitch

The media are doing this, not because they have a sinister motive, but because they love to feel that they are influencing events. That’s why they hate politicians so much, because politicians have direct power and they do not.
BEN AARONOVITCH

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

Deception Self Trying
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

Guilty Member Police
…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.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Doctors Looks Smoking
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.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Giving Important Name
Actually I’d always thought he sat in the library with a slim volume of metaphysical poetry until the commissioner called him on the bat phone and summoned him into action. Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale – to the Jag mobile.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Bats Library Phones
This is your brain on magic.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Brain Innovation Magic
If you ask any police officer what the worst part of the job is, they will always say breaking bad news to relatives, but this is not the truth.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Broken Jobs People
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

Cooking Fire West
What frustrated me was the thought that with three thousand years of history someone in China, some monk in a monastery halfway up a mountain, must have developed a magic kata.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Expression Magic Tree Years
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.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Dad Girl Happy Life
I gave the prescribed Metropolitan Police “first greeting”. “Oi!” I said “What do you think you’re doing?
BEN AARONOVITCH

First Police Thinking
If you just warn people, they often simply ignore you. But if you ask them a question, then they have to think about it.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Drunk People Thinking
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.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Black Firsts Hair
This I know for a fact: the reason African women have children is so that there’s someone else to do the housework.
BEN AARONOVITCH

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

Extra Morning Next Time

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.

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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ben Aaronovitch Quotes