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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

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
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.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Police Queen Worry
What do you think you’re doing?
BEN AARONOVITCH

Lucky Charm Psycho Thinking
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
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.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Males Puddles Thinking
Coffee arrived and the espresso was excellent, like an aromatic electric fence.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Coffee Espresso Excellent
Questions would be asked. Answers would be ignored.
BEN AARONOVITCH

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

Advice Police Talking
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.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Adults Boys Effort
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

Fire Side Sight
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.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Bamboo Close Enough Explain Expression Legendary Top
The Metropolitan Police Service is still, despite what people think, a working-class organisation and as such rejects totally the notion of an officer class.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Character Educational Thinking
Conflict resolution,’ said Nightingale. ‘Is this what they teach at Hendon these days?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘But don’t worry, they also teach us how to beat people with phone books and the ten best ways to plant evidence.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Books People Phones
It’s a sad fact of modern life that if you drive long enough, sooner or later you must leave London behind.
BEN AARONOVITCH

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

First Police Thinking
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
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
…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
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.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Drinking End Home Important Lucky Some Truth
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.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Almost Always Between Consequences Start Unless
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
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
Landscaping is the great cardinal sin of modern architecture. It’s not your garden, it’s not a park – it’s a formless patch of grass, shrubbery and the occasional tree that exists purely to stop the original developer’s plans from looking like a howling concrete wilderness.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Garden Park Tree
The study of the victim is called victimology because everything sounds better with and ology tacked on the end.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Sound Study Victim
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
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
In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Book Dream Winter

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

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

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Popular Authors

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