Ben Aaronovitch Quotes

33 Sourced Quotes

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
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. That is why every newly minted constable, regardless of their educational background, has to spend a two-year probationary period as an ordinary plod on the streets. This is because nothing builds character like being abused, spat at and vomited by members of the public.

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

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

Ben Aaronovitch
Not being invited in is one of the boxes on the suspicious behavior bingo form that every copper carries around in their head along with stupidly overpowerful dog and being too quick to supply an alibi. Fill all the boxes and you too could win an all-expenses-paid visit to your local police station.

Ben Aaronovitch
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.

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

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

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

Ben Aaronovitch
My Dad says that being a Londoner has nothing to do with where you're born. He says that there are people who get off a jumbo jet at Heathrow, go through immigration waving any kind of passport, hop on the tube and by the time the train's pulled into Piccadilly Circus they've become a Londoner.

Ben Aaronovitch
If you just warn people, they often simply ignore you. But if you ask them a question, then they have to think about it. 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
Being a seasoned Londoner, Martin gave the body the "London once-over" - a quick glance to determine whether this was a drunk, a crazy or a human being in distress. The fact that it was entirely possible for someone to be all three simultaneously is why good-Samaritanism in London is considered an extreme sport - like BASE jumping or crocodile wrestling.

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

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

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

Ben Aaronovitch
Carved above the lintel were the words SCIENTIA POTESTAS EST. Science points east, I wondered? Science is portentous, yes? Science protests too much. Scientific potatoes rule. Had I stumbled on the lair of dangerous plant geneticists?

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

Ben Aaronovitch
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