Christopher Fowler > Quotes

“It was true that the city could still throw shadows filled with mystifying figures from its past, whose grip on the present could be felt on certain strange days, when the streets were dark with rain and harmful ideas.”
― Christopher Fowler, Ten Second Staircase

“Clutter, either mental or physical, is the sign of a healthy curiosity.”
― Christopher Fowler, The Memory of Blood

“I hate the endless admonishments of a nanny state that lives in fear of its lawyers. While colonies of dim-witted traffic wardens swarm about looking for minor parking infringements, nobody seems to notice that our very social fabric is falling apart.”
― Christopher Fowler, The Victoria Vanishes

“Statistics show that the nature of English crime is reverting to its oldest habits. In a country where so many desire status and wealth, petty annoyances can spark disproportionately violent behaviour. We become frustrated because we feel powerless, invisible, unheard. We crave celebrity, but that’s not easy to come by, so we settle for notoriety. Envy and bitterness drive a new breed of lawbreakers, replacing the old motives of poverty and the need for escape. But how do you solve crimes which no longer have traditional motives?”
― Christopher Fowler, Ten Second Staircase

“Do you enjoy reading?’ ‘I enjoyed Fifty Shades of Grey.’ Bryant quailed at the thought. ‘That’s not really reading, is it? More like staring at an assortment of words.’ ‘It is very popular.’ ‘So is taking photographs of your dinner for Facebook, but that doesn’t mean it adds to the total sum of human knowledge.”
― Christopher Fowler, Bryant & May and the Burning Man

“His bedroom was a reflection of Bryant's mind, its untidy shelves filled with games and puzzles stacked in ancient boxes, statues and mementoes competing for space with books on every subject imaginable, from Sensation and Perception in the History of Experimental Psychology to Illustrated British Ballads and A History of Indian Philosophy.
"What are you reading at the moment?' asked May.
"Batman," said Bryant. "The drawings are terribly good.”
― Christopher Fowler, Seventy-Seven Clocks

“Second hand bookshops are best visited alone and in the rain.”
― Christopher Fowler, The Book of Forgotten Authors

“The true mark of English conversation is not being able to tell when you've been insulted. I think the more sophisticated society becomes, the more it hides behind the masks it manufactures.”
― Christopher Fowler, Bryant & May and the Memory of Blood

“She had a smile that could put a froth on a cup of coffee, and she knew it.”
― Christopher Fowler, Full Dark House

“We spend our youth attempting to change the future, he explained, and the rest of our lives trying to preserve the past.”
― Christopher Fowler

“The Victorians lost a few workers in everything they built, rather like a votive offering.”
― Christopher Fowler, Full Dark House

“When may did so, he found every cup and saucer, plate, vase, and bowl standing arranged across the floor like pieces in a scaled-up chess game.
"The Whitstable family tree," Bryant explained, entering and setting down his tea tray. "It's the only way I could get it sorted out in my head. I had to see them properly laid out, who was descended from whom." He pointed to a milk jug. "Daisy Whitstable is bottom left-hand corner, by the fireguard. Next to her is the egg cup, brother Tarquin... Now, pass me Marion and Alfred Whitstable over there."
"What's their significance?"
"We need them to drink out of.”
― Christopher Fowler, Seventy-Seven Clocks

“Look at this fog. The damp gets right into your bones. It's doing my chest no good at all. I'll need a vapour bath." Bryant pulled down his scarf and peered over the sodden hedge. Dew had formed on his bald head and ears. He resembled a minor Tolkien character.
"You're getting old before your time," warned May. "I can't imagine what you'll look like in your eighties."
"I'm ageing gracefully, which means not trying to look like a member of Concrete Blimp."
"I assume you mean Led Zeppelin...”
― Christopher Fowler, Seventy-Seven Clocks

“You see? This is what's wrong with the world. A young lady with bleached hair, an estuarine accent and unfeasible breasts can outsell a respected expert with decades of wisdom and experience."
"She's human interest," replied May.. "You're not. People reading her story will feel that if she can make it without talent, maybe they can.”
― Christopher Fowler, The Invisible Code

“The traffic system needs a complete rethink," mused Bryant as the unit's only allocated vehicle, a powder-blue Vauxhall with a thoroughly thrashed engine, accelerated through Belsize Park. "Look at these road signs. Ministerial graffiti."
"It's no use lecturing on the problem, Arthur. That's why your driving examiner failed you thirty-seven times."
"What makes you such a great driver?'
"I don't hit things.”
― Christopher Fowler, The Victoria Vanishes

“I'm not working class anymore,' he said. 'I'm lower-middle. I use three types of oil in my kitchen. Admittedly one of them is WD-40, but that counts, doesn't it?”
― Christopher Fowler

“Tremble had a secret. Underneath his dreary exterior, he was quite interesting. When his penchant for investigating the area's past was indulged, a light shown in his eyes and he became almost passionate, which is why his wife kept a stack of local history books on her bedside table.”
― Christopher Fowler, Bryant & May On the Loose

“Doing the right thing for everyone eventually makes other people hate you. I want to be free to make a fool of myself.”
― Christopher Fowler, The Water Room

“The young detective possessed that peculiar ability more common to elderly men, which produces negative energy around electrical equipment, turning even the most basic appliances into weapons of destruction.”
― Christopher Fowler, Full Dark House

“Life is a very beautiful dream. I'm so glad I chose not to wake up from it just yet”
― Christopher Fowler, Bryant & May On the Loose

“Now, the tourist hot spots of the city were the very parts that made it like everywhere else. Was it possible to imagine those buildings without inhaling the animal-fat stink of McDonald's or KFC? He never thought London would cease to appeal to him, but the little faded glory it still possessed was being scuffed away by the dead hand of globalization. On his down days he saw London as a crumbling ancient house, slowly collapsing under the weight of its own past.”
― Christopher Fowler

“No more sending your clothes over to forensics to be dry-cleaned, no more running up kebab tabs on stakeouts and no more pawning items from the Evidence Room until payday.”
― Christopher Fowler, Bryant & May and the Burning Man

“If any lesson from war is to be learned, John, it must be always to prepare for the unexpected and face the unthinkable.”
― Christopher Fowler, Full Dark House

“Big fucking mistake man. You can't be near her. Don't you get it? [...] She's part of this city. Do you see? I mean, really part of it. You hurt her, you - hurt all of this.”
― Christopher Fowler

“He kept his shirt-tail hanging out below the hem of his jacket as a white flag to motorists; over four thousand people had been killed in blackout accidents during the first few months of the war. It was safer to take an overseas posting with the British Expeditionary Force.”
― Christopher Fowler, Full Dark House

“I don’t think you should make so many off-colour jokes about him becoming a cuckold. You’re only getting away with it because he doesn’t know what it means.’ ‘That’s the beauty of the English language. One can wrap insults inside elegance, like popping anchovies into pastry.”
― Christopher Fowler, White Corridor

“Arthur, you used to sound your age. Now you’re sounding several centuries old.’ ‘What’s wrong with that? One of the great pleasures that used to come with senior citizenship was the right to be perfectly vile to everyone. You could say whatever you liked, and people excused you out of respect for your advanced years. But now that everyone is in touch with their emotions and says exactly what they feel, even that pleasure has been taken away. Is there nothing the young haven’t usurped?”
― Christopher Fowler, The Water Room

“In the history of the world, no censor has ever been looked back on with respect.”
― Christopher Fowler, The Water Room

“Plastic carrier bags floated around the traffic lights at the end of the Strand like predatory jellyfish.”
― Christopher Fowler, Full Dark House

“Whenever the cadaverous Home Office security supervisor became involved in their affairs, babies cried, women cowered, innocence was punished and blame was wrongly apportioned.”
― Christopher Fowler, The Victoria Vanishes