The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club, #2)

by Richard Osman

“You must die before your children, of course, because you have taught them to live without you. But not your dog. You teach your dog only to live with you.”

I imagine if you could hear all the morning tears in this place it would sound like birdsong.

Also, it is very easy to kill someone in a lift when the doors open. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and a ping to announce you’re about to appear.

“I’m nearly seventy, darling, everything is a stunning feat of memory these days.

You silly old man, he thinks as he turns the key in the ignition, you made the biggest mistake of them all. You forgot to live, you just hid away, safe and sound.

thinks of the many lives he has missed, somewhere along the way.

What sort of psychiatrist is frightened of life? All psychiatrists, he supposes, I mean, that’s why they became psychiatrists.

Time flies when you are living it.

He’s a peculiar fellow, quite evil, but solid. It is hard to find evil people who are also reliable. As you know.”

That twinkle in his eye was undimmed. The twinkle that gave an entirely undeserved suggestion of wisdom and charm. The twinkle that could make you walk down the aisle with a man almost ten years your junior and regret it within months. The twinkle you soon realize is actually the beam of a lighthouse, warning you off the rocks.

He once killed a poet, but that’s as far as he and poetry go.

“Oh, nothing’s legal anymore, you can barely walk down the street these days. You have to bend the rules sometimes,”

It seemed ridiculous, really, but Douglas would prefer to be shot by someone British.

Of all the things that were to happen to you in life, death was one of the very biggest.

Revenge is not a straight line, it’s a circle. It’s a grenade that goes off while you’re still in the room, and you can’t help but be caught in the blast.

say a man who desires revenge should dig two graves, and this is surely right.

Because sometimes you had to remember that life wasn’t always arranged in alphabetical order, however much you would like it to be.

Wouldn’t you rather be kind and clever and funny and brave than handsome?”

You will go completely mad waiting for life to be fair,

Though if you need killings and gold and helicopters to make you interesting then I suppose you are still boring at heart.

“Looking at a man you love isn’t romantic, Joyce,” says Elizabeth. “It’s just the sensible thing to do. Like watching a television program you like.”

If you ended up living somewhere with llamas then perhaps not all is bad.

And if one is never lost in life, then clearly one has never traveled anywhere interesting.”

recognized her the moment I met her. I just thought, ‘Well, there you are, I’ve been waiting for you.’ ”

If you are going to commit one major crime in your life, Lance reasons, make it stealing diamonds from the mafia.