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Kindle Notes & Highlights
‘T.I.P.’ on it, standing for ‘To Improve Promptness.’ If you wanted your beverage a bit faster you’d drop a few pence in, from which we get the word ‘tip.’
At university he had been nicknamed the Olympic Flame—because he never went out.
‘You’ve never really been on my wavelength, have you?’ said Bryant. ‘I’ve never been on your planet,’
Arthur Bryant stood in the doorway of the operations room with a carpetbag in one hand, looking like a disreputable relative of Mary Poppins.
Close your mouth, Mr Bimsley; we are not a codfish.’
Listen, the average household wealth for Britain’s richest decile is now three hundred and fifteen times that of the poorest, which means access across the divide has declined. The walls have gone up. It’s almost impossible to hold anyone at the top accountable these days.
‘You’re telling me he’s above the law.’ ‘No, John,’ said Lambert. ‘I’m telling you he’s making the law.’
Over eighty percent of all killers are male.’ ‘One day you’ll make me change the percentage.’
don’t understand why some people insist on believing in alternatives to the truth.’ ‘Belief is the opposite of knowledge.’
Crazy leaders teach us crazy habits.
The powerless can only observe. That, I know now, is why social media remains so popular; it is the home of the powerless.
There’s a stage of poverty you reach when you start to look different. It’s very hard to get rid of that look.
How do you stay so bloody perky and cheerful no matter what happens? The seas are rising, the forests are vanishing, our leaders are imbeciles and murderers roam the streets, but when you look out there all you see is sunshine and food.
‘You have a very good heart, Colin Bimsley,’ said Meera. ‘I’d be proud to marry you.’
I believe some people are cursed. Not just by poverty, although that will be the easy answer affixed to my story by the nation’s hand-wringers. We are cursed by its by-product, a debilitating lack of confidence. It is why we stay silent, why we are controlled, why we apologize, why we are afraid. We are overruled by the ones who expect to be heard, and as they destroy our lives we thank them for it.
