Moon Over Soho Quotes

“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, Moon Over Soho

“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, Moon Over Soho

“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, Moon Over Soho

“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, Moon Over Soho

“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, Moon Over Soho

“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, Moon Over Soho

“There's more to life than just London," said Nightingale.
"People keep saying that," I said. "But I've never actually seen any proof.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“What's the biggest thing you've zapped with a fireball?' I asked.
'That would be a tiger,'said Nightingale.
'Well don't tell Greenpeace,' I said. 'They're an endagered species.'
'Not that sort of tiger,' said Nightingale. 'A Panzer-kampfwagen sechs Ausf E.'
I stared at him. 'You knocked out a Tiger tank with a fireball?'
'Actually I knocked out two,' said Nightingale. 'I have to admit that the first one took three shots, one to disable the tracks, one through the driver's eye slot and one down the commander's hatch - brewed up rather nicely.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“We were aiming for a cross between Kafka and Orwell, which just goes to show how dangerous it can be when your police officers are better read than you are.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“First law of gossip - there's no point knowing something if somebody else doesn't know you know it.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“It’s a truism in policing that witnesses and statements are fine, but nothing beats empirical physical evidence. Actually it isn’t a truism because most policemen think the word ‘empirical’ is something to do with Darth Vader, but it damn well should be.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“The first rule about a black woman’s hair is you don’t talk about a black woman’s hair. And the second rule is you don’t ever touch a black woman’s hair without getting written permission first.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“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, Moon Over Soho

“Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, I thought. For they are soggy and hard to light.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

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

“I'd been too intent on the room to hear her coming up the stairs. Leslie said that the capacity not to notice a traditional Dutch folk dancing band walk up behind you was not a survival characteristic in the complex, fast-paced world of the modern policing environment. I'd like to point out that I was trying to give directions to a slightly deaf tourist at the time, and anyway it was a Swedish dance troupe.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“You shouldn’t make jokes about these things,” she said. “Science doesn’t have all the answers, you know.”
“It’s got all the best questions, though,”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“Blackstone's Police Operational Handbook recommends the ABC of serious investigation: Assume nothing, Believe nothing, and Check everything.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“He threw a fireball at me. I threw a chimney stack at him - that's the London way.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“The mark was from the glue that once held a folder into which a library card would have fitted back in the day when dinosaurs roamed the earth and computers were the size of washing machines.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“Ethically challenged magical practitioners,” I said.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“Five hundred years ago the notoriously savvy Henry VIII discovered an elegant way to solve both his theological problems and his personal liquidity crisis - he dissolved the monasteries and nicked all their land. Since the principle of any rich person who wants to stay rich is, never give anything away unless you absolutely have to, the land has stayed with Crown ever since.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“In the 1960s the planning department of the London County Council, whose unofficial motto was Finishing What the Luftwaffe Started, decided that what London really needed was a series of orbital motorways driven through its heart.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“one of the first rules of police work is that trouble will always come looking for you, so there’s no point looking for it.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“Ghosts, I was thinking, memories - I wasn't sure there was a difference.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“Murder investigations start with the victim, because usually in the first instance that's all you've got. The study of the victim is called victimology because everything sounds better with an 'ology' tacked on the end. To make sure you make a proper fist of this, the police have developed the world's most useless mnemonic - 5 x W H & H - otherwise known as Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How? Next time you watch a real murder investigation on the TV, and you see a group of serious-looking detectives standing around talking, remember that what they're actually doing is trying to work out what sodding order the mnemonic is supposed to go in. Once they've sorted that out, the exhausted officers will retire to the nearest watering hole for a drink and a bit of a breather.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“Which meant I spent my spare time learning theory, studying dead languages and reading books like Essays on The Metaphysical by John "never saw a polysyllabic word he didn't like" Cartwright.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“The evening was still warm enough for shirtsleeves, and the city was clinging to summer like a wannabe trophy wife to a promising center forward.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“(A)ny working hypothesis was probably going to involve quantum theory at some point—the part of physics that made my brains trickle out of my ears.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“But Smithy,” said Stephanopoulis. “I don’t believe in respectable businessmen. I’ve been a copper for more than five minutes. And the constable here doesn’t think you’re respectable either, because it happens he is a card-carrying member of the Workers’ Revolutionary Party and so regards all forms of property as a crime against the proletariat.” That one caught me by surprise and the best I could manage was “Power to the people.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho