The Pale Criminal Quotes

“Just when you thought that things couldn’t get any worse, you find out that they’ve always been a lot worse than you thought they were. And then they get worse.”
― Philip Kerr, The Pale Criminal

“Himmler is a fool, but he’s a dangerous fool.”
― Philip Kerr, The Pale Criminal

“There is only one way to deal effectively with arrogant young SS officers who look as though they’ve been specially issued with the right shade of blue eyes and fair hair, and that is to outdo them for arrogance.”
― Philip Kerr, The Pale Criminal

“It’s true, I told myself, that it was not my concern, and that the Jews had brought it on themselves: but even if that were the case, what was our pleasure beside their pain? Was our life any sweeter at their expense? Did my freedom feel any better as a result of their persecution?”
― Philip Kerr, The Pale Criminal

“A little Beethoven provided a nice top and tail for the radio speeches of the Party leaders. It’s just what I always say: the worse the picture, the more ornate the frame.”
― Philip Kerr, The Pale Criminal

“I shook my head and heard myself sigh. How did it ever get to be this bad? How was it that a sadistic monster like Streicher got to a position of virtually absolute power? And how many others like him were there? But perhaps the most surprising thing was that I still had the capacity to be surprised at what was happening in Germany.”
― Philip Kerr, The Pale Criminal

“Do you have a garden, Herr Gunther?’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘They’ve always seemed like a lot of work to me. When I stop work, that’s exactly what I do — stop work, not start digging in a garden.”
― Philip Kerr, The Pale Criminal

“There is no disappointment in life that begins to compare with one’s disappointment in one’s only son.”
― Philip Kerr, The Pale Criminal

“The Reichskriminaldirektor? A beefsteak Nazi? Well, I’ll eat my broom.’ ‘Brown on the outside, yes,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what colour I am on the inside, but it’s not red — I’m no Bolshevik. But then it’s not brown either. I am no longer a Nazi.”
― Philip Kerr, The Pale Criminal

“Maybe they hope that he’ll shut up and go away,’ I said pointedly, but Bruno’s fur was too thick for him to notice”
― Philip Kerr, The Pale Criminal

“I'm no knight in shining armour. Just a weather-beaten man in a crumpled overcoat on a street corner with only a grey idea of something you might as well go ahead and call Morality. Sure, I'm none too scrupulous about the things that might benefit my pocket, and I could no more inspire a bunch of young thugs to do good works than I could stand up and sing a solo in the church choir. But of one thing I was sure. I was through looking at my fingernails when there were thieves in the store.”
― Philip Kerr, The Pale Criminal

“Yes indeed, I thought, a neat piece of theatre. I was going to enjoy putting these people away. You can sometimes forgive a man who works a line, but not the ones who prey on the grief and suffering of others. That was like stealing the cushions off a pair of crutches.”
― Philip Kerr, The Pale Criminal

“Nuremberg.’ ‘Well sir, it’s this. It has crossed my mind that someone might be trying to sew the Jews into a very nasty body-bag.’ Now the general raised an”
― Philip Kerr, The Pale Criminal

“Frau Lange, her chins and her dog were waiting for me on the same chaise longue, except that it had been recovered with a shade of material that was easy on the eye only if you had a piece of grit in there on which to concentrate.”
― Philip Kerr, The Pale Criminal

“there wasn’t much to say about Klaus Hering except that he was about thirty years old, slimly built, fair-haired and, thanks in part to his necktie, getting on for tall.”
― Philip Kerr, The Pale Criminal

“as great a blight on our world as a missionary landing on Tahiti with a boxful of brassieres.”
― Philip Kerr, The Pale Criminal