Dead Lions Quotes

“She started drawing up a mental list of everyone she didn’t trust, and had to stop immediately. She didn’t have all day.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“all the work’s done low on the food chain. Everyone else just has meetings.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“Having a cat is one small step from having two cats, and to be a single woman within a syllable of fifty in possession of two cats is tantamount to declaring life over.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“We don’t like being out of the loop.”
“You’re always out of the loop. The loop’s miles away. Nearest you’ll get to being in the loop is when they make a documentary about it and show it on the History Channel. I thought you were aware of that.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“They say the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was to make people stop believing in him,”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“Lamb stood, gazed at the nearest tree as if in sudden awe of nature, lifted a heel from the ground and farted.

"Sign of a good curry," he said, "Sometimes they just bubble about inside you for ages."

"I keep meaning to ask why you have never married," River said.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“Arkady Pashkin said “Why aren’t we moving?”
Middle of the city, traffic in front, traffic behind, a big sign saying roadworks ahead, and a stop light clearly visible through the windscreen. So why aren’t we moving, Lousia wondered. You had to be rich to ask.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“Jackson Lamb had been legend in his day, they said, but they said that about Robert de Niro.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“He’d kill me. And he could do it, too. He’s killed people before.” “That’s what he wants you to think,” River said. “You’re saying he hasn’t?” “I’m saying he’s not allowed to kill staff. Health and safety.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“Don’t knock cipher clerks,” Katinsky told him. “Like any other branch of the Civil Service, all the work’s done low on the food chain. Everyone else just has meetings.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“If you carried on looking like you were holding it all together, pretty soon you were holding it all together.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“It was an ancient thing, a Nokia, black-and-grey, with about as many functions as a bottle opener. You could no more take a photo with it than send an e-mail with a stapler.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“This isn’t an Agatha Christie.” “I don’t care if it’s a Dan Brown.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“but he wasn’t fooling anyone: he was a suit, and if you cut him open he’d bleed in pinstripes.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“Up to you, Nick. I haven’t fucked up anyone’s career in months. It’s fun, but the paperwork’s shocking.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“Look, Roddy.” This was said kindly. “All that crap I lay on you? The name-calling? The threats?” “It’s okay,” Ho said. “I know you don’t mean it.” “I mean every bloody word, my son. But it will all seem trivial compared to what’ll happen if you don’t start making sense sharpish. Capisce?”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“When there’s something I don’t want to be bothered by, I like to know what it is first. So I can be sure it’s not something I’d rather be bothered by.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“I Hope you don't think I'm insulting you,' Lamb said kindly,
'I-'
'Because when that happens you'll know all about it, you slanty-eyed twat.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“On a rock in the middle of the lake, a pelican stretched its wings. It was like watching a golf umbrella do aerobics.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“Last winter, she’d walked this path with Min, heading for the Christmas Fair--there’d been a ferris wheel and skating, mulled wine, minced pies. At an air-rifle booth, Min had missed the target five times in a row. “Cover”, he’d said. “Don’t want everyone knowing I’m a trained sharpshooter.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“When he’d finished, he produced an unbranded packet of cigarettes: stubby, filterless, lethal. A health warning would have been like subtitles on a porn film. Utterly beside the point.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“It’s a phrase, black swan,” she said. “Means a totally unexpected event with a big impact. But one that seems predictable afterwards, with the benefit of hindsight.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“But there was nothing, and never would be. Learning that was one thing. Living with it, another entirely. Careful”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“being to let sleeping spooks lie. Lying, after all, is what spooks do best.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“He’d been said to resemble Timothy Spall, with worse teeth.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“There was always a temptation to imagine tourists had no life other than the one you saw them leading; that they were constantly wowing at landmarks and wearing inappropriate shirts.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“Hope you've had your jabs,' said Lamb. 'You're going to Gloucestershire.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“Lamb says I'm not to help you anymore.'
(What Lamb had actually said: 'I catch you freelancing again, I'll pimp you out to IT support. Photocopier division.')”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“There was always the temptation to imagine tourists had no life other than the one you saw them leading; that they were constantly wowing at landmarks and wearing inappropriate shirts.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions

“The market was packing up, but there were still stalls where you could buy enough curry and rice to feed an army, then stuff it so full of cake it couldn’t march. River paid for a Thai chicken with naan, and the pair walked to St Luke’s and found a bench. Pigeons clustered hopefully, but soon gave up. Possibly they recognised Lamb.”
― Mick Herron, Dead Lions