The Roar of the Butterflies Quotes

“On the fence was a sign, Fly Tippers Will Be Prosecuted. The good people of Luton like the good people of most other towns in England cannot see a hollow of any size from a ditch to a canyon without wanting to chuck their unwanted household rubbish into it.”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“On the fence was a sign, Fly Tippers Will Be Prosecuted. The good people of Luton like the good people of most other towns in England cannot see a hollow of any size from a ditch to a canyon without”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“He spoke with a dismissive assurance that was completely convincing. But it rang a note Joe recognized. He’d been performing in public, and certainly in public houses, as long as he could remember, and he knew that to take your audience with you, it wasn’t enough simply to sing a song, you had to inhabit it. You had to leave people in no doubt that, martial or romantic, melancholy or comic, you really meant those words you were singing. That was the note his performer’s ears were hearing. The note of rehearsal to such a pitch of perfection that Sir Monty probably believed himself when he spoke, the same way Joe could never finish singing “Mammy” without tears streaming down his cheeks.”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“He would cut so many corners in a deal he could turn a polygon into a straight line.”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“Joe had experienced plenty of being put in his place, which he paid little heed to on the grounds that he found his place so very much to his liking that he had no notion of trying to get out of it.”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“Don’t remember,” said the boy with that indifference to temporal matters that is one of the blessings of childhood and one of the penalties of age.”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“Liam’s face went slack, which in another age might have been taken as evidence of incipient idiocy, but which Joe recognized as signifying the modern teen-ager’s entry into deep-thought mode.”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“With her Habsburg lip thrust out like a locomotive’s cow-catcher, Mrs. Tremayne stormed out of the kitchen.”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“Boxers are simple men, a condition refined by frequent blows about the head, and though they are generally indifferent to appeals to their better nature or the higher aesthetic, the one way of catching their interest is to make complimentary remarks about their ring technique.”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“Of course these days, when class can be cloned as easy as sheep, anyone could buy the gear and walk the walk and talk the talk. But there’s always a pea under the mattress, and to Joe’s keen eye, where real kiss-my-ass class showed through was in the way your born-to-its sat easy. Folk like him either slumped or, at best, lolled. Somewhere toward the top of the heap you learned the art of reclining gracefully.”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“The man, who looked like a farmer in every respect except that his expression was happy, said, “Oh yes, another mile or so, and there you are. Lovely day for golf.”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“Unlike reconstructed Rasselas, every cliché of depressed urban high-rise living could be found on Hermsprong. Crack-houses, corner dealers, lifts that were moving urinals when they moved at all, under-passes that were rats’ alleys where you could lose more than your bones, the highest break-in rate, the lowest clear-up rate, more hoodies than a monastery, and so on, and so on.”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“Yeah yeah,” said Joe, to whom a veiled threat was like a veiled exotic dancer. While you didn’t know the exact proportions of what you were going to see when the veil came off, you knew you were unlikely to see anything you hadn’t seen before.”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“(“You mean,” Joe had inquired for the avoidance of doubt, “that the guy these came from was bankrupt?” to which after a little thought Merv had replied, “Well, yeah, I’d guess he is now.”)”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“He had a quails’-eggs-easy-over-on-cinnamon-toast kind of voice.”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“I am surrounded by wonderful women, thought Joe. Whoever said that stuff about a monstrous regiment got it wrong. Must have meant wondrous!”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“I heard the ball rattling among the trees. All I could hope was that I was lucky and had a decent lie so that I could chip out. Of course I played a provisional…” He had started walking forward as he talked and Joe was once more trotting slightly behind. “A Provisional?” he asked, wondering how the IRA had got into things.”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies

“Joe, don’t go sensitive on me. It doesn’t suit you.” He consulted his feelings. She was right. And in any case, it was too much of an effort in this weather to keep it up. “Apology accepted,” he said. “Apology? You going deaf too?”
― Reginald Hill, The Roar Of The Butterflies