Cocaine Blues Quotes

“Had she been at all used to blushing, she would have blushed, but she wasn't, so she didn't.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“I have a theory that kitchens, once they reach a certain level of complexity, attract new gadgets into their orbit, like planets. Only this can account for the fact that I own two melon ballers.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“A young man in one’s hotel bedroom is capable of being explained, but a corpse is always a hindrance.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“He'd pull a door off its hinges rather than work out how to turn a key.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“Her heart was beating appreciably faster, and she took more rapid breaths, but she was enjoying herself. Adventuresses are born, not made.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“And they need not cause you grief. As my Highland grandmother said—and she had the Sight—“Tis not the dead ye have to be concerned about! Beware of the Living!” And she was a wise woman. The dead are beyond your help or mine, poor things. But the living need us. Thirty souls at the least, Phryne, are still on that island to praise God who might now be angels—or devils.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“In here, Phryne, is the nursery. Do you like babies?
Phryne laughed.
No, not at all. they are not aesthetic like a puppy or a kitten. In fact, they always look drunk to me. look at that one---you'd swear he had been hitting the gin.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“Both had suggestive bulges in their pockets which told of either huge genitalia or trousered pistols.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“His voice was heavy with Slavic fatalism.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Miss Phryne Fisher Investigates

“the folly of men makes me seriously angry.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“All this display, while the working classes were pinched beyond bearing; it was not wise, or tasteful: it smacked of ostentatious wealth. The Europe from which Phryne had lately come was impoverished, even the nobility; and was keeping its head down, still shocked by the Russian revolution. It had become fashionable to make no display; understatement had become most stylish.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“So it was that Phryne acquired a skimpy costume of Fugi cotton, with fringes, in a blinding shade of pink known colloquially as ‘baby’s bottom’, a pair of near-kid boots with two-inch heels, an evening bag fringed and beaded to within an inch of complete inutility, stockings in peach, and a dreadful cloche hat with a drunken brim in electric blue plush. Her method in choosing these garments was simple. Anything at which Dot exclaimed, ‘Oh, no, Miss!’ she bought.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“One invited artists to social events, but only for the pleasure of their company. To invite singers or dancers to perform for their supper was inexpressively vulgar, and deserved a prompt and stinging rebuke.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“The Colonel was far too firmly married and full of military honours to be a threat to Phryne’s virtue, or what remained of it, so she agreed.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“not the dead ye have to be concerned about! Beware of the Living!”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“They are not aesthetic like a puppy or a kitten. In fact, they always look drunk to me. Look at that one—you’d swear he had been hitting the gin.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“She restored herself with a cocktail and an excellent lobster mayonnaise. Phryne was devoted to lobster mayonnaise, with cucumbers.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“voluble,”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“you do not use the talents God gave to geese.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“expostulation,”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“epicene”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“sententiously,”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“impedimenta,”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“was the world in which I walked, and what I saw Or heard or felt came not but from myself And there I found myself more truly and more strange. —‘Tea in the Palaz of Hoon’, Wallace Stevens”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“Phryne recognized Mrs Andrews as an emotional trap, and had no choice but to throw herself in.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“As my highland grandmother said—and she had the Sight—“Tis not the dead ye have to be concerned about! Beware of the Living!” And she was a wise woman. The dead are beyond your help or mine, poor things. But the living need us.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“Do you like babies?’ Phryne laughed. ‘No, not at all. They are not aesthetic like a puppy or a kitten. In fact, they always look drunk to me. Look at that one—you’d swear he had been hitting the gin.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“Dr MacMillan saw that Bert, Cec, and the policeman were all regarding her with the same puzzled stare. She concluded that men were all alike, one side of the law or the other, and held her tongue. The detective-inspector read on.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“adamant that the possession of pretty clothes was the second-best sustainer of a young woman’s morale in the world.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues

“She had put on her lounging robe, of a dramatic oriental pattern of green and gold, an outfit not to be sprung suddenly on invalids or those of nervous tendencies”
― Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues