Bad Actors Quotes

“All those decades of the arms race, and it turned out there was no greater damage you could inflict on a state than to ensure it was led by an idiot.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“One thing worse than having a tarantula appear in your cornflakes is having it vanish again. I mean, where the fuck’ll it show up next?”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“Keyboards were weaponised, trolls emerged from under bridges, and somewhere along the way free elections turned into free-for-alls, as if democracy were a shaggy dog story to which a joke president was the punchline. All those decades of the arms race, and it turned out there was no greater damage you could inflict on a state than ensure it was led by an idiot. Somewhere, someone, probably, was laughing.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“That it was his habit to call fake news on anything showing himself or the government in a bad light. That it was also his habit to proclaim fake news a good thing, since it forced people to question what they heard. That such contradictions allowed him to claim victory in every argument.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“The fact that you were mortal enemies didn’t mean you couldn’t do business. If that were the case, you’d never get anything done.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“We’re old friends, so you won’t mind me saying, but you look rough as fuck. Like you were up half the night being gang-banged and the rest writing thank-you notes.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“Wanting to intrude on Lech’s solitude, which was all Lech had left that he considered valuable.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“Shirley looked down at her fist. Just like a slow horse, she thought. Bringing a spork to a knife fight.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“The first half hour took a little less than twice that long, which was par for the course.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“She’s over-sensitive,’ said Lech. ‘Like many millennials. Some of them find punctuation aggressive.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“There was no TV, no radio; they’d taken her phone “because you won’t be needing to make calls, will you?” She couldn’t decide whether it was the content of that clause or the way it was framed as a question that most made her want to punch the speaker in the face, though accepted that either on its own would have done the trick.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“The Roof key opened the first door, and she stepped through it onto another staircase, then locked it behind her. The noise as the tumblers fell was louder than a stolen goose.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“Malahide was one of that army the Civil Service call upon when asked to put a body in harm’s way: it wasn’t that he was expendable, necessarily; more that his ingrained sense of entitlement rendered him impervious to damage.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“Somewhere, there was a former spook who’d been burned by the KGB, and it had never been clear to Bachelor whether the poor fool had committed the sins he’d been accused of, or whether, rather than having put a foot out of line, he’d simply found the line redrawn beneath his foot.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“Shirley had a vision of a nun in a beekeeper’s outfit, like someone going to a fancy dress party twice.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“Nash applied jam, and ferried the result to his mouth. The resulting expression was one frequently sought by Renaissance artists, reaching for tokens of religious ecstasy.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“While watching Diana Taverner work her way towards fury might once have had him checking the exits, right now, he felt little more than an interested detachment.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“He thought: He could just sit here without saying another word. There was every chance the conversation would continue without him.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“Back then, he’d imagined a bullet might do Diana harm. These days, he doubted a stake in the heart would dismay her.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“She spent far too much time trying to understand him. She should just accept that he was what he was, and get on with life.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“The initial clash of armies was where you lost your cannon fodder. Once the dumb meat had been carted from the field, war passed into the hands of the thinkers.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“destabilisation scenarios were the hot-button issue; leverage applied by major players to keep the ragamuffin nations to heel. Then the internet levelled the playing field, and the old rule-book was trampled underfoot. Once, you had to appear big to play the bully. Now minnows could be rogue nations too. Keyboards were weaponised, trolls emerged from under bridges, and somewhere along the way free elections turned into free-for-alls, as if democracy were a shaggy dog story to which a joke president was the punchline.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“MH Oxford November 2021”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“on”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“Every national panic permitted a government to lace its boots tighter, which was why every government needed a visionary unafraid to sow chaos.
     Sparrow knew this because he'd read it on a blog, or written it on his own. Or both—the distance between the two was measured in how long it took to cut and paste.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“somewhere along the way free elections turned into free-for-alls, as if democracy were a shaggy dog story to which a joke president was the punchline. All those decades of the arms race, and it turned out there was no greater damage you could inflict on a state than ensure it was led by an idiot. Somewhere, someone, probably, was laughing.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“vindaloo.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“though that was a lie; truth was, too many things left you still alive but broken and disturbed, and it was better not to experience them.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“The things that didn’t kill you made you stronger, apparently, though that was a lie; truth was, too many things left you still alive but broken and disturbed, and it was better not to experience them.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors

“She’s on the roof,” Catherine had said, and Lech had wondered if this were like the joke about the cat, and she was gently breaking the news that Taverner was dead.”
― Mick Herron, Bad Actors