Ben Aaronovitch
- Moon Over Soho
My Dad says that being a Londoner has nothing to do with where you're born. He says that there are people who get off a jumbo jet at Heathrow, go through immigration waving any kind of passport, hop on the tube and by the time the train's pulled into Piccadilly Circus they've become a Londoner.
Ben Aaronovitch
- Moon Over Soho
The first rule about a black woman's hair is you don't talk about a black woman's hair. And the second rule is you don't ever touch a black woman's hair without getting written permission first.
Ben Aaronovitch
- Frank Dzidula
For a terrifying moment I thought he was going to hug me, but fortunately we both remembered we were English just in time. Still, it was a close call.
Ben Aaronovitch
- Rivers of London
"We can't have your people fighting each other," I said. The 'royal we' is very important in police work; it reminds the person you're talking to that behind you stands the mighty institution that is the Metropolitan Police, robed in the full majesty of the law and capable, in manpower terms, of invading a small country. You only hope when you're using that term that the whole edifice is currently facing in the same direction as you are.
Ben Aaronovitch
- Rivers of London
The Metropolitan Police Service is still, despite what people think, a working-class organization and as such rejects totally the notion of an officer class. That is why every newly minted constable, regardless of their educational background, has to spend a two-year probationary period as an ordinary plod on the streets. This is because nothing builds character like being abused, spat at, and vomited on by members of the public.
Ben Aaronovitch
- Rivers of London
Could it have been anyone, or was it destiny? When I'm considering this, I find it helpful to quote the wisdom of my father, who once told me, "Who knows why the fuck anything happens?"
Bernie Clark
- The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga
Consider your will and your body as two dancers, moving in total unison. Too many beginning and even experienced yoga students make their yoga into a wrestling match - the mind contending with the body, forcing it into postures that the body is resisting. Yoga is a dance, not a wrestling match.
Gail Carriger
- Changeless
She boasted the general battle-axe demeanor of an especially strict governess. This was the kind of woman who took her tea black, smoked cigars after midnight, played a mean game of cribbage, and kept a bevy of repulsive little dogs. Alexia liked her immediately.
Gail Carriger
- Ivy Hisselpenny
Ivy waved her wet handkerchief, as much as to say 'words cannot possibly articulate my profound distress'. Then, because Ivy never settled for meaningful gestures when verbal embellishments could compound the effect, she said, "Words cannot possibly articulate my profound distress."
Gail Carriger
- Soulless
Miss Tarabotti was not one of life's milk-water misses - in fact, quite the opposite. Many a gentleman had likened his first meeting with her to downing a very strong cognac when one was expecting to imbibe fruit juice - that is to say, startling and apt to leave one with a distinct burning sensation.
Tamora Pierce
- Alanna of Trebond
I just want to be a warrior maiden and go on adventures. I don't want to fall in love, especially not with George or Jon. They'll ask me to give them parts of me. I want to keep me for myself. I don't want to give me away. Look at my father. He never really got over my mother's death. They told me when he died last month he was calling for her. He gave her part of himself, and he just never got it back. That's not going to happen to me.
Hannah Arendt
What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.
J. Derrick McClure
- Why Scots Matters
The Scots language is a mark of the distinctive identity of the Scottish people; and as such we should be concerned to preserve it, even if there were no other reason, because it is ours. This statement requires neither explanation nor apology.
