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When you're a boy your life can be measured out as a series of uncomfortable conversations reluctantly initiated by adults in an effort to tell you things that you either already know or really don't want to know.
Ben Aaronovitch
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Ben Aaronovitch
Age: 60
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Businessperson
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Science Fiction Writer
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Inner and Outer London
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More quotes by Ben Aaronovitch
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.
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...don't ask me why I know what an Edwardian smoking jacket looks like: let's just say it has something to do with Doctor Who and leave it at that.
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You know, your species [humans] has the most amazing capacity for self-deception, matched only by its ingenuity in trying to destroy itself.
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This I know for a fact: the reason African women have children is so that there's someone else to do the housework.
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Conflict resolution,' said Nightingale. 'Is this what they teach at Hendon these days?' 'Yes, sir,' I said. 'But don't worry, they also teach us how to beat people with phone books and the ten best ways to plant evidence.
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Landscaping is the great cardinal sin of modern architecture. It's not your garden, it's not a park - it's a formless patch of grass, shrubbery and the occasional tree that exists purely to stop the original developer's plans from looking like a howling concrete wilderness.
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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.
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The study of the victim is called victimology because everything sounds better with and ology tacked on the end.
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He was calling it an atonic seizure because, even if he didn't know why it had happened, it was important to give it a cool name.
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...good-Samaritanism in London is considered an extreme sport - like base-jumping or crocodile-wrestling.
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Are they really gods? I never worry about theological questions, said Nightingale. They exist, they have power and they can breach the Queen's peace - that makes them a police matter.
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This is your brain on magic.
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What do you think you're doing?
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It's a sad fact of modern life that if you drive long enough, sooner or later you must leave London behind.
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Carved above the lintel were the words SCIENTIA POTESTAS EST. Science points east, I wondered? Science is portentous, yes? Science protests too much. Scientific potatoes rule. Had I stumbled on the lair of dangerous plant geneticists?
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I gave the prescribed Metropolitan Police first greeting. Oi! I said What do you think you're doing?
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The motto of West African cooking is that if the food doesn't set fire to the tablecloth the cook is being stingy with the pepper.
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My dad once told me that the secret to a happy life was never to start something with a girl unless you were willing to follow wherever it led. It's the best piece of advice he has ever given me, and probably the reason I was born.
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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.
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Questions would be asked. Answers would be ignored.
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