Quote

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
Author
Businessperson
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Inner and Outer London
Already
Reluctantly
Boys
Initiated
Either
Conversations
Effort
Measured
Tell
Uncomfortable
Really
Adults
Things
Series
Life
Conversation

More quotes by Ben Aaronovitch

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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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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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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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This is your brain on magic.
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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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...good-Samaritanism in London is considered an extreme sport - like base-jumping or crocodile-wrestling.
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On the plus side, there were no rioters in sight but on the minus side this was probably because everywhere I looked was on fire.
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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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...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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Questions would be asked. Answers would be ignored.
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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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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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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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The study of the victim is called victimology because everything sounds better with and ology tacked on the end.
Ben Aaronovitch
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What do you think you're doing?
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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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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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It's a sad fact of modern life that if you drive long enough, sooner or later you must leave London behind.
Ben Aaronovitch