73 quotes
“What do you think?”
“I can hardly contain my indifference.”
Whatever. As far as I can see, there is one state of dead and that’s ‘not living.’ Now, do you have anything useful to add to this investigation or not?”
Something Rotten (2004)
No, I don’t want to seem underhand or insulting but Toccata’s a poisonous, untrustworthy, self-serving little reptile – with a severe personality disorder and a disquieting capacity for cannibalism.
I just had an idea for a cheap form of power: by bringing pasta and antipasta together, we could be looking at the utter annihilation of ravioli and liberation of vast quantities of energy.
“Friday may have tricked his parents, the SHE and half the ChronoGuard, but there’s one person no teenage boy ever managed to fool.”
“And that is?”
“His younger sister.”
The first four in the series had been less a lighthearted chronicling of my adventures and more of a “Dirty Harry meets Fanny Hill,” but with a good deal more sex and violence.
I’d come to realize over the years that anything created by mankind had error, mischief and bureaucratic officialdom hardwired at inception, and the fictional world was no different.
Rescue seemed a very remote possibility, and that was at the nub of the whole ethical-dilemma argument. You never come out on top, no matter what. The only way to win the game is not to play.
Having to mix with dimwits is hideously boring. Great-Uncle Mycroft put it best when he said that for a genius this planet is excruciatingly dull, only made briefly more illuminating when another genius happens along.
The Woman Who Died a Lot (2012)
“Listen to what it says in the horoscopes: ‘If it is your birthday, there may be an increased amount of mail. Expect gifts, friendly salutations from people and the occasional surprise. Possibility of cake.’ That’s so weird—I wonder if any of it will come true?”
Good evening and welcome to Evade the Question Time, the nation’s premier topical talk show. Tonight, as every night, a panel of distinguished public figures generally evade answering the audience’s questions and instead toe the party line.
Something Rotten (2004)
“Last season we had the Reduced Shakespeare Company doing ‘Highlights of the Mostly Complete History of Condensing Stuff (abridged)’.”
More welcoming were a couple of Welsh Tourist Board posters. One was advertising the local area with the now-universal slogan “Visit Wales – Not Always Raining.”
The numbers were too great for HiberTech to hide what had happened. As it was, well-engineered corporate surprise, orchestrated bafflement, faux delight, suitable soul-searching and feigned contrition won the day.
About ten degrees upslope of Fiction, I could see our nearest neighbor: Artistic Criticism. It was an exceptionally beautiful island, yet deeply troubled, confused and suffused with a blanketing layer of almost impenetrable bullshit.
One of Our Thursdays is Missing (2011)
There were the rules we were taught, and there were the rules we did our job by. The two were related, but as distant cousins rather than siblings.
Don’t ever call me mad, Mycroft. I’m not mad. I’m just...well, differently moraled, that’s all.
The Eyre Affair (2001)
“You’re crazy!”
“Undoubtedly. But look around you. You followed me in here. Who’s crazier? The crazy or the crazy who follows him?”
Lost in a Good Book (2002)
It wasn’t going to be hard—it was going to be impossible. It wouldn’t deter me. I’d done impossible things several times in the past, and the prospect didn’t scare me as much as it used to.
Lost in a Good Book (2002)
“I’ll tell you what love is,” I told her. “It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your heart and soul to the smiter!”
Lost in a Good Book (2002)