307 Quotes by Alan Bradley

If you remember nothing else, remember this: Inspiration from outside one's self is like the heat in an oven. It makes passable Bath buns. But inspiration from within is like a volcano: It changes the face of the world.

Alone in my room, I pondered the evidence. A perfect phrase. I would jot it down for future use.Like it or not, there are times when you need to be alone; times when you need to be lonely; times when you need to need other people.

As Daffy once said, the best place to hide a glum countenance is onstage at the opera.

Not to be too dramatic about it, that night I slept the sleep of the damned. I dreamt of turrets and craggy ledges where the windswept rain blew in from the ocean with the odor of violets. A pale woman in Elizabethan dress stood beside my bed and whispered in my ear that the bells would ring. An old salt in an oilcloth jacket sat atop a piling, mending nets with an awl, while far out at sea a tine aeroplane winged its way towards the setting sun.

Simple pleasures are best.

How could I tell Clarence that finding another dead body was anything but dreadful? On the contrary: it was thrilling; it was exciting; it was exhilarating, it was invigorating; to say nothing of electrifying and above all, satisfying.How could I tell the dear man that murder made me feel so gloriously alive?

It's amazing what the discovery of a corpse can do for one's spirits.

When you're that age, you sometimes have a great enthusiasm that is very deep and very narrow, and that is something that has always intrigued me-- that world of the eleven-year-old that is so quickly lost.

Love is love, wherever you may find it—even when it's covered in feathers.