307 Quotes by Alan Bradley

Although I was amused at the mad scientist’s idea of injecting a powerful bleach to render himself invisible, what truly shocked me was the way he treated his laboratory equipment. “It’s just a fill-um, dear,” Mrs. Mullet said, as I gripped her arm during the smashing of the glassware.

Giving someone the benefit of the doubt is not so simple as it sounds. What it means, in fact, is being charitable – which, as the vicar is fond of pointing out, is the most difficult of the graces to master. Faith and hope are a piece of cake but charity is a Pandora’s box: the monster in the cistern which, when the lid is opened, comes swarming out to seize you by the throat.

Inspector Hewitt flicked on the defroster to evaporate the condensation our words were forming on the windscreen.

Eleven-year-olds are supposed to be unreliable. We’re past the age of being poppets: the age where people bend over and poke us in the tum with their fingers and make idiotic noises that sound like “boof-boof” – just the thought of which is enough to make me bring up my Bovril. And yet we’re still not at the age where anyone ever mistakes us for a grown-up. The fact is, we’re invisible – except when we choose not to be.

Sometimes, when Fate deals you into a game you weren’t expecting, you can only play your cards to the best of your ability.

Everyone wanted to have a word, but nobody wanted to say anything that mattered.

This was an interesting thought; it had never occurred to me that one’s name could be a compass.

There are, in fact, no halos in the Bible – just as there are no cats or accordions.

The spell fior finding books,′ she whispered, closing her eyes before pronouncing the incantation: ‘Abracadabra, Alakazam, Angela Thirkell, and Omar Kayyam.