89 Quotes by Mick Herron

The public was like one of those huge Pacific jellyfish; one enormous, pulsating mass of indifference, drifting wherever the current carried it; an organism without a motive, ambition or original sin to call its own, but which somehow believed, in whatever passed for its brain, that it chose its own leaders and had a say in its own destiny.

Nothing more frightening, to someone who’d lived by his wits, than to be slowly losing them.

The thing about somebody else’s car was, it was automatically an all-terrain vehicle.

Half of the future is buried in the past. That was the prevailing Service culture. Hence.

Smoking was almost as good a guarantor of privacy as fake birdshit. Though give it another year or two, and it would probably be an arrestable offence.

Everyone wanted a life less ordinary. And only a tiny minority ever got it, and even they probably didn’t appreciate it much.

On discovering a fire, the instructions ran, shout Fire and try to put it out. It was useful, heart-of the matter advice, and could be extended almost indefinitely in any direction. On discovering your husband’s guests are arseholes, shout Arseholes and try to put them out.

Having a cat is one small step from having two cats, and to be a single woman within a syllable of fifty in possession of two cats is tantamount to declaring life over.

Last winter, she’d walked this path with Min, heading for the Christmas Fair – there’d been a ferris wheel and skating, mulled wine, minced pies. At an air-rifle booth, Min had missed the target five times in a row. “Cover”, he’d said. “Don’t want everyone knowing I’m a trained sharpshooter.