228 Quotes by Nick Harkaway

Questions that trouble the mind are the only ones worth considering.

The doings of this small island are a curiosity only, something everyone who lives here is prone to forget.

Finance by itself is ruthless, and that ruthlessness is its salvation. The real disasters are only possible when you bring politics into it, because politics is about pretending to care.

His perceptions of copperhood were formed by the dream of England, still. A copper was a bloke in a slightly silly hat who walked the beat, talked to shopkeepers about the price of fish, and sorted out young ruffians. You didn’t attack him. It was like attacking a field of wheat, and anyway, you’d have to answer to his mum.

Thus Gonzo, incendiarist and leader of men.

Joseph has no great hatred of modern technology – he just mistrusts the effortless, textureless surfaces and the ease with which it trains you to do things in the way most convenient to the machine. Above all, he mistrusts duplication. A rare thing becomes a commonplace thing. A skill becomes a feature. The end is more important than the means. The child of the soul gives place to a product of the system.

Lights burn on the upper floors, traders and analysts letting commerce take precedence over family one more time in a desperate attempt to add to a Christmas bonus they won’t have time to spend.

Gonzo’s father told his son to grieve without reservation or embarrassment until he could grieve solemnly and inwardly, and then finally to hang up his tears and wear them only occasionally, as befits the true men of the heart. Grief is not a thing to be ashamed of or suppressed, he told Gonzo. Nor yet is it a thing to cherish. Feel it, inhabit it and leave it behind. It is right, but it is not the end.

It is known, among coppers and criminals alike, that society can be policed only because it consents. When the burden of law or government is too great, or too oppressive, or when economic need or famine breaks the normal course of life, there simply are not – can never be – enough coppers to hold the line.