25 Quotes by Tom Rob Smith

Trust but check. Check on those we trust.

There’s nothing more stubborn than a fact. That is why you hate them so much. They offend you.

The duty of an investigator was to scratch away at innocence until guilt was uncovered. If no guilt was uncovered then they hadn’t scratched deep enough.

I thought upon the way in which we’d always shared each other’s happiness, believing it would make the moment burn brighter and longer, but sadness can be shared too, perhaps sharing makes is burn briefer and less bright.

For decades no one had taken action according to what they believed was right or wrong but by what they thought would please their Leader. People.

The survival of their political system justified anything. The promise of a golden age where none of this brutality would exist, where everything would be in plenty and poverty would be a memory, justified anything.

Was the difference merely that Vasili was senselessly cruel while he’d been idealistically cruel? One was an empty, indifferent cruelty while the other was a principled, pretentious cruelty which thought of itself as reasonable and necessary.

I’d mistaken familiarity for insight and equated hours spent together as a measure of understanding.

Standing at the point where these photographs were taken, you’re immersed in the most unbelievable quiet. It’s like being at the bottom of the sea except instead of a rusted shipwreck there’s an ancient farmhouse. Even the thoughts in my head sounded loud, and sometimes I found my heart beating hard for no reason except as a reaction against the silence.