The Black Book Quotes
"The more sophisticated readers simply repeated the proverb, 'If it isn't true, it's to the point.'"
"Rebus thought: I don't want to die in the dark."
"He felt his whole being contract, everything trying to be where his scrotum was."
"He felt a charge in his toes: a fear of heights."
"The front car was being chased by three others. In the chasing cars were police officers."
"You don't want to go off half-cocked, do you? With a sawn-off, there's less margin for error."
"You always want more. Who fired it? Where did he get it!"
"I'm here because I'm curious, Miss Finch. I mean, you still live next door, you're friends with his wife."
"There's no' many like you, hen. Too right, there's not many as daft as me."
"The way I've heard it described... Well, like I say, the temptation never goes away."
"I'm just glad he did away with himself on the outside: it makes him your problem rather than mine."
"It's my mum's, she's house-bound, I have to look after her."
"Rico had a point: in Marchmont, you were always in somebody else's parking space."
"All it took was patience: colossal patience."
"He sat there smoking a cigarette, staring at the strands."
"His watch said eleven-fifteen; he couldn't believe it was so late."
"The stuff was as smooth as anything he'd ever tried."
"The streets grew quieter after the students had slouched home on the wings of blasphemy."
"She started to defend SWEEP, going on at length, her cheeks colouring with conviction."
"I respect a person's name, it's all we bring into this world, and it's all we take out of it."
"If the doctors told me I had only a few agonising months to live, I think I'd go find myself a gun, too."
"It's when you've to play, only any move you make will spell disaster."
"I wouldn't want that on your conscience, I'm sure."
"A man who chose his own route out. Luckier than most of us, I'd wager."
"A councillor is such an easy target - accessible, public, approachable."
"In a job like this, you don't get many visitors. That's one of the things I like about it."
"Poor Councillor Gillespie. I know that, I'm worthless. It's up to people like you, and you're not going to do a damned thing."
"If bad money is used to good purpose, can it really be called bad money?"
"But the root system's shallow, Inspector. We're big in hardware, but we need software, too."
"He'd been so steamed up, he'd rung Patience's doorbell twice before remembering the unpleasantness surrounding his last visit."
"He kept seeing those hundreds of faceless workers, driving to work in their new cars, or signing on in a sweltering dole office."
"It's all just policy to you, isn't it? No right and wrong, legal and illegal, just politics."
"We Scots need a bit of guilt, don't we? It gets us through the day."
"He made it to the toilets... He dried himself off, then was copiously sick into the bowl."
"'Feeling better?' Sammy asked him. 'Ninety-five per cent to go,' Rebus told her."
"He'd spent time steeping in the bath at home, then showering. Sammy had made him drink a couple of litres of orange juice, and about a packet of 'Resolve'."
"'Maybe you got my guilt complex along with my genes,' he told her."
"He knew he fitted in like a paedophile in a classroom."
"'You should have seen me earlier. You could have sanded doors with me.'"
"'I can't forget what I did,' she told him quietly."
"'I didn't say I was accepting the promotion, sir, I just said to tell Gunner I was.'"
"'Why are you here?' He checked his watch, saw he hadn't put it on yet."
"'We want the file you've compiled,' Rebus said, 'and the tape Sir Iain made.'"
"He played part of the tape, using headphones so he could turn the volume up."
"And afterwards, she fell asleep still clutching the cushion."
"'We're not so very different,' she told him."
"'If I was Sir Iain Hunter, would I still have to move the car?'"
"This, he thought, is for Willie and Dixie, and for Tom Gillespie."
"But he knew, above all, that he was doing it for himself."