Quotes from Philip Kerr

My only choice was between the disastrous and the unpalatable. A very German choice.

His face was all sharp angles, thin and pointed, like something Pythagoras had doodled on the corner of his scroll before getting on with his theorem.

truth is rarely the truth and the things you thought weren't true often turn out not to be false.

This is the country for cruel experiments—it's where idealists are sent to die, my friend. Killing people who believe in things is our national sport." With

In case you've forgotten, that election made the hatred of Jews in this country socially respectable.

All successful marriages are based on some necessary hypocrisies. It's only the unsuccessful ones where people always tell the truth to each other. The

But nothing surprises me now. I've grown used to living in a world that is out of joint, as if it has been struck by an enormous earthquake so that the roads are no longer flat, nor the building straight.

Dalia picked up her negligee. She didn't need my help, it wasn't very heavy.

whore's drawers

True decadence involves taking nothing too seriously

Being dead is a pretty good alibi for anyone who's in trouble with the law, but in Nazi Germany it was an existential hazard.

with lawyers I always assume that they came by their wealth and position through avarice and by means nefarious:

Or, put another way, nothing evades our attention as persistently as that which we take for granted. That's

The concierge was a snapper who was over the hill and down a disused mine-shaft. Her hair was every bit as natural as a parade goose-stepping down the Wilhelmstrasse, and she'd evidently been wearing a boxing-glove when she's applied the crimson lipstick to her paperclip of a mouth.

This is the meaning of life, my friend. To know when you are well off and to hate or envy no man.

I'd been alone for so long that I started talking to the radio. At least I assumed that's where the voices were coming from. In the country that produced Luther, Nietzsche, and Adolf Hitler, you can never be absolutely sure about these things.

Berlín. Yo adoraba esta vieja ciudad. Pero eso fue antes de que se mirara en su propio reflejo y le diera por llevar unos corsés tan ajustados que apenas podía respirar. Yo adoraba las filosofías fáciles y despreocupadas, el jazz barato, los cabarés vulgares y todos los demás excesos culturales que caracterizaron los años del Weimar y que hicieron de Berlín una de las ciudades más apasionantes del mundo.

Me and Schopenhauer. Sometimes being German seems to come with some serious disadvantages.

I shrugged. "Staying in a hotel is a bit like life. At some stage you have to check out." "Oh

I caught a glimpse of her onstage as I made my way up to one of the dressing rooms – one of those thin, pale-faced, red-haired Berlin girls who reminded me of a safety match.

corridor that smelt strongly of misery, which, as anyone will tell you, is a subtle mixture of hope, despair, rancid cooking fat and men's piss.

Diz-se que a loucura é simplesmente a capacidade de ver o futuro. E se soubéssemos agora o que saberemos então, provavelmente seria suficiente para nos pôr a todos aos gritos. Na vida, o segredo é manter as duas coisas separadas o maior tempo possível.

that's the thing about urgent paperwork: the longer you leave it the less urgent it becomes.

Um bom polícia continua a ser um bom polícia, mesmo que seja um sacana nazi.