Quotes from Philip Kerr

Sometimes there is nothing quite

thought that was the whole idea of the German Reformation. To abolish priestly intercession.

I had tasted American beer. Only a country that had once prohibited alcohol could have produced a beer that tasted like fortified mineral water.

How did it ever get to be that bad? I think something happened to Germany after the Great War. You could see it on the streets of Berlin. A callous indifference to human suffering.

Ali sada brzam. Pri?e imaju po?etak, trebale bi ?ak imati i sredinu, ali nikad nisam siguran imaju li pri?e kao što je ova doista i kraj; barem ga ne?e biti dok se god osje?am ovako zbog žene koju nisam Vidio, niti dodirnuo, niti govorio s njom ve? tisu?u godina.

The poor were downtrodden. The press told lies. Truth existed nowhere. Everyone was motivated by money.

Well, who knew? When they were elected. That they were crooks, I mean." "Pretty much everyone who didn't vote for them, Friedrich. And I suspect quite a few of the stupid fools who did. Which only makes it worse.

Plato talks about something called anamnesis, which is when something long forgotten comes to the surface of a man's consciousness. Now, I'll admit that just sounds like a fancy word for remembering something, but actually it's more than that because with remembering, it's not necessary to have forgotten anything, which makes for a subtle distinction. That's what cinema does.

But in my wretched efforts to stay alive at almost any cost I could still hurt and be hurt in my turn, and as long as death's black barrel organ was playing it seemed I would have to dance to the cheerless, doom-filled tune that was turning inexorably on the drum, like some liveried monkey with a terrified rictus on its face and a tin cup in its hand. That didn't make me unusual; just German.

When you're working for people who are mostly thieves and murderers, a little of it comes off on your hands now and then.

Kottbusser Tor was the kind of area that had worn about as well as a music-hall poster, and Admiralstrasse, Number 43 was the kind of place where the rats wore ear-plugs and the cockroaches had nasty coughs.

My mother was a very Viennese type of Austrian, Bernie. We're always committing suicide, you know. Its a way of life for us.

He was dead, buried the month before with full military honors with a clove of garlic in his mouth and a stake through his heart. He was well out of it, his last thoughts of revenge upon his Czech assassins still suspended inside his elongated El Greco head like so much frozen gray mud, and there was no more harm he could do anyone.

won't entirely discount the scent of her perfume, the glint in her eyes, and the well-stocked baker's tray she had out in front of her.

to per cent I'll see if I can find him for you.' I

âgenouilles

She walked toward me, her high heels perforating the polished wooden air of the Richmond's quiet basement like the slow beat of a tall clock.

And wit only sounds like wit when there's someone around to appreciate it.

So I sat down on the stairs and removed my shoes and socks, putting them on again in reverse order, with the socks over the shoes. It's an old trick, favoured by burglars, for muffling the sound of shoe-leather on a hard surface.

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

If there's one thing more ridiculous than the idea of a policeman who's thinking, it's a policeman saying he expects something important to come of it.

Everyone in Germany was somebody different before March 1933. And as I'm always saying, 'Who isn't a National Socialist when there's a gun pointed at his head?

experience I was keen to repeat. Meanwhile, Kaltenbrunner

She ordered a coffee, and I ordered something I had no interest in drinking, so long as she was around.