Quotes from Philip Kerr

All men come to resemble their fathers. That isn't a tragedy, but you need a hell of a sense of humour to handle it.

A man might think he can stare into the abyss without falling in but sometimes the abyss stares back. Sometimes the abyss exerts a strange effect on your sense of balance.

One day I hoped some thoughtful historian would point out the close connection between the Mercedes-Benz motor car and Germany's favorite dictator and that the Lord would find a way to pay these bastards back for their help in bringing the Nazis to power and keeping them there.

Compared with the person who had decorated and furnished the place, the Archduke Ferdinand had been blessed with the taste of a troupe of Turkish circus dwarves.

Winter came early that year. Snow filled the gray December air like fragments of torn-up hope

Looking at him I felt as if I had just met a powerful gorilla while at the same time being in possession of the world's last banana.

the man who succeeds is the man who is able to reduce problems to their simplest terms and who has the courage of his convictions - despite the objections of intellectuals. The courage to speak, perhaps, even when he believes that what he is suggesting sounds like madness.

Sometimes I think God is just the devil pretending to be nice.

Horror does not need the dark, and sometimes a truly evil deed shuns the shadows.

She was shot dead, in cold blood, he said bitterly. I could see we were in for a long night. I got out my cigarettes.

There is evil in the best of us, of course; but perhaps just a little bit more in the worst of us.

Just when you thought that things couldn't get any worse, you find out that they've always been a lot worse than you thought they were. And then they get worse.

Berlin. I used to love this old city. But that was before it had caught sight of its own reflection and taken to wearing corsets laced so tight that it could hardly breathe. I loved the easy, carefree philosophies, the cheap jazz, the vulgar cabarets and all of the other cultural excesses that characterized the Weimar years and made Berlin seem like one of the most exciting cities in the world.

He was as obsequious as a Japanese ivy plant. Wringing his hands as if he hoped to squeeze the milk of human kindness from his fingernails, ...

At least that was what she had told me. You never know with women. What they tell you and what they don't tell you is a very long bridge across a very wide river with all kinds of fish.

Believe me, I know a lot about harm's way. It turns sharp left off the road to Shitsville when you're least expecting it.

the man who succeeds is the man who is able to reduce problems to their simplest terms and who has the courage of his convictions