Quotes from Christopher Fowler

Skinner's suits were a constant source of fascination to Robert. They seemed to be made from an alien synthetic fibre that never creased or got dirty. Indeed, it seemed possible that Skinner himself was constructed of the same material.

I think growing older affects you in one of two ways,' said May. 'Either you sink into a state of perpetual fury, or you cease to get angry about anyone or anything. You make your peace with the world, and I want some peace.

The first one, his first sight of a dead body. That had changed everything. A fall from innocence, and the start of a lifelong fascination with violent crime.

I have to go, I'm being asked to join a conga line through the Byzantine reliquaries.

We never came to Oxford Street as kids,' Bryant continued. 'My brother and I used to head to Holborn with our mother to visit the Father Christmas at Gamages department store. I loved that place. You would get into a rocket ship or a paddle steamer and step off in Santa's grotto. That building was a palace of childhood magic. I still can't believe they pulled it down.

our imperative to protect life should override all regulations set in place by passing politicians. Everyone needs a place they can call home. It should be as fundamental a right as freedom of speech.

Look at the photographs of Hitler at Nuremberg two years ago, the deadness behind the eyes that denies humanity, just as it betrays the true darkness of the soul.' May

I'll have you know I keep detailed notes. Mistakes sometimes occur in translation.' 'Why do your notes need translating?' 'I write them in Aramaic. It's a three-thousand-year-old language so I have to make up a lot of words.

Life is all a dream,' said Bryant, smiling gently. 'A wonderful, wonderful dream. The object is to make everyone else who shares it with you as happy as possible.

This chronicle of survival against pirates, wild animals and the elements went on to become a beloved classic and the most memorable thing about Switzerland apart from Toblerones and euthanasia

Finding the spoor from an act of cruelty, and trying to perceive the fading traces that lead away from it, following the dispersal of the participants rather than their convergence.

The clouds of night opened like ink blossoming in water.

Life is a very beautiful dream, he thought. I'm so glad I chose not to wake up from it just yet.

His new life required no great change in the patterns of his behaviour. It was merely an adjustment. He had always known how to make himself invisible.

I would hate to think of myself as normal. What's the point of working your whole life if you end up having to do what other people want?

hate what I see around me, Arthur. The urban middle class destroyed, the working poor exploited, the vulgar rich elevated to eminence, the underclass demonised, the wasteland of celebrity held in veneration.

Some of us need more protection than others.

His unique skill had always been to absorb the talents and knowledge of others, use what he needed and discard the rest. He never allowed anyone to get to close. He kept the world at arm's length in order to look down on it.

It sounds like something you'd find in a pack of tarot cards. Or a Robert Louis Stevenson novel. Certainly not London in the twenty-first century.' 'That's the thing about the backstreets of Bloomsbury. They've barely changed in hundreds of years. They'll probably be the same long after—

To be tricked into thinking that you have freedom is worse than being told what to do.

We're raising the retirement age to seventy but at work you're a has-been at forty

She's out of her depth, pretty as porcelain and a lot more fragile.

I can't bear those people who only talk about arthritis and ring roads and television and mending gutters, although one does recognize the need for them, if only because they occasionally provide babies who grow up to be more interesting.

Oh, I'm losing my marbles,' said Bryant cheerfully. 'I've gone totally East Ham. One stop short of Barking.