Top 200 Alan Bradley Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “There are times when eyebrows speak louder than words.”

— Alan Bradley

202. “If ever you’re accosted by a man,” she’d said, “kick him in the Casanovas and run like blue blazes!”

— Alan Bradley

203. “Feminine intuition is no more than an acceptable excuse for female brains.”

— Alan Bradley

204. “Most people probably never stop to think about why our burial places are so green. But if they ever did, their faces might turn the very shade of that graveyard grass, for underneath the picturesque moss and lichen, and beneath all those weathered stones, is a slowly simmering chemical stew, bubbling and burbling away in the dark earth as our ancestors and neighbors, with the help of a little chemistry, are returned to their Maker.”

— Alan Bradley

205. “The function of a churchyard – and the church itself, to some extent – is to digest the dead: There’s no point in pretending otherwise.”

— Alan Bradley

206. “I love books where it’s always raining. So much like real life.”

— Alan Bradley

207. “But in the end, when you stop to think about it, we are, after all, no more than mere particles of dust, drifting along together through eternity, and so it is pleasant to think that we have – in this way or that, for better or for worse – reached out and touched one another. That, in the end, is what chemistry is all about, isn’t it?”

— Alan Bradley

208. “There wasn’t a schoolboy on the planet – or a man, for that matter – who would dare disturb a female locked into a WC. I knew that for a fact.”

— Alan Bradley

209. “But it was not to be. I was me... She was she... and the world was the world- as I had sourly suspected all along.”

— Alan Bradley

210. “It is a well-known fact that the Black Death was brought into England by lawyers.”

— Alan Bradley

211. “If anyone wants me,” I said, “I shall be upstairs, weeping at the bottom of my closet.”

— Alan Bradley

212. “There’s only one way to deal with a persistent pest, which is to remain perfectly silent. Silence is more effective that a thousand swear words.”

— Alan Bradley

213. “As I let myself in, my nostrils were filled with musty but pleasant air, as if the books themselves were breathing in their sleep in the unventilated room.”

— Alan Bradley

214. “Even with all this power, it comes down to the same old things. Connections, money, influence.”

— Alan Bradley

215. “Call the police! “I’ll do it,” I said. “I know Inspector Hewitt’s number off by heart.” “Very good,” Dogger said. “But before you do, let’s have a quick dekko at the place. This lady isn’t going anywhere.” It was a moment right out of Philip Odell, the famous wireless detective, and I’m afraid I clasped my hands together under my chin. Such moments of bliss were few in my life and I needed to savor them the moment they occurred.”

— Alan Bradley

216. “The world was changing and I, whatever I was, was changing with it.”

— Alan Bradley

217. “It’s things like this that really shake me: sudden terrifying glimpses into the world of being an adult, and they are sometimes things that I am not sure I really want to know.”

— Alan Bradley

218. “The instant you become a woman, you become a captive. You are sucked up into that mysterious state that, like a person seen across a lawn through drifting smoke, is partly real and partly vapor. I had seen it happening to Feely and her friends, and it scared me almost to witlessness.”

— Alan Bradley

219. “I’ve always been amazed by the ease with which a stranger’s life can be reconstructed by simply snooping through their belongings. Art and imagination combine to tell a tale that’s more complete than even a fat printed biography could ever hope to equal. And Mr. Denning was no exception: His secrets were laid so bare that I felt I ought to be apologizing.”

— Alan Bradley

220. “What seemed at first like an act of incandescent self-destruction turned out to be the onramp to a bleak treadmill, one that felt designed to eradicate my personality and identity. It didn’t end my self-recrimination and misery. Instead, it illustrated just how good I’d had it living on the street.”

— Alan Bradley

221. “It’s a fact of life that a girl can tell in a flash if another girl likes her.”

— Alan Bradley

222. “A few more coarse oaths and my pursuer was gone. I cannot bring myself to record his exact words, but will keep them in mind against the day I can put them to good use.”

— Alan Bradley

223. “It’s always embarrassing when someone steps over that invisible line and into your private life. Even though they mean well, the line has been broken, and can never again be the impenetrable defense that it once was.”

— Alan Bradley

224. “Could there be shadier sides of life of which I was not yet aware? I didn’t like to think that there were – but at the same time I didn’t like to think that there weren’t.”

— Alan Bradley

225. “From the vaulted arches several stories above us, entire, mature trees were growing, reaching leafy boughs down into the open air between the floor and ceiling. There was a full glade growing up there, oak, birch, maple, and elm, like someone had carved out a few acres of the park and fixed it there upside down.”

— Alan Bradley

226. “When you’re in The System, like after being arrested, you’re no longer a participant. You’re being processed. Instead of an easy to ignore, well-greased cog, you become a sharp edge that needs to be ground down.”

— Alan Bradley

227. “Before I started killing people, I like to think I was a fairly normal kid.”

— Alan Bradley

228. “I’ve recently come to the conclusion that the nursery rhyme riddle is the most basic form of the detective story. It’s a mystery stripped of all but the essential facts. Take this one, for instance: As.”

— Alan Bradley

229. “Do you want to live, Sander?”

— Alan Bradley

230. “She always said she’d prefer to die on her way to the moon than under a runaway bus.”

— Alan Bradley

231. “The holiday village had sprung up in Bryant Park, and the ice rink and booths were bustling with early Christmas shoppers. It smelled like fried food and scented candles, mixed with the occasional blast of diesel from the traffic inching along 42nd Street. When I think of how New York City smells, this is it.”

— Alan Bradley

232. “Think about it this way – if we die together, you won’t have to mourn me.”

— Alan Bradley

233. “You’re one of them de Luce girls over from Buckshaw. I’d rec’nize them cold blue eyes anywhere.”

— Alan Bradley

234. “The greatest minds in the world are often cranky when they first awaken in the morning, and mine is no exception.”

— Alan Bradley

235. “Defending oneself by hiding behind the rules was a clever trick, like using a mouse to stampede the enemy’s elephants and causing them to trample him to death.”

— Alan Bradley

236. “It started to feel like this thing happening to me was an invisible wall between us, a barrier none of us wanted to acknowledge but that was continuously pushing us apart. I started to feel like an outsider even among my closest friends.”

— Alan Bradley

237. “Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”

— Alan Bradley