“You can never have enough trophies. If there were ten to be won a year I'd want to win them all! That's not being greedy, it's just a natural thing.”

“Life can't be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years.”

“Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.”

“It is almost impossible to win a VC. In the hundred-and-fifty years since it was created, the number of British and Commonwealth troops who've seen action is in the tens of millions, but only 1,351 of them have been awarded the Victoria Cross. The chances of surviving a VC action are just one in ten, but if you do survive, the medal can never be taken away from you. You can go to the gallows wearing it. And no matter how many letters you have after your name, VC always comes first.”

“Should we stick with the Goth Detectives from when we won last year? Where's our trophy?”

“Just to see you smile, I'd do anything.
That you wanted me to when all is said and done.
I'd never count the cost.
It's worth all that's lost.
Just to see you smile.”

“The success is not in the trophy won but in the race run …”

“The Twins are gonna win the World Series! The Twins have won it! It's a base hit! It's a 1–0, ten inning victory!”

“But policing, crime prevention and detection, is a Red Queen’s race: You have to run as fast as you possibly can just to stand still. You can collar criminals until the cows come home, and there’ll still be a never-ending supply of greedy fuckwits and chancers. It’s like there’s a law of nature: Not only is the job never done, the job can never be done.”

“Of course, you have to remind yourself that you might be seeing things that were never there. You might be maneuvering your memories to bring them into line with what you’d want them to be. You can’t be sure you’re not just daydreaming.”