“First law of gossip—there’s no point knowing something if somebody else doesn’t know you know it.”

—  Ben Aaronovitch , book Moon Over Soho

Source: Moon Over Soho (2011), Chapter 11, “Those Foolish Things” (p. 239)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Dec. 21, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "First law of gossip—there’s no point knowing something if somebody else doesn’t know you know it." by Ben Aaronovitch?
Ben Aaronovitch photo
Ben Aaronovitch 28
British television writer 1964

Related quotes

Andy Kessler photo

“It was investing when you know something no one else knows.”

Andy Kessler (1958) American writer

Part II, Revolution, Object Lesson, p. 63.
Running Money (2004) First Edition
Context: But someone knew and made a killing. It was investing when you know something no one else knows.

Tarik Gunersel photo

“One who doesn’t know law thinks one lives in a jungle. One who knows law knows one lives in a jungle.”

Tarik Gunersel (1953) Turkish actor

Oluşmak (To Become) Aphorisms (Pan Publishing House, Istanbul, 2011)

Walker Percy photo

“Fiction doesn’t tell us something we don’t know, it tells us something we know but don’t know that we know.”

Walker Percy (1916–1990) Southern philosophical novelist
Cecily von Ziegesar photo

“You Know You Love Me! XOXO Gossip Girl”

Cecily von Ziegesar (1970) American writer
Lionel Shriver photo

“Everything people do that doesn’t work has to be somebody else’s fault. Next time you know, geezers’ll be suing the government for getting old and kids’ll be taking their mommies to court because they came out ugly.”

Lionel Shriver book We Need to Talk About Kevin

Source: We Need to Talk About Kevin

Seneca the Younger photo

“That most knowing of persons – gossip.”
Is qui scit plurimum, rumor.

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Letter XLIII: On the relativity of fame, line 1.
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XLIII: On the relativity of fame

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. photo

“If you want to know the law and nothing else, you must look at it as a bad man”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

1890s, The Path of the Law (1897)
Context: If you want to know the law and nothing else, you must look at it as a bad man, who cares only for the material consequences which such knowledge enables him to predict, not as a good one, who finds his reasons for conduct, whether inside the law or outside of it, in the vaguer sanctions of conscience.

“You know the difference between news and gossip, don't you? News tells you what people did. Gossip tells you how much they enjoyed it.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Charles Bukowski photo

“Beauty is nothing, beauty won’t stay. You don’t know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you, you know it’s for something else.”

Charles Bukowski book Tales of Ordinary Madness

Source: Tales of Ordinary Madness

Related topics