Discworld

"Always move fast. You never know what’s catching you up."

"Weapons raised the ante far too high. It was much better to rely on a gift for talking his way out of things, confusing the issue and, if that failed, some well-soled shoes and a cry of “Look, what’s that over there!”"

"You see, I believe in freedom, Mr. Lipwig. Not many people do, although they will, of course, protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be completely without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based."

"“It was a joke!” Moist burst out. “Oh, I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized,” said Lord Vetinari, turning back to Moist. “Do tell me if you feel obliged to make another one, will you?”"

"Moist shrugged. “Oh, all right. Of course I accept as natural-born criminal, habitual liar, fraudster, and totally untrustworthy perverted genius.” “Capital! Welcome to government service!” said Lord Vetinari, extending his hand. “I pride myself on being able to pick the right man.”"

"The cluttered desk of Vimes’s memory finally unearthed the inadvertent saucer of recollection from under the teacup of forgetfulness. (p. 63)"

"The Ankh-Morpork Central Post Office had a gaunt frontage. It was a building designed for a purpose. It was, therefore, more or less, a big box to employ people in, with two wings at the rear, which enclosed the big stable yard. Some cheap pillars had been sliced in half and stuck on the outside, some niches had been carved for some miscellaneous stone nymphs, some stone urns had been ranged along the parapet, and thus Architecture had been created."

"“Come on, Mr Spangler, you don’t want me to get into trouble, do you?” said the hangman, patting him on the shoulder. “Just a few words, and then we can all get on with our lives. Present company excepted, obviously.”"

"Steal five dollars and you were a petty thief. Steal thousands of dollars and you were either a government or a hero."

"I commend my soul to any god that can find it."

"They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man’s mind wonderfully; unfortunately what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that it is in a body, that, in the morning, is going to be hanged."

"The only hat worth wearing was the one you made for yourself, not one you bought, not one you were given. Your own hat, for your own head. Your own future, not someone else’s."

"I told him, sir, that fruit baskets is like life—until you’ve got the pineapple off of the top you never know what’s underneath."

"“Work, for wages. I realize the concept may be unfamiliar.” Only as a form of hell, Moist thought."

"So, Moist thought, as he put the pot back with extreme care, inside the post office normality clearly does not have a one-to-one relationship with the outside world. I might miss the cues."

"Tiffany took a deep breath. This was about words, and she knew about words. “Here is a story to believe,” she said. “Once we were blobs in the sea, and then fishes, and then lizards and rats and then monkeys, and hundreds of things in between. This hand was once a fin, this hand once had claws! In my human mouth I have the pointy teeth of a wolf and the chisel teeth of a rabbit and the grinding teeth of a cow! Our blood is as salty as the sea we used to live in! When we’re frightened, the hair on our skin stands up, just like it did when we had fur. We are history! Everything we’ve ever been on the way to becoming us, we still are. Would you like the rest of the story?” Tell us, said the hiver. “I’m made up of the memories of my parents and my grandparents, all my ancestors. They’re in the way I look, in the colour of my hair. And I’m made up of everyone I’ve ever met who’s changed the way I think. So who is ‘me’?”"

"You humans are so good at ignoring things. You are almost blind and almost deaf. You look at a tree and see…just a tree, a stiff weed. You don’t see its history, feel the pumping of the sap, hear every insect in the bark, sense the chemistry of the leaves, notice the hundred shades of green, the tiny movements to follow the sun, the subtle growth of wood…"

"“The old bit of our brains that wants to be head monkey, and attacks when it’s surprised,” said Tiffany. “It reacts. It doesn’t think. Being human is knowing when not to be the monkey or the lizard or any of the other old echoes.”"

"“In stories, where the genie or the magic frog or the fairy godmother gives you three wishes…what’s the third wish?” “Ah, stories,” said Granny. “That’s easy. In any story worth the tellin’, that knows about the way of the world, the third wish is the one that undoes the harm the first two wishes caused.”"

"If this was a story, she thought bitterly, I’d trust in my heart and follow my star and all that other stuff and it would all turn out all right, right now, by tinkly Magikkkk. But you’re never in a story when you need to be."

"Do you know what it feels like to be aware of every star, every blade of grass? Yes. You do. You call it “opening your eyes again.” But you do it for a moment. We have done it for eternity. No sleep, no rest, just endless...endless experience, endless awareness. Of everything. All the time. How we envy you, envy you! Lucky humans, who can close your minds to the endless deeps of space! You have this thing you call...boredom? That is the rarest talent in the universe! We heard a song—it went “Twinkle twinkle little star....” What power! What wondrous power! You can take a billion trillion tons of flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength, and turn it into a little song for children! You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your minds, and that keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!"

"Swing, though, started in the wrong place. He didn’t look around, and watch, and learn, and then say, “This is how people are, how do we deal with it?” No, he sat and thought: “This is how people ought to be, how do we change them?” (p. 135)"

"If you don’t know when to be a human being, you don’t know when to be a witch. And if you’re too afraid of goin’ astray, you won’t go anywhere."

"If Tiffany hadn’t been a witch, she would have whined about everyone being so unfair! In fact they were being fair. She knew they were being fair. They were not thinking just of her, but of other people, and Tiffany hated herself—well, slightly—because she hadn’t. But it was sneaky of them to choose this moment to be fair. That was unfair."

"It’s an unfair world, child. Be glad you have friends."

"“Here you are. Would you like some pickles?” “Pickles gives me the wind something awful.” “In that case—” “Oh, I wasn’t saying no,” said Mistress Weatherwax, taking two large pickled cucumbers. Oh, good, Tiffany thought."

"Tomorrow, your job is to change the world into a better place. Today, my job is to see that everyone gets there."

"“That’s a nice song,” said young Sam, and Vimes remembered that he was hearing it for the first time. “It’s an old soldiers’ song,” he said. “Really, Sarge? But it’s about angels.” Yes, thought Vimes, and it’s amazing what bits those angels cause to rise up as the song progresses. It’s a real soldiers’ song: sentimental, with dirty bits. “As I recall, they used to sing it after battles,” he said. I’ve seen old men cry when they sing it,” he added. “Why? It sounds cheerful.” They were remembering who they were not singing it with, thought Vimes. You’ll learn. I know you will. (p. 311)"

"You couldn’t say: It’s not my fault. You couldn’t say: It’s not my responsibility. You could say: I will deal with this. You didn’t have to want to. But you had to do it."

"“I had a lot of voles last night,” said Mistress Weatherwax over her shoulder. “Yes, but you didn’t actually eat them, did you?” said Tiffany. “It was the owl that actually ate them.” “Technic’ly, yes,” Mistress Weatherwax admitted. “But if you think you’ve been eating voles all night you’d be amazed how much you don’t want to eat anything next morning. Or ever again.”"

"It’s always surprising to be reminded that while you’re watching and thinking about people, all knowing and superior, they’re watching and thinking about you, right back at you."

"What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter."

"He didn’t say this aloud, because although an elderly man probably has a lot less future than a man of twenty, he is far more careful about it…"

"And I’m going home, Vimes repeated to himself. Everyone wants something from Vimes, even though I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Hell, I’m probably a spoon. (p. 225)"

"There was color, in a sense, but it was the kind of color you'd get if you could shine a beam of black through a prism. (p. 215)"

"A sense of familiarity was creeping up on Susan, but surreptitiously, dodging behind things whenever she tried to concentrate on it. (p. 215)"

"Charity ain't giving people what you wants to give, it's giving people what they need to get. (p. 207)"

"If anyone was thinking about making a mistake, you know, like maybe sending the guards down here tomorrow, tipping the old man out of his hovel, chuckin' him in prison, anything like that...werrlll...that's the kind of mistake he ought to treasure on account of it being the last mistake he'll ever make. A word to the wise men, right? (p. 207)"

"It was so easy to slip into immortality, to ride the horse, to know everything. And every time you did, it brought closer the day when you could never get off and never forget."

"It was amazing how many people spent their whole lives in places where they never intended to stay. (p. 199)"

"There are those who believe knowledge is something that is acquired—a precious ore hacked, as it were, from the gray strata of ignorance."

"It was a sore point. Like most people with no grasp whatsoever of real economics, Mustrum Ridcully equated "proper financial control" with the counting of paper clips. Even senior wizards had to produce a pencil stub to him before they were allowed a new one out of the locked cupboard below his desk. (p. 181)"

"—what's this Anthropomorphic Personification, then?"

"+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++ (p. 175)"

"Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time. (p. 172)"

"That's ridiculous, boy!" said the Dean. "Idiocy is not a communicable disease."

"While evidence says that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, they're probably all on first steps. (p. 160)"

"The path to wisdom does, in fact, begin with a single step."

"Right now, the light at the end of his mental tunnel showed only more tunnel. (p. 152)"

"I remember my father tellin' me some valuable advice about drinks," said Ridcully. "He said, 'Son, never drink any drink with a paper umbrella in it, never drink any drink with a humorous name, and never drink any drink that changes color when the last ingredient goes in. And never, ever, do this—'"