Discworld

"There was another of those long, long pauses, wherein may be seen the possibilities of several different futures. (p. 367)"

"...and the fact that he'd been operating on pure adrenalin, which soon presents its bill and does not give credit. (pp. 357-358)"

"Personal isn't the same as important. (p. 354)"

"Silence slammed in like a thunderclap. (p. 354)"

"If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat."

"The problem is, people only think for themselves if you tell them to. (p. 305)"

"Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness. (p. 253)"

"We are armed with the truth. What can harm us if we are armed with the truth?"

"Quirke wasn't actually a bad man. He didn't have the imagination. He dealt more in that sort of generalized low-grade unpleasantness which slightly tarnishes the soul of all who come into contact with it.†"

"If there was crime, there should be punishment. If the specific criminal should be involved in the punishment process then this was a happy accident, but if not, then any criminal would do, and since everyone was undoubtedly guilty of something, the net result was that, in general terms, justice was done. (p. 218)"

""He only drinks when he gets depressed," said Carrot."

"The axiom "Honest men have nothing to fear from the police" is currently under review by the Axioms Appeal Board. (p. 174)"

"Someone was running, and they were chasing. They were chasing because he was running, and he was running because they were chasing. (p. 170)"

""Didn't he have a crossbow?" he said. "Bit odd, going after interesting rare butterflies with a crossbow."..."

"And they were also slightly less intelligent than he was. This is a quality you should always pray for in your would-be murderer. (p. 150)"

"There was much pushing and shoving and honking of noses and falling of prats. It was a scene to make a happy man slit his wrists on a fine spring morning. (pp. 138-139)"

"If you had enough money, you could hardly commit crimes at all. You just perpetrated amusing little peccadilloes. (p. 111)"

"He'd faced trolls and dwarfs and dragons, but now he was having to meet an entirely new species."

"When you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it's nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, "Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!" or "Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!" (p. 77)"

"That was the thing about death. When it happened to you, you were among the first to know. (p. 76)"

"It was true than normal people couldn't hear Gaspode speak, because dogs don't speak. It's a well-known fact. It's well known at the organic level, like a lot of other well-known facts which overrule the observations of the senses. This is because if people went around noticing everything that was going on all the time, no one would ever get anything done.† Besides, almost all dogs don't talk. Ones that do are merely a statistical error, and can therefore be ignored."

"Royalty pollutes people's minds, boy. Honest men start bowing and bobbing just because someone's granddad was a bigger murdering bastard than theirs was. (p. 65)"

"A man can be defined by the things he hates. There were quite a lot of things that Captain Vimes hated. Assassins were near the top of the list, just after kings and the undead. (p. 56)"

"Vimes would be the first to admit that he wasn't a good copper, but he'd probably be spared the chore because lots of other people would happily admit it for him. There was a certain core of stubborn bloody-mindedness there which upset important people, and anyone who upsets important people is automatically not a good copper. (p. 55)"

"A couple of black-clad Assassins barred his way, in a polite manner which nevertheless indicated that impoliteness was a future option. (p. 51)"

"He was said to have the body of a twenty-five year old, although no one knew where he kept it. (p. 48)"

"It was a state of permanent inter-species vendetta and, like all good vendettas, didn't really need a reason any more. It was enough that it had always existed. Dwarfs hated trolls because trolls hated dwarfs, and vice versa. (p. 41)"

""Dwarfs and trolls get along like a house on fire," said Nobby. "Ever been in a burning house, miss?" (p. 40)"

"Fingers-Mazda, the first thief in the world, stole fire from the gods. But he was unable to fence it. It was too hot.†"

"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money."

"The Ramkins were more highly bred than a hilltop bakery, whereas Corporal Nobbs had been disqualified from the human race for shoving. (p. 33)"

"The problem with Destiny, of course, is that she is often not careful where she puts her finger. (p. 16)"

"That's just a legend. That's not real. Anyway, I've always been a bit puzzled about that story. What's so hard about pulling a sword out of a stone? The real work's already been done. You ought to make yourself useful and find the man who put the sword in the stone in the first place, eh? (p. 15)"

"Dwarfs are very attached to gold. Any highwayman demanding "Your money or your life" had better bring a folding chair and packed lunch and a book to read while the debate goes on. (p. 7)"

"He could think in italics. Such people need watching."

"There is such a thing as subtlety. You don't have to go around shouting "I've got a great big tonker!""

"The king's all for it. He says other kings have always had fools, so he'll try having a wise man around, just in case that works better. (p. 372)"

"Act your age, Gytha."

"It's an animal. Animals can't murder. Only us superior races can murder. That's one of the things that sets us apart from animals. (p. 368)"

"A wizard's only a priest without a god and a damp handshake. (p. 353)"

""You never know until you look," said Nanny Ogg, expounding her own Uncertainty Principle. (p. 350)"

"So I had to learn. All my life. The hard way. And the hard way's pretty hard, but not so hard as the easy way. I learned. (p. 336)"

"You're no kind of goddess. I ain't against gods and goddesses, in their place. But they've got to be the ones we make ourselves. Then we can take 'em to bits for the parts when we don't need 'em anymore, see? (p. 335)"

"The Monks of Cool, whose tiny and exclusive monastery is hidden in a really cool and laid-back valley in the lower Ramtops, have a passing-out test for a novice. He is taken into a room full of all types of clothing and asked: Yo†, my son, which of these is the most stylish thing to wear? And the correct answer is: Hey, whatever I select."

""It's certain death anyway," said Ridcully. "That's the thing about Death, certainty." (p. 319)"

"The graveyards are full of people who rushed in bravely but unwisely. (p. 317)"

"Magrat says a broomstick is one of them sexual metaphor things.†"

"Dwarfs are generally scared of heights, since they don't often have the opportunity to get used to them. (p. 290)"

"Carter, tears of terror mingling with makeup and the rain, squeezed the accordion. There was the long-drawn-out chord that by law must precede all folk music to give bystanders time to get away. (pp. 286-287)"

"The shortest unit of time in the multiverse is the New York Second, defined as the period of time between the traffic lights turning green and the cab behind you honking. (p. 282)"