"It was possibly the most circumspect advance in the history of military maneuvers, right down at the bottom end of the scale that things like the Charge of the Light Brigade are at the top of. (p. 70)"

""Have another drink, not-Corporal Nobby?" said Sergeant Colon unsteadily."

"By and large medical assistance was nonexistent and people had to die inefficiently, without the aid of doctors. (p. 136)"

"Sybil leafed through a small pile of pastel envelopes that had been inserted into her breakfast tray. “Well, the news has got around,” she said.“The Duchess of Keepsake has invited us to a ball, Sir Henry and Lady Withering have invited us to a ball, and Lord and Lady Hangfinger have invited us to, yes, a ball!” “Well,” said Vimes,“that’s a lot of—” “Don’t you dare, Sam!” his wife warned and Vimes finished lamely, “...invitations?” (p. 30)"

"I’ve been following the noble profession herming here for nigh on fifty-seven years, practicing piety, sobriety, celibacy and the pursuit of the true wisdom in the tradition of my father and grandfather and great-grandfather before me. (p. 42)"

"He couldn't help remembering how much he'd wanted a puppy when he was a little boy. Mind you, they'd been starving—anything with meat on it would have done. (p. 106)"

"You remember?"

"His age was indeterminate. But in cynicism and general world weariness, which is a sort of carbon dating of the personality, he was about seven thousand years old. (p. 55)"

"Among his curses was doing the paperwork. There was always paperwork. It is well known that any drive to reduce paperwork only results in extra paperwork. (p. 5)"

"You had to stop discussing politics or you would run right into it, causing no damage to anything but yourself. (p. 16)"

"The Watch hadn't liked it, but the plain fact was that the thieves were far better at controlling crime than the Watch had ever been. After all, the Watch had to work twice as hard to cut crime just a little, whereas all the Guild had to do was to work less. (p. 45)"

"He nodded to the troll which was employed by the Drum as a splatter.† (pp. 63-64)"

"Aristocrats don’t notice philosophical conundra. They just ignore them. Philosophy includes contemplating the possibility that you might be wrong, sir, and a real aristocrat knows that he is always right. It’s not vanity, you understand, it’s built-in absolute certainty. They may sometimes be as mad as a hatful of spoons, but they are always definitely and certainly mad. (p. 44)"

"The guard gave him what could loosely be called an old-fashioned look. It was practically neolithic. (p. 32)"

""'E's fighting in there!" he stuttered, grabbing the captain's arm."

"Disgusting, really, her livin' in a room like this. She's got pots of money, sarge says, she's got no call livin' in ordinary rooms. What's the good of not wanting to be poor if the rich are allowed to go around livin' in ordinary rooms? Should be marble. (p. 139)"

"Of course people here would be on the take. You didn’t need evidence. It was human nature. (p. 26)"

"Thank you for coming to see me. Don't hesitate to leave. (p. 43)"

""In a manner of speaking, yes," said his father. "In another manner of speaking, which is a rather more precise and accurate manner of speaking, no." (p. 23)"

"All dwarfs have beards and wear up to twelve layers of clothing. Gender is more or less optional. (p. 25)"

"All this got a big cheer, which is what generally happens when people have worked out that they are likely to get something that they won’t have to pay for."

"“You’ve taken the first step.” “There’s a second step?” said Tiffany. “No; there’s another first step. Every step is a first step if it’s a step in the right direction.”"

"Vimes opened his eyes. There was a moment of empty peace before memory hit him like a shovel. (p. 22)"

"I don't think they have a king there," said Varneshi. "Just some man who tells them what to do."

"There was a thoughtful pause in the conversation as the assembled Brethren mentally divided the universe into the deserving and the undeserving, and put themselves on the appropriate side. (pp. 13-14)"

"It is said that the gods play games with the lives of men. But what games, and why, and the identities of the actual pawns, and what the game is, and what the rules are—who knows?"

"All dwarfs are by nature dutiful, serious, literate, obedient and thoughtful people whose only minor failing is a tendency, after one drink, to rush at enemies screaming "Arrrrrrgh!" and axing their legs off at the knee. (p. 28)"

"“I want a proper school, sir, to teach reading and writing, and most of all thinking, sir, so people can find out what they’re good at, because someone doing what they really like is always an asset to any country, and too often people never find out until it’s too late.” She deliberately looked away from the sergeant, but her words had caused a susurration around the room that Tiffany was glad to hear. She drowned it out with “There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can’t, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having. And I’d like the boys to learn about girls and I’d like the girls to learn about boys. Learning is about finding out who you are, what you are, where you are and what you are standing on and what you are good at and what’s over the horizon and, well, everything. It’s about finding the place where you fit. I found the place where I fit, and I would like everybody else to find theirs.”"

"It is important that we know where we come from, because if you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, you don’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably going wrong."

"He is also bearing a sword presented to him in mysterious circumstances. Very mysterious circumstances. Surprisingly, therefore, there is something very unexpected about this sword. It isn't magical. It hasn't got a name. When you wield it you don't get a feeling of power, you just get blisters; you could believe it was a sword that had been used so much that it had ceased to be anything other than a quintessential sword, a long piece of metal with very sharp edges. And it hasn't got destiny written all over it."

"It occurred to her that in addition to being a collection of other things, the forest was a thing in itself. Alive, only not alive in the way that, say, a shrew was alive."

"They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the Patrol. Whatever the name, their purpose in any work of heroic fantasy is identical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, attack the hero one at a time, and be slaughtered. No one ever asks them if they want to. This book is dedicated to those fine men. (Dedication)"

"The terrible fact was that when dwarfs schism, they schism…every deviation from the norm was treated as an attack on all that was truly dwarfish. (p. 195)"

"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. (p. 3)"

"“You know my position, Drumknott. I have no particular objection to people taking substances that make them feel better, or more contented, or, for that matter, see little dancing purple fairies—or even their god if it comes to that. It’s their brain, after all, and society can have no claim on it, providing they’re not operating heavy machinery at the time.” (p. 4)"

"Very interested indeed in rubber, so I heard, but it takes all sorts to make a world and it would be a funny old place if we were all the same, and especially if we were all like him. (p. 48)"

"Perhaps the magic would last. Perhaps it wouldn't. But then, what does? (p. 355; closing words)"

"To the axeman, all supplicants are the same height. (p. 5)"

"People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, "Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else." (p. 32)"

"It always amazed Vimes how Nobby got along with practically everyone. It must, he'd decided, have something to do with the common denominator. In the entire world of mathematics there could be no denominator as common as Nobby. (p. 141)"

"Good people have no business being so bad. Goodness is about what you do. Not what you pray to. (p. 220)"

"This is Art holding a Mirror up to Life. That's why everything is exactly the wrong way round."

"Greebo's grin gradually faded, until there was nothing left but the cat. This was nearly as spooky as the other way round."

"Tiffany opened her mouth to reply before she had any idea what she was going to say, but that is not unusual among human beings."

"She tried not to be gloomy at funerals. People lived, and died, and were remembered. It happened in the same way that winter follows summer. It was not a wrong thing. There were tears, of course, but they were for those who were left; those who had gone on did not need them."

"This was real. This was more real even than reality. This was history. It might not be true, but that had nothing to do with it."

"Actors," said Granny, witheringly. "As if the world weren't full of enough history without inventing more."

"The days followed one another patiently. Right back at the beginning of the multiverse they had tried all passing at the same time, and it hadn't worked."

"Demons were like genies or philosophy professors—if you didn't word things exactly right, they delighted in giving you absolutely accurate and completely misleading answers."