"But I’ll say this for the old bastard: he is honorable, honest and straightforward. It’s a shame that he is also pigheaded, stupid, and incompetent. (p. 420)"

"Woman’s logic, Sam thought: everything is going to be all right because it ought to be all right. The trouble is, reality is never as simple as that and doesn’t allow for paperwork. (p. 437)"

"Disgusting, this sort of thing, really," mused Sergeant Colon. "People goin' around in coaches like this when there's people with no roof to their heads."

"It's a metaphor of human bloody existence, a dragon. And if that wasn't bad enough, it's also a bloody great hot flying thing. (p. 165)"

"This seemed absolutely right, to Vimes's way of thinking. There was no difference at all between the richest man and the poorest beggar, apart from the fact that the former had lots of money, food, power, fine clothes, and good health. But at least he wasn't any better. Just richer, fatter, more powerful, better dressed and healthier. It had been like that for hundreds of years. (p. 173)"

"But sometimes you should follow the arrogance…You should look for those who can’t believe that the law would ever catch them, who believe that they act out of a right that the rest of us do not have. The job of the officer of the law is to let them know that they are wrong! (p. 403)"

"He was eating a roasted rabbit like there was no tomorrow—which clearly had been the case for the rabbit. (p. 417)"

"Going Up in the World is a metaphor, which I am learning about, it is like Lying but more decorative. (p. 153)"

"People were stupid, sometimes. They thought the Library was a dangerous place because of all the magical books, which was true enough, but what made it really one of the most dangerous places there could ever be was the simple fact that it was a library. (p. 183)"

"The law is there for the people, rather than the other way round. (p. 446)"

"The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication. (p. 146)"

"Noble dragons don't have friends. The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still alive. (p. 188)"

"A number of religions in Ankh-Morpork still practiced human sacrifice, except that they didn't really need to practice any more because they had got so good at it. (p. 265)"

"They think that I’m like them! I hate that! They just don’t get it! They’ve got on well for years without ever having to think differently, and now they don’t know how! (p. 419)"

"Lady Ramkin's bosom rose and fell like an empire. (p. 147)"

"What exactly is it that they do eat?"

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

"He was a scalawag, a chancer, a ruthless fighter and a dangerous driver of bargains over the speed limit. Since all this was a bit of a mouthful, he was referred to as a successful businessman, since that more or less amounted to the same thing. (p. 277)"

"As for the law, don’t try to talk to me about the law. I am not above the law, but I stand right underneath it, and I hold it up!…Justice, not convenience, will be served. (p. 303; ellipsis represents a brief elision for the sake of continuity)"

""The females are always the worst," said another hunter gloomily. "I knew this cross-eyed gorgon once, oh, she was a terror. Kept turning her own nose to stone." (p. 123)"

"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)"

"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)"

"A book has been taken. A book has been taken? You summoned the Watch," Carrot drew himself up proudly, "because someone's taken a book? You think that's worse than murder?"

"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 old tobacco, nothing harmful about tobacco, and smuggling it was, well, it was really like a game, everybody knew that. Nothing wrong with outsmarting the revenue, that’s what the revenue was for! Vimes thought, isn’t that how I’ve always said it worked? Little crimes breeding big crimes. You smile at little crimes and then big crimes blow your head off. (p. 270)"

"Vetinari always said, “What is normal? Normal is yesterday and last week and last month taken together.” (p. 311)"

"It was amazing, this mystic business. You tell them a lie, and then when you don't need it any more you tell them another lie and tell them they're progressing along the road to wisdom. Then instead of laughing they follow you even more, hoping that at the heart of all the lies they'll find the truth. And bit by bit they accept the unacceptable. Amazing. (p. 116)"

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

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

"There were times when the world did not need policemen, because what it really did need was for somebody who knew what they were doing to shut it all down and start it all up again so that this time it could be done properly… (p. 234)"

"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)"

"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)"

"He was bewildered. This didn’t matter very much; bewilderment was often a copper’s lot. His job was to make sense of the world, and there were times that he wished the world would meet him halfway. (p. 396)"

"Can I make one thing perfectly clear, your grace, the law cannot act retrospectively. If it did, none of us would be safe. (p. 460)"

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

"Anyway, we found we've got a lot in common. It's an amazing coincidence, but my grandfather once had his grandfather whipped for malicious lingering."

"It always embarrassed Samuel Vimes when civilians tried to speak to him in what they thought was “policeman.” If it came to that, he hated thinking of them as civilians. What was a policeman, if not a civilian with a uniform and a badge? But they tended to use the term these days as a way of describing people who were not policemen. It was a dangerous habit: once policemen stopped being civilians the only other thing they could be was soldiers. (pp. 244-245)"

"Possibly in the dark hours of a sleepless night some of them might have remembered the subsequent events and formed a pretty good and gut-churning insight, to whit, that one of the things sometimes forgotten about the human spirit is that while it is, in the right conditions, noble and brave and wonderful, it is also, when you get right down to it, only human. (pp. 267-268)"

"You remember?"

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

"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)"

"“The son? The criminal?” “I believe, Sam, that the word is entrepreneur.” (p. 212)"

"Oh dear, you of all people must recognize a substition when you’re possessed by it? It’s the opposite of a superstition: it’s real even if you don’t believe in it. (p. 217)"

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

"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)"

"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."

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

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

"Where there are little crimes, large crimes are not far behind. (p. 200)"

"I tell you, commander, it’s true that some of the most terrible things in the world are done by people who think, genuinely think, that they’re doing it for the best, especially if there is some god involved. (p. 219)"