Discworld

"“So he’s saving the world and destroying it, all at once?” “Family trait,” said Wen. “It is what Time does at every instant.” (p. 323)"

"“What will you do?” said Susan. “Lie,” said Lu-Tze happily. “It’s amazing how often that works.” (p. 335)"

"There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime. (p. 337)"

"Everyone has a conditional clause in their life, some little unspoken addition to the rules like, “Except when I really need to,” or “Unless no one is looking,” or, indeed, “Unless the first one was nougat.” (p. 339)"

"If you told humans what the future held, it wouldn’t. (p. 355)"

"Susan was very strict about eating in class and took the view that, if there were rules, then they applied to everyone, even her. Otherwise they were merely tyranny. But rules were there to make you think before you broke them. (p. 355)"

"Their eyes said that wherever it was, they had been there. Whatever it was, they had done it, sometimes more than once. But they would never, ever, buy the T-shirt. And they did know the meaning of the word ‘fear’. It was something that happened to other people. (p. 25)"

"“Amazin’, what songs do for the ladies,” said Caleb. “About...flowers and that. Romance.” “Well, when I was a lad,” said Truckle, “if you wanted to get a girl’s int’rest, you had to cut off your worst enemy’s wossname and present it to her.” “Whut” “I SAID YOU HAD TO CUT OFF YOUR WORST ENEMY’S WOSSNAME AND PRESENT IT TO HER!” “Aye, romance is a wonderful thing,” said Mad Hamish. “What’d you do if you didn’t have a worst enemy?” said Boy Willie. “You try and cut off anyone’s wossname,” said Truckle, “and you’ve soon got a worst enemy.” (p. 26)"

"I have no use for people who have learned the limits of the possible. (p. 31)"

"This man was so absent-mindedly clever that he could paint pictures that didn’t just follow you around the room but went home with you and did the washing-up. (p. 37)"

"More of the ambassadors from other countries had arrived at the university, and more heads of the Guilds were pouring in, and every single one of them wanted to be involved in the decision-making process without necessarily going through the intelligence-using process first. (p. 38)"

"Intelligent robbers would have started to count up the incongruities here. These, however, were the other kind, the kind for whom evolution was invented. (p. 41)"

"“I don’t think I’ve become old,” said Boy Willie. “Not your actual old. Just more aware of where the next lavatory is.” (p. 46)"

"The wizards were good at wind, weather being a matter not of force but of lepidoptery. As Archchancellor Ridcully said, you just had to know where the damn butterflies were. (p. 50)"

"“This is all very well, but the form of things is important!” snapped a priest. “We can’t all pray at once! You know the gods don’t like ecumenicalism! And what form of words will we use, pray?” “I would have felt that a short non-controversial—” Hughnon Ridcully paused. In front of him were priests forbidden by holy edict from eating broccoli, priests who required unmarried girls to cover their ears lest they inflame the passions of other men, and priests who worshipped a small shortbread-and-raisin biscuit. Nothing was non-controversial. (p. 63)"

"They were...sort of gods, he supposed. They had names like Olk-Kalath the Soul Sucker, but, frankly, the overlap between demons and gods was a bit uncertain at the best of times. (p. 68)"

"“Oh, Mighty One,” he began, always a safe beginning and the religious equivalent of “To Whom It May Concern.” (p. 68)"

"Rincewind stared at the badge. He’d never had one before. Well, that was technically a lie...he’d had one that said ‘Hello, I Am 5 Today!’, which was just about the worst possible present to get when you are six. (p. 69)"

"It occurred to him that when you’d had everything, all that was left was nothing. (p. 70)"

"“Is it just me,” said the minstrel, “or are we missing something here?” “Like what?” demanded Cohen. “Well, these scrolls all tell you how to get to the mountain, a perilous trek that no one has ever survived?” “Yes? So?” “So...um...who wrote the scrolls?” (p. 80)"

"“Oh,” said Rincewind. “You understand?” said Ponder. “No. I was just hoping that if I didn’t say anything you’d stop trying to explain things to me.” (p. 90)"

"“Mission motto, sir,” said Carrot cheerfully. “Morituri Nolumus Mori. Rincewind suggested it.” “I imagine he did,” said Lord Vetinari, observing the wizard coldly. “And would you care to give us a colloquial translation, Mr. Rincewind?” “Er...” Rincewind hesitated, but there really was no escape. “Er...roughly speaking, it means, ‘We who are about to die don’t want to’, sir.” (p. 91)"

"“Some people say you achieve immortality through your children,” said the minstrel. “Yeah?” said Cohen. “Name one of your great-granddads, then.” (p. 110)"

"On the veldt of Howondaland live the N’tuitif people, the only tribe in the world to have no imagination whatsoever. For example, their story about the thunder runs something like this: “Thunder is a loud noise in the sky, resulting from the disturbance of the air masses by the passage of lightning.” And their legend “How the Giraffe Got His Long Neck” runs: “In the old days the ancestors of Old Man Giraffe had slightly longer necks than other grassland creatures, and the access to the high leaves was so advantageous that it was mostly long-necked giraffes that survived, passing on the long neck in their blood just as a man might inherit his grandfather’s spear. Some say, however, that it is all a lot more complicated and this explanation only applies to the shorter neck of the okapi. And so it is.” The N’tuitif are a peaceful people, and have been hunted almost to extinction by neighbouring tribes, who have lots of imagination, and therefore plenty of gods, superstitions and ideas about how much better life would be if they had a bigger hunting ground. Of the events on the moon that day, the N’tuitif said: “The moon was brightly lit and from it rose another light which then split into three lights and faded. We do not know why this happened. It was just a thing.” They were then wiped out by a nearby tribe who knew that the lights had been a signal from the god Ukli to expand the hunting ground a bit more. However, they were soon defeated entirely by a tribe who knew that the lights were their ancestors, who lived in the moon, and who were urging them to kill all non-believers in the goddess Glipzo. Three years later they in turn were killed by a rock falling from the sky, as a result of a star exploding a billion years ago. What goes around, comes around. If not examined too closely, it passes for justice. (pp. 129-130)"

"“Are you, er, are you much of a religious man yourself?” said Rincewind as clouds whipped by the window. “I believe all religions do reflect some aspect of an eternal truth, yes,” said Carrot. “Good wheeze,” said Rincewind. “You might just get away with it.” “And you?” said Carrot. “We-ll...you know that religion that thinks that whirling round in circles is a form of prayer?” “Oh, yes. The Hurtling Whirlers of Klatch.” “Mine is like that, only we go more in...straight lines. Yes. That’s it. Speed is a sacrament.” “You believe it gives you some sort of eternal life?” “Not eternal, as such. More...well, just more, really. More life. That is,” Rincewind added, “more life than you would have if you did not go very fast in a straight line. Although curving lines are acceptable in broken country.” Carrot sighed. “You’re just a coward really, aren’t you?” “Yes, but I’ve never understood what’s wrong with the idea. It takes guts to run away, you know. Lots of people would be as cowardly as me if they were brave enough.” (p. 136)"

"That’s what prayers are...it’s frightened people trying to make friends with the bully! (p. 140)"

"“Anyway,” Cohen went on, “it dunt matter if someone kills the gods. It does matter that someone tried. Next time, someone’ll try harder.” (p. 141)"

"The Horde could calculate the peculiar mathematics of heroism quite quickly. There was, there always was, at the start and finish...the Code. They lived by the Code. You followed the Code, and you became part of the Code for those who followed you. The Code was it. Without the Code, you weren’t a hero. You were just a thug in a loincloth. (p. 143)"

"“It’d take a miracle!” “There’s always hope.” “So? There’s always taxes, too. It doesn’t make any difference.” (p. 145)"

"“You gave me wings when you showed me birds,” said Leonard of Quirm. “I just made what I saw.” The rest of the gods said nothing. Like many professionally religious people—and they were pretty professional, being gods—they tended towards unease in the presence of the unashamedly spiritual. (p. 146)"

"“Tell me,” said Blind Io. “Is there a god of policemen?” “No, sir,” said Carrot. “Coppers would be far too suspicious of anyone calling themselves a god of policemen to believe in one.” “But you are a gods-fearing man?” “What I’ve seen of them certainly frightens the life out of me. sir. And my commander always says, when we go about our business in the city, that when you look at the state of mankind you are forced to accept the reality of the gods.” The gods smiled their approval of this, which was indeed an accurate quotation. Gods have little use for irony. (p. 147)"

"No one remembers the singer. The song remains. (p. 160)"

"Rats! They fought the dogs and killed the cats, and— But there was more to it than that. As the Amazing Maurice said, it was just a story about people and rats. And the difficult part of it was deciding who the people were, and who were the rats."

"“Listen, Peaches, trickery is what humans are all about,” said the voice of Maurice. “They’re so keen on tricking one another all the time that they elect governments to do it for them.”"

"The tortoise is a ground-living creature. It is impossible to live nearer the ground without being under it. Its horizons are a few inches away. It has about as good a turn of speed as you need to hunt down a lettuce. It has survived while the rest of evolution flowed past it by being, on the whole, no threat to anyone and too much trouble to eat. (p. 1)"

"How is his lordship?"

"Vimes reached behind the desk and picked up a faded copy of Twurp's Peerage or, as he personally thought of it, the guide to the criminal classes. You wouldn't find slum-dwellers in these pages, but you would find their landlords."

"It didn't matter what a bunch of deranged romantics thought. Facts were facts. (p. 81)"

"It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: "Kings. What a good idea." Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees. (pp. 77-78)"

"Royalty was like dandelions. No matter how many heads you chopped off, the roots were still there underground, waiting to spring up again. (p. 77)"

"Lord Vetinari represented stability. It was a cold and clinical kind of stability, but part of his genius was the discovery that stability was what people wanted more than anything else."

"Rumor is information distilled so finely that it can filter through anything. It does not need doors and windows—sometimes it does not need people. It can exist free and wild, running from ear to ear without ever touching lips. (pp. 66-67)"

"Who was she kidding? It was easy to be a vegetarian by day. It was preventing yourself becoming a humanitarian at night that took the real effort. (p. 59)"

"People kept on talking about the true king of Ankh-Morpork, but history taught a cruel lesson. It said—often in words of blood—that the true king was the one who got crowned. (p. 50)"

"It was Carrot who'd suggested to the Patrician that hardened criminals should be given the chance to "serve the community" by redecorating the homes of the elderly, lending a new terror to old age and, given Ankh-Morpork"s crime rate, leading to at least one old lady having her front room wallpapered so many times in six months that now she could only get into it sideways. (p. 45)"

"“His wife’s told him a coat of arms is the thing to have, and who are we to argue with the daughter of a tripe merchant."

""We're just one big family and, when you've been to a few domestic disputes, Littlebottom, I can assure you that you'll see the resemblance." (p. 22)"

""All right," he said. "So sometimes it's an easy answer. But sometimes it isn't. Sometimes we don't even know if it was the right question." (p. 22)"

"Vimes was good at making the kind of rich enemies who could afford to employ assassins. The assassins had to be lucky only once, but Vimes had to be lucky all the time. (p. 19)"

"Hmm. Going thin on top. Definitely a receding scalp there. Less hair to comb but, on the other hand, more face to wash... (p. 8)"