"“Hold it!” Sally thrust both hands in front of her in a gesture of peace. “There’s something we’d better sort before this goes any further!” “Yeah?” “Yes. We’re both wearing nothing, we’re standing in what, you may have noticed, is increasingly turning into mud, and we’re squaring up to fight. Okay. But there’s something missing, yes?” “And that is…?” “A paying audience? We could make a fortune.” Sally winked. “Or we could do the job we came here to do.” (p. 174)"

"“We are naked, Lance Constable!” “Only technically. This mud really sticks.” “I mean underneath the mud!” said Angua. “Yes, but if we had clothes on we’d be naked underneath them, too!” Sally pointed out. (p. 183)"

"Coffee was only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your slightly older self. (p. 186)"

"“I wouldn’t know anything about that, sir.” That was an automatic reaction; it made life simpler. (p. 187)"

"Vetinari drummed his fingers on the table. “What would you do if I asked you an outright question, Vimes?” “I’d tell you a downright lie, sir.” “Then I will not do so,” said Vetinari, smiling faintly. (p. 188)"

"“Their weapons are culturally very important to them, Vimes,” said Vetinari. “Yeah, sir, I know. I myself have a strong cultural bias against getting my brains bashed in and my knees cut off,” said Vimes. (p. 188)"

"A wise ruler thinks twice before directing violence against someone because he does not approve of what they say. (p. 192)"

"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)"

"Usually she got her own way and he was happy to give it to her, but the unspoken agreement was that when he really insisted, she listened. It's a married couple thing. (pp. 237-238)"

"I think I’m looking at this wrong. It’s not my cow. It’s a sheep with a pitchfork. Unfortunately, it goes quack. (p. 249)"

"You can always find an excuse that your side will accept, and who cares what the enemy thinks? In the real world, it wouldn’t make any difference. (p. 249)"

"Some of us think the darkness isn’t a depth, it’s a state of mind. (p. 254)"

"Beating people up in little rooms…he knew where that led. And if you did it for a good reason, you’d do it for a bad one. You couldn’t say “we’re the good guys” and do bad-guy things. (p. 256)"

"The plain fact was that while Tawneee had a body that every other woman should hate her for, she compounded the insult by actually being very likable. This was because she had the self-esteem of a caterpillar and, as you found out after any kind of conversation with her, about the same amount of brain. Perhaps it all balanced out, perhaps some kindly god had said to her: “Sorry, kid, you are going to be thicker than a yard of lard, but the good news is, that’s not going to matter.” (p. 259)"

"Alcohol didn’t seem to go to her brain at all. Maybe it couldn’t find it. But she was pleasant, easygoing company, if you avoided allusion, irony, sarcasm, repartee, satire, and words longer than “chicken.” (p. 259)"

"Darkness fell like an axe. (p. 272)"

"“We’ve struck a blow for womanhood,” Sally declared loudly. “Shoes, men, coffins…never accept the first one you see.” (p. 285)"

"Home was where you had to feel safe. If you didn’t feel safe, it wasn’t home. (p. 300)"

"You can’t ask questions, it’s magic. It doesn’t explain anything, it’s magic. You don’t know where it comes from, it’s magic! That’s what I don’t like about magic, it does everything by magic!” (p. 304)"

"Historical Re-creation, he thought glumly, as they picked their way across, under, over, or through the boulders and insect-buzzing heaps of splintered timber, with streamlets running everywhere. Only we do it with people dressing up and running around with blunt weapons, and people selling hot dogs, and the girls all miserable because they can only dress up as wenches, wenching being the only job available to women in the olden days. (p. 324)"

"And his mind worked fast, flying in emergency supplies of common sense, as human minds do, to construct a huge anchor in sanity and prove that what happened hadn’t really happened and, if it had happened, hadn’t happened much. (p. 351)"

"It was all mystic, that’s what it was. Oh, it might all be true, but how could you ever tell? You had to stick to the things you can see. And you had to keep reminding yourself of that, too. Yeah, that was it. What had really happened, eh? A few signs? Well, anything can look like you want to, if you’re worried and confused enough, yes? (p. 351)"

"There…some logical thought, and the mystic becomes…well, straightforward. You can stop feeling like some puppet and become a man with a purpose once again. (p. 351)"

"Nobby’s face was an open book, albeit the kind that got banned in some countries. (p. 357)"

"And yet we say this. Here, in this cave at the end of the world, peace is made between dwarf and troll, and we will march beyond the hand of Death together. For the enemy is not Troll, nor is it Dwarf, but it is the baleful, the malign, the cowardly, the vessels of hatred, those who do a bad thing and call it good. (p. 364)"

"“Why do you carry no axe?” Ardent snarled. “I need no axe to be a dwarf,” said Bashfullsson. “Nor do I need to hate trolls. What kind of creature defines itself by hatred?” (p. 365)"

"Oh, don’t make that face, Sergeant. It’s all the rage in politics these days, spying on your friends. That’s what I’m told. (p. 372)"

"“The mine falls to us by default?” said Vetinari. “Apparently, sir. I believe the term is ‘eminent domain.’” “Ah, yes. That means ‘theft by the government,’” said Vetinari. (p. 376)"

"Where's my daddy? Is that my daddy? It goes: 'I arrest you in the name of the Law!' That's my daddy!"

"“This I choose to do,” she croaked, her breath leaving little clouds in the air. She cleared her throat and started again. “This I choose to do. If there is a price, this I choose to pay. If it is my death, I choose to die. Where this takes me, there I choose to go. I choose. This I choose to do.” It wasn’t a spell, except in her own head, but if you couldn’t make spells work in your own head, you couldn’t make them work at all."

"Witches usually wear black, but as far as she could tell, the only reason that witches wore black was that they’d always worn black. This did not seem a good enough reason, so she tended to wear blue or green. She didn’t laugh with scorn at finery because she’d never seen any."

"She took the view that if you were capable of learning, you’d work it out. There was no point in making it easy for people. Life wasn’t easy, she said."

"“Ach, people’re always telling’ us not tae do things,” said Rob Anybody. “That’s how we ken what’s the most interestin’ things tae do!”"

"I fear the art of storytelling has got into a pretty bad way in these parts. I really shall have to do something."

"They say that there can never be two snowflakes that are exactly alike, but has anyone checked lately?"

"I made mistakes. But I didn’t make excuses."

"They think they’re so grown-up! But they’re still no better than babies in the sandpit, squabbling over mud pies. I see their lies and excuses and fears. They never grow up, not really. They never look up and open their eyes. They stay children their whole lives."

"“I am an old person and that means what I say is wisdom!” She gave the bewildered Tiffany a stern look. “Do you understand, child?” Tiffany’s mind raced. Everything is a test! “No,” she said. “I’m not a child and that’s nonsense, not wisdom!”"

"Living this long’s not as wonderful as people think. I mean, you get the same amount of youth as everyone else, but a great big extra helping of being very old and deaf and creaky."

"“We are small people,” her father had said. “It ain’t wise to come to the attention of the gods.”"

"I’m not superstitious. I’m a witch. Witches aren’t superstitious. We are what people are superstitious of."

"“When a bull coo meets a lady coo, he disna have tae say, ‘My heart goes bang-bang-bang when I see your wee face,’ ’cuz it’s kinda built intae their heads. People have it more difficult. Romancin’ is verra important, ye ken. Basically it’s a way the boy can get close to the girl wi’oot her attackin’ him and scratchin’ his eyes oot.”"

"Granny Weatherwax stopped pacing and looked at Miss Tick, who said: “Ah, yes…er…we are exploring every possibility—” “That means we don’t know,” said Granny. “That’s the truth of it. This is about gods, see? But yes, since you ask, they can be a bit touchy.”"

"“Er...I dinna wanta be a knee aboot this, but why is ye all here freezin’ tae death?” “Our oxen wandered off, and alas, the snow’s too deep to walk through,” said Mr. Swinsley. “Aye. But youse got a stove an’ all them dry ol’ books,” said the dark figure. “Yes, we know,” said the librarian, looking puzzled. There was the kind of wretched pause you get when two people aren’t going to understand each other’s point of view at all."

"Look, just because a woman’s got no teeth doesn’t mean she’s wise. It might just mean she’s been stupid for a very long time."

"Nanny Ogg changed the way people thought, even it if was only for a few minutes. She left people thinking they were slightly better people. They weren’t, but as Nanny said, it gave them something to live up to."

"You could say it was unfair, and that was true, but the universe didn’t care because it didn’t know what “fair” meant."

"“According to Chaffinch,” she said, with the Mythology open on her lap, “the god Blind Io created the Cornucopia from a horn of the magical goat Almeg to feed his two children by the Goddess Bisonomy, who was later turned into a shower of oysters by Epidity, God of Things Shaped like Potatoes, after insulting Resonata, Goddess of Weasels, by throwing a mole at her shadow. It is now the badge of office of the summer goddess.” “I always said there used to be far too much of that sort of thing in the old days,” said Granny Weatherwax."

"Tomorrow…might become anything. But today the winter world was full of color."