Discworld

"Every organization needs at least one person who knows what’s going on, and why it’s happening, and who’s doing it."

"You did what you were told or you didn’t get paid, and if things went wrong it wasn’t your problem. It was the fault of whatever idiot has accepted this message for sending in the first place. No one cared about you, and everyone at headquarters was an idiot. It wasn’t your fault, no one listened to you. Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn’t care."

"If there’s one thing a wizard hates, it’s having to wait while the person in front of them is of two minds about coleslaw. It’s a salad bar, they say, it’s got the kind of stuff salad bars have, if it was surprising it wouldn’t be a salad bar, you’re not here to look at it. What do you expect to find? Rhino chunks? Pickled coelacanth?"

"“You can’t do that!” Greenyham protested weakly, but the fire had drained out of him. Mr. Stowley had collapsed on the floor, with his head in his hands. “Can I not?” said Vetinari. “I am a tyrant. It’s what we do.”"

"Maybe it was like the Post Office, maybe the profit turned up spread around the whole of society."

"I can fake sincerity so well that even I can’t tell."

"“I’m sure it can wait, Commander.” “Yes, sir. That’s the trouble, sir. That’s what it’s doing.” Vetinari waved a languid hand. “Full carts congesting the street, Vimes, is a sign of progress,” he declared. “Only in the figurative sense, sir,” said Vimes. (p. 9)"

"All the city’s departments got inspected from time to time, Vetinari had said. There was no reason why the Watch should be passed over, was there? It was, after all, a major drain on the city coffers. Vimes had pointed out that a drain was where things went to waste. Nevertheless, Vetinari had said. Just “nevertheless.” You couldn’t argue with “nevertheless.” (p. 15)"

"There was more…yes, call it venom in the air. Too much ancient politics, too many chips handed down from shoulder to shoulder. Too much boozing, too. (p. 23)"

"He preached to the superiority of dwarf over troll, and that the duty of every dwarf was to follow in the footsteps of their forefathers and remove trollkind from the face of the world. It was written in some holy book, apparently, so that made it okay, and probably compulsory. (p. 24)"

"“The mural is one of the most recognizable paintings in the world! Every civilized person hwould spot it in an instant!” “What did it look like?” said Fred Colon. (p. 35)"

"“D’you know much about art, Nobby?” “If necessary, Sarge.” “Oh, come on, Nobby!” “What? Tawneee says what she does is Art, Sarge. And she wears more clothes than a lot of the women on the walls around here, so why be sniffy about it?” “Yeah, but…” Fred Colon hesitated here. He knew in his heart that spinning upside down around a pole wearing a costume you could floss with definitely was not Art, and being painted lying on a bed wearing nothing but a smile and a small bunch of grapes was good solid Art, but putting your finger on why this was the case was a bit tricky. “No urns,” he said at last. “What urns?” said Nobby. “Nude women are only Art if there’s an urn in it,” said Fred Colon. This sounded a bit weak even to him, so he added: “Or a plinth. Both is best, o’course. It’s a secret sign, see, that they put in to say that it’s Art and okay to look at.” “What about a potted plant?” “That’s okay if it’s in an urn.” “What about if it’s not got an urn or a plinth or a potted plant?” said Nobby. “Have you one in mind, Nobby?” said Colon suspiciously. “Yes, The Goddess Anoia Arising from the Cutlery,”‡ said Nobby. “They’ve got it here. It was painted by a bloke with three i’s in his name, which sounds pretty artistic to me.” “The number of i’s is important, Nobby,” said Sergeant Colon gravely, “but in these situations you have to ask yourself: ‘Where’s the cherub?’ If there’s a little fat pink kid holding a mirror or a fan or similar, then it’s still okay. Even if he’s grinning. Obviously you can’t get urns everywhere.” ‡Anoia is the Ankh-Morpork Goddess of Things That Get Stuck in Drawers. (pp. 40-41)"

"Vimes leaned back. “Don’t try to put me at my ease, Miss von Humpeding,” he said. “It makes me nervous when people do that. It’s not as though I have any ease to be put at.” (p. 46)"

"“What was your last job?” “Didn’t have one. I was a musician.” (p. 47)"

"“Then would you like to engage the handy-to-use Bluenose™ Integrated Messenger Service?” “What does that do?” said Vimes, with deep suspicion. The succession of Dis-Organizers he had owned had proved quite successful at very nearly sorting out all the problems that stemmed from owning them in the first place. “Er…basically, it means me running with a message to the nearest clacks tower really fast,” said the imp hopefully. “And do you come back?” said Vimes, hope also rising. “Absolutely!” “Thank you, no,” said Vimes. “How about a game of Splong!™, specially devised for the Mark Five?” pleaded the imp. “I have the bats right here. No? Perhaps you would prefer the ever-popular ‘Guess My Weight in Pigs’? Or I could whistle one of your favorite tunes? My iHum™ function enables me to remember up to one thousand five hundred of your all-time—” “You could try learning to use it, sir,” said Angua, as Vimes once again shut the lid on the protesting voice. “Did use one,” said Vimes. “Yup. As a doorstop,” rumbled Detritus, behind him. “I’m just not at home with technomancy, all right?” said Vimes. “End of discussion.” (pp. 56-57)"

"Vimes had never got on with any game much more complex than darts. Chess in particular had always annoyed him. It was the dumb way the pawns went off and slaughtered their fellow pawns while the kings lounged about doing nothing that always got to him; if only the pawns united, maybe talked the rooks around, the whole board could’ve been a republic in a dozen moves. (p. 67)"

"Some people would be asking: Whose side are you on? If you’re not with us, you’re against us. Huh. If you’re not an apple, you’re a banana… (p. 87)"

"Vimes carefully lifted the top of the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, and smiled inwardly. Good old Cheery. She knew what a Vimes BLT was all about. It was about having to lift up quite a lot of crispy bacon before you found the miserable skulking vegetables. You might never notice them at all. (p. 87)"

"Trolls with a message. It was unlikely to be an invitation to a literary lunch. (p. 98)"

"But I want you all, whatever, whoever you are, there is know this: I’ve got no patience with idiots who’ll drag a grudge across five hundred miles and a thousand years. (p. 102)"

"Would a minute have mattered? No, probably not, although his young son appeared to have a very accurate internal clock. Possibly even two minutes would be okay. Three minutes, even. You could go to five, perhaps. But that was just it. If you could go to five minutes, then you’d go to ten, then half an hour, a couple of hours…and not see your son all evening. So that was that. Six o’clock, prompt. Every day. Read to Young Sam. No excuses. He’d promised himself that. No excuses. No excuses at all. Once you had a good excuse, you opened the door to bad excuses. (p. 121)"

"Vimes try to think. Don’t think of it all as one big bucket of snakes. Think of it as one snake at a time. Try to sort it out. Now, what needs to be done first? Everything. All right, try a different approach. (pp. 142-143)"

"“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)"

"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)"

"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)"

"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)"

"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)"

"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)"

"“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)"

"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."

"Tiffany accidentally heard them discussing it after she had gone to bed that night. It’s quite easy to accidentally overhear people talking downstairs if you hold an upturned glass to the floorboards and accidentally put your ear to it."

"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."

"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.”"

"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."

"“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."

"There be a lot o’ men who became heroes ’cuz they wuz too scared tae run!"

"“But that’s okay, right? ’Cuz ye have a Plan!” “I hope I’ve got it right, though,” said Roland. “My aunts say I’m too clever by half.” “Glad tae hear it,” said Rob Anybody, “’cuz that’s much better than bein’ too stupid by three quarters!”"

"Tiffany walked across the grass where the palace had been. There were a few pieces of ice left, but they would be gone in an hour. There were the clouds, but clouds drifted away. The normal world pressed in on her, with its dull little songs. She was walking on a stage after the play was over, and who now could say it had ever happened?"

"Feegles from the other clans had all turned up for the celebration, because if there’s one thing a Feegle likes more than a party, it’s a bigger party, and if there’s anything better than a bigger party, it’s a bigger party with someone else paying for the drink."