Discworld

"Insofar as he’d formed any opinion of her, it was that she suffered from misplaced gentility and the mistaken belief that etiquette meant good breeding. She mistook mannerisms for manners. (p. 62)"

"If his body was a temple, it was one of those strange ones where people did odd things to animals in the basement, and if he watched what he ate, it was only to see it wriggle. (p. 66)"

"“Ah,” said Mr. Pin. “Right. I remember. You are concerned citizens.” He knew about concerned citizens. Wherever they were, they all spoke the same private language, where “traditional values” meant “hang someone.” He did not have a problem with this, broadly speaking, but it never hurt to understand your employer. (p. 68)"

"Be careful. People like to be told what they already know. Remember that. They get uncomfortable when you tell them new things. New things…well, new things aren’t what they expect. They like to know that, say, a dog will bite a man. That is what dogs do. They don’t want to know that a man bites a dog, because the world is not supposed to happen like that. In short, what people think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds. I can see you’ve got the hang of it already. (p. 79)"

"His father was right about one thing, at least, when he’d said that lies could run around the world before the truth could get its boots on. And it was amazing how people wanted to believe them. (p. 106)"

"He’s a policeman. The truth usually confuses them. They don’t often hear it. (p. 110)"

"It was a proper policeman’s stare. It gave nothing away. It said: I can see you, now I’m waiting to see what you’re going to do that’s wrong. (p. 110)"

"And William was good with words. Truth was what he told. Honesty was sometimes not the same thing. (p. 117)"

"He was appalled at the ease with which the truth so easily turned into something that was almost a lie, just by being positioned correctly. (p. 117)"

"Of course, that was a lie, but since it was such an obvious lie, he considered that it didn’t count. It was like saying the sky was green. (p. 120)"

"“Hold on, hold on, there must be a law against killing lawyers.” “Are you sure?” “There’s still some around, aren’t there?” (p. 128)"

"When people say “clearly” something, that means there’s a huge crack in their argument and they know things aren’t clear at all. (p. 129)"

"If stress were food, he’d succeeded in turning his life into porridge. (p. 132)"

"The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret. (p. 139)"

"He’s going to have to learn the hard way. And the trouble with the hard way is, you only get one lesson. (p. 148)"

"“How we gonna do that?” “Intelligently,” said Mr. Pin. “I hate that —ing way.” (p. 159)"

"Character assassination. What a wonderful idea. Ordinary assassination only works once, but this one works every day. (p. 187)"

"The young man is also an idealist. He has yet to find out that what’s in the public interest is not what the public is interested in. (p. 188)"

"Fire was always the terror in those parts of the city where wood and thatch predominated. That was why everyone had been so dead set against any form of fire brigade, reasoning—with impeccable Ankh-Morpork logic—that any bunch of men who were paid to put out fires would naturally see to it that there was a plentiful supply of fires to be put out. (pp. 208-209)"

"Sacharissa looked a little disappointed. She’d been a respectable young woman for some time. In certain people, that means there’s a lot of dammed-up disreputability just waiting to burst out. (p. 251)"

"So, Mr. Dibbler...when did you start pissing in the fountain of Truth? (p. 253)"

"You can tell as many lies as you like if it’s advertising. (p. 255)"

"Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove. (p. 259)"

"“What do you think happens to people when they die, Tulip?” Mr. Tulip was taken aback. “What kind of —ing question is that? You know what happens!” “Do I?” “Certainly. Remember when we had to leave that guy in that —ing barn and it was a week before we got to bury him properly? Remember how his—” “I don’t mean bodies!” “Ah. Religion stuff, then?” “Yes!” “I never worry about that —ing stuff.” “Never?” “Never —ing give it a thought. I’ve got my potato.” Then Mr. Tulip found that he’d walked a few feet alone, because Mr. Pin had stopped dead. “Potato?” “Oh, yeah. Keep it on a string round my neck.” Mr. Tulip tapped his huge chest. “And that’s religious?” “Well, yeah. When you die, if you’ve got your potato, everything will be okay.” “What religion is that?” “Dunno. Never ran across it outside our village. I was only a kid. I mean, it’s like gods, right? When you’re a kid, they say ‘that’s God, that is.’ Then you grow up and you find there’s —ing millions of ’em. Same with religion.” “And it’s all okay if you have a potato when you die?” “Yep. You’re allowed to come back and have another life.” “Even if...” Mr. Pin swallowed, for he was in territory that had never before existed on his internal atlas, “... even if you’ve done things that people might think were bad?” “Like chopping up people and —ing shovin’ ’em off cliffs?” “Yeah, that kind of thing...” Mr. Tulip sniffed, causing his nose to flash. “We-ell, it’s okay so long as you’re really —ing sorry about it.” Mr. Pin was amazed, and a little suspicious. But he could feel things...catching up. There were faces in the darkness and voices on the cusp of hearing. He dared not turn his head now, in case he saw anything behind him. You could buy a sack of potatoes for a dollar. “It works?” he said. “Sure. Back home people’d been doing it for hundreds of —ing years. They wouldn’t do it if it didn’t —ing work, would they?” (pp. 271-272)"

"But they did care fiercely about things. Without things, people were just bright animals. (p. 283)"

"“Are you sure of all this, William?” she said. “Yes.” “I mean, some bits—are you sure it’s all true?” “I’m sure it’s all journalism,” said William. “And what is that supposed to mean?” “It means it’s true enough for now.” (p. 308)"

"“No, just very, very arrogant,” said William. “We’ve always been privileged, you see. Privilege just means ‘private law.’ That’s exactly what it means. He just doesn’t believe the ordinary laws apply to him. He really believes they can’t touch him, and that if they do he can just shout until they go away. That’s the de Worde tradition, and we’re good at it. Shout at people, get your way, ignore the rules. It’s the de Worde way. Up until me, obviously.” (p. 310)"

"said Death. he added, (p. 313)"

"“I mean, everyone says that sort of thing, don’t they? ‘I did it for the best,’ ‘the end justifies the means’...the same words, every time.” “Don’t you agree, then, that it’s time for a ruler who listens to the people?” “Maybe. Which people did you have in mind?” (pp. 316-317)"

"The words came easier now. He’d leapt from the building and found that he could fly. (p. 317)"

"“Come on Mr. de Worde. We’re on the same side here!” “No. We’re just on two different sides that happen to be side by side.” (p. 323)"

"“It was for your own good,” Vimes growled. “I didn’t know it was your job to decide what was good for me.” (p. 324)"

"I can read your mind, even the small print. (p. 337)"

"No enemy was too strong, no wound was too dire, and no sword was too heavy for a de Worde. No grave was too deep, either. (p. 338)"

"I have nothing to offer you except thanks, which of course are notorious for their evaporative tendencies. (p. 339)"

"“I’m sure we can pull together, sir.” Lord Vetinari raised his eyebrows. “Oh, I do hope not, I really do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.” He smiled. “It’s the only way to make progress. That, and, of course, moving with the times.” (p. 340)"

"“Look at it like this,” said Sacharissa, starting a fresh page. “Some people are heroes. And some people jot down notes.” “Yes, but that’s not very—” Sacharissa glanced up and flashed him a smile. “Sometimes they’re the same person,” she said. (pp. 347-348)"

"Nothing has to be true forever. Just for long enough, to tell you the truth. (p. 348; closing words)"

"I know that time was made for men, not the other way around. (p. 2)"

"Nine-tenths of the universe, in fact, is the paperwork. (p. 3)"

"They were not life-forms. They were...nonlife-forms. They were the observers of the operation of the universe, its clerks, its auditors. They saw to it that things spun and rocks fell. And they believed that for a thing to exist it had to have a position in time and space. Humanity had arrived as a nasty shock. Humanity practically was things that didn’t have a position in time and space, such as imagination, pity, hope, history, and belief. Take those away and all you had was an ape that fell out of trees a lot. (p. 7)"

"An immortal has a great deal to remember. Sometimes it’s better to put things where they will be safe. (p. 12)"

"Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up. (p. 17)"

"“Strict,” in fact, was a word that seemed to cover everything about Miss Susan and, in the classroom, she insisted on the Miss in the same way that a king insists upon Your Majesty, and for pretty much the same reason. (p. 21)"

"“Questions don’t have to make sense, Vincent,” said Miss Susan. “But answers do.” (p. 25)"

"They were not bad men. They had worked hard on behalf of the valley for hundreds of years. But it is possible, after a while, to develop certain dangerous habits of thought. One is that, while all important enterprises need careful organization, it is the organization that needs organizing, rather than the enterprise. And another is that tranquillity is always a good thing. (p. 32)"

"“I will teach you to deal with time as you would deal with a coat, to be worn when necessary and discarded when not.” “Will I have to wash it?” said Clodpool. Wen gave him a long, slow look. ”That was either a very complex piece of thinking on your part, Clodpool, or you were just trying to overextend a metaphor in a rather stupid way. Which, do you think, it was?” (p. 61)"

"When you look into the abyss, it’s not supposed to wave back. (p. 64)"

"“There have been complaints?” said Miss Susan. “Er, no...er...although Miss Smith has told me that the children coming up from your class are, er, restless. Their reading ability is, she says, rather unfortunately advanced...” “Miss Smith thinks a good book is about a boy and his dog chasing a big red ball,” said Miss Susan. “My children have learned to expect a plot. No wonder they get impatient. We’re reading Grim Fairy Tales at the moment.” “That is rather rude of you, Susan.” “No, madam. That is rather polite of me. It would have been rude of me to say that there is a circle of Hell reserved for teachers like Miss Smith.” (pp. 65-66)"

"He was definitely a boy with special needs. In the view of the staff, they began with an exorcism. (p. 68)"