Discworld

"He pitched the voice right. It was the key to a thousand frauds. You had to sound right, sound like you knew what you were doing, sound like you were in charge. And, while he spoke in gibberish, it was authentic gibberish."

"“But this, sir, is all about pie.” “Like in food?” said Moist, drawing back from the sinister glow. “No, no, sir. Pie like in jommetry.” “Oh, you mean pi, the number you get when—” Moist paused. He was erratically good at math, which is to say he could calculate odds and currency very, very fast. There had been a geometry section in his book at school, but he’d never seen the point. He tried, anyway. “It’s all to do with…it’s the number you get when the radius of a circle…no, the length of the rim of the wheel is three and a bit times the…er…” “Something like that, sir, probably, something like that,” said Grote. “Three and a bit, that’s the ticket. Only Bloody Stupid Johnson said that was untidy, so he designed a wheel where the pie was exactly three. And that’s it, in there.” “But that’s impossible!” said Moist. “You can’t do that! Pi is like…built-in! You can’t change it. You’d have to change the universe!” “Yes, sir. They tell me that’s what happened,” said Groat calmly."

"Not doing any magic at all was the chief task of wizards—not “not doing magic” because they couldn’t do magic, but not doing magic when they could do and didn’t. Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to refrain from doing it when you knew how easy it was. There were places in the world commemorating those times when wizards hadn’t been quite as clever as that, and on many of them the grass would never grow again."

"In the machinery of the universe, the wheels of inevitability clicked into position…"

"He stopped. Miss Cripslock was scribbling like mad, and it’s always worrying to see a journalist take a sudden interest in what you’re saying, especially when you half suspect it was a load of pigeon guano. And it gets worse when they’re smiling."

"“All right, all right, I really didn’t want to go into this, but it’s against my religion!” said Moist, who’d had time to think. “We’re forbidden to have any image made of us. It removes part of the soul, you know.” “And you believe that?” said Sacharissa. “Really?” “Er, no. No. Of course not. Not as such. But…but you can’t treat religion as a sort of buffet, can you? I mean, you can’t say ‘Yes please, I’ll have some of the Celestial Paradise and a helping of the Divine Plan but go easy on the kneeling and none of the Prohibition of Images, they give me wind.’ It’s table d’hôte or nothing, otherwise…well, it could get silly.”"

"Presumably he was insane, by the usual human standards, but it was hard to tell; the phrase “differently normal” might do instead."

"When Reacher Gilt talks about freedom he means his, not anyone else’s."

"And the nice thing about a stake through the heart was that it also worked on non-vampires."

"The key point was never to tell the truth. Coppers never believed what people told them in any case, so there was no point in giving them extra work."

"“He’s a great believer in natural medicine, you see. He doesn’t trust doctors.” “Really?” said Dr. Lawn. “He retains some vestige of sanity, then.”"

"Incidentally, it’s best not to argue with the nursing staff. I find the best course of action is to throw some chocolates in one direction and hurry off in the other while their attention is distracted."

"“You speak to the gods and the gods listen,” said Miss Dearheart, grinning. “They told you where the treasure was. Now, that’s what I call religion. Incidentally, how did you know the money was there?” “You don’t believe in any gods?” “No, of course not. Not while people like Reacher Gilt walk under the sky. All there is, is us.”"

"It was garbage, but it had been cooked by an expert. Oh, yes. You had to admire the way perfectly innocent words were mugged, ravished, stripped of all true meaning and decency, and then sent to walk the gutter for Reacher Gilt, although “synergistically” had probably been a whore from the start."

"People enjoy the experience of being fooled, if it promises a certain amount of entertainment."

"Sending no messages would send quite the wrong message."

"The only way to get something to turn up when you need it is to need it to turn up."

"You know how to pray, don’t you? You just put your hands together—and hope."

"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."

"It was the heart of any scam or fiddle. Keep the punter uncertain, or, if he is certain, make him certain of the wrong thing."

"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?"

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

"Sometimes the truth is arrived at by adding all the little lies together and deducting them from the totality of what is known."

"They’d saved the city with gold more easily, at that point, than any hero could have managed with steel. But, in truth, it had not exactly been gold, or even the promise of gold, but more like the fantasy of gold, the fairy dream that the gold is there, at the end of the rainbow, and will continue to be there forever—provided, naturally, that you don’t go and look. This is known as Finance."

"The people who guard the rainbow don’t like those who get in the way of the sun."

"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)"

"“I can tell you anything you need to know,” said Vimes. “Yes, Your Grace, but that is not how an inquiry works. I must act completely independently. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Your Grace.” “I know that one,” said Vimes. “Who watches the watchmen? Me, Mr. Pessimal.” “Ah, but who watches you, Your Grace?” said the inspector with a brief smile. “I do that, too. All the time,” said Vimes. “Believe me.” (p. 17)"

"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)"

"“It’s only stamps, sir,” said Cheery. “I mean, there’s no law against stamps…” “There ought to be one against being a bloody fool!” “If there was, sir, we’d be on overtime every day!” said Cheery, grinning. (p. 26)"

"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)"

"The important thing is not to shout at this point, Vimes told himself. Do not…what do they call it…go postal? Treat this as a learning exercise. Find out why the world is not as you thought it was. Assemble the facts, digest the information, consider the implications. Then go postal. But with precision. (p. 53)"

"“Good Morning, Insert Name Here! I am the Dis-Organizer Mark Five, the Gooseberry™. How may I—” it began, speaking fast in order to get as much said as possible before the inevitable interruption. “I swear I switched you off,” said Vimes. “You threatened me with a hammer,” said the imp accusingly, and rattled the tiny bars. “He threatens state-of-the-Craft technomancy with a hammer, everybody!” it shouted. “He doesn’t even fill in the registration card! That’s why I have to call him Insert Nam—” (p. 56)"

"But maybe it was some mystic ceremony, and who’d look for sense there? (p. 85)"

"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)"

"Could I ask you to look at things from my point of view? This is my job. This is what I am. I am, therefore I think. (p. 93)"

"Cogito ergo sum, Insert Name Here. I exist, therefore I do sums! (p. 96)"

"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)"

"“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)"

"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)"

"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)"

"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)"

"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)"

"Black Meg, the senior nanny, who patiently allowed Tiffany to milk her and then, carefully and deliberately, put a hoof in the milk bucket. That’s a goat’s idea of getting to know you. A goat is a worrying thing if you’re used to sheep, because a goat is a sheep with brains."