Home > Work > The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5) QUOTES

The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5) QUOTES

1 " He took his hands off the oars and pulled in the mooring rope. If I make a couple of loops, he thought, I can strap the axe on to my back.
He had a mental picture of what could happen to a man who plunged into the cauldron below a waterfall with a sharp piece of metal attached to his body.
GOOD MORNING.
Vimes blinked. A tall dark robed figure was now sitting in the boat.
'Are you Death?'
IT'S THE SCYTHE, ISN'T IT? PEOPLE ALWAYS NOTICE THE SCYTHE.
'I'm going to die?'
POSSIBLY.
'Possibly? You turn up when people are possibly going to die?'
OH, YES. IT'S QUITE THE NEW THING. IT'S BECAUSE OF THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE.
'What's that?'
I'M NOT SURE.
'That's very helpful. "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

2 " He'd noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination - but at the end of the day they'd settle quite happily for egg and chips. If it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato. "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

3 " Vimes had once discussed the Ephebian idea of ‘democracy’ with Carrot, and had been rather interested in the idea that everyone had a vote until he found out that while he, Vimes, would have a vote, there was no way in the rules that anyone could prevent Nobby Nobbs from having one as well. Vimes could see the flaw there straight away. "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

4 " All he knew was that you couldn't hope to try for the big stuff, like world peace and happiness, but you might just about be able to achieve some tiny deed that'd make the world, in a small way, a better place. Like shooting someone. "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

5 " You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was, ‘But we’ve always done it this way.’ A million dead people can’t have been wrong, can they? "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

6 " This, milord, is my family's axe. We have owned it for almost nine hundred years, see. Of course, sometimes it needed a new blade. And sometimes it has required a new handle, new designs on the metalwork, a little refreshing of the ornamentation . . . but is this not the nine hundred-year-old axe of my family? And because it has changed gently over time, it is still a pretty good axe, y'know. Pretty good. "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

7 " Well, he thought, so this is diplomacy. It's lying, only for a better class of people. "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

8 " No one actually saw it land, which raised the interesting philosophical point: When millions of tons of angry elephant come spinning through the sky, but there is no one to hear it, does it - philosophically speaking - make a noise? "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

9 " There were a lot of things he could say. "Son of a bitch!" would have been a good one. Or he could say, "Welcome to civilization!" He could have said, "Laugh this one off!" He might have said, "Fetch!" But he didn’t, because if he had said any of those things then he’d have known that what he had just done was murder. "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

10 " It is in the nature of the universe that the person who always keeps you waiting ten minutes will, on the day you are ten minutes tardy, have been ready ten minutes early and will make a point of not mentioning this. "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

11 " He sagged to his knees. He ached all over. It wasn't just that his brain was writing cheques that his body couldn't cash. It had gone beyond that. Now his feet were borrowing money that his legs hadn't got, and his back muscles were looking for loose change under the sofa cushions. "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

12 " It was turning out to be one of those days. The sort you got every day. "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

13 " It was funny how people were people everywhere you went, even if the people concerned weren't the people the people who made up the phrase "people are people everywhere" had traditionally thought of as people. "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

14 " Sam Vimes could parallel process. Most husbands can. They learn to follow their own line of thought while at the same time listening to what their wives say. And the listening is important, because at any time they could be challenged and must be ready to quote the last sentence in full. A vital additional skill is being able to scan the dialogue for telltale phrases, such as “and they can deliver it tomorrow” or “so I’ve invited them for dinner” or “they can do it in blue, really quite cheaply. "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

15 " A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores. "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

16 " It was, he felt, a persistent flaw in his wife's otherwise practical and sensible character that she believed, against all evidence, that he was a man of many talents. He knew he had hidden depths. There was nothing in them that he'd like to see float to the surface. They contained things that should be left to lie. "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

17 " I assure you I will not kill you," said Inigo.
"I know that," said Vimes. "But will you try? "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

18 " Shut up sergeant. You're a free troll. That's an order"
Sam Vimes "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

19 " There was a typical Ankh-Morpork street scene outside, although people were trying to separate them. "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

20 " Gods, it felt good. Hot water was civilization. Vimes could feel the stiffness in his muscles melting away in the warmth. "

― Terry Pratchett , The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)