Home > Work > Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch #1)
41 " Vimes stalked gloomily through the crowded streets, feeling like the only pickled onion in a fruit salad. "
― Terry Pratchett , Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch #1)
42 " That's the Ankh-Morpork instinct, Vimes thought. Run away, and then stop and see if anything interesting is going to happen to other people. "
43 " It was said that [Vetinari] would tolerate absolutely anything apart from anything that threatened the city*... [Footnote] And mime artists. It was a strange aversion, but there you are. Anyone in baggy trousers and a white face who tried to ply their art anywhere within Ankh's crumbling walls would very quickly find themselves in a a scorpion pit, on one wall of which was painted the advice: Learn The Words. "
44 " Monsters are getting more uppity, too (...) I heard where this guy, he killed this monster in this lake, no problem, stuck its arm up over the door (...) and you know what? Its mum come and complained. Its actual mum come right down to the hall next day and complained. Actually complained. That's the respect you get. "
45 " A number of religions in Ankh-Morpork still practiced human sacrifice, except that they didn't really need to practice any more because they had got so good at it. "
46 " But in cynicism and general world weariness, which is a sort of carbon dating of the personality, he was about seven thousand years old. "
47 " Corporal Nobbs,” he rasped, “why are you kicking people when they’re down?” “Safest way, sir,” said Nobby. Nobby had long ago been told about fighting fair and not striking a fallen opponent, and had then given some creative thought to how these rules applied to someone four feet tall with the muscle tone of an elastic band. "
48 " But we don't do things like that!" said Vimes. "You can't go around arresting the Thieves' Guild. I mean, we'd be at it all day! "
49 " And the people next door oppress me all night long. I tell them, I work all day, a man's got to have some time to learn to play the tuba. That's oppression, that is. If I'm not under the heel of the oppressor, I don't know who is. "
50 " He's going to arrest the Patrician, Vimes told himself, the thought trickling through his brain like an icy rivulet. He's actually going to arrest the Patrician. The supreme ruler. He's going to arrest him. This is what he's actually going to do. The boy doesn't know the meaning of the word "fear." Oh, wouldn't it be a good idea if he knew the meaning of the word "survival"... "
51 " I mean, it's a good job we've got a last desperate million-to-one chance to rely on, or we'd really be in trouble! "
52 " It was amazing, this mystic business. You tell them a lie, and then when you don’t need it anymore you tell them another lie and tell them they’re progressing along the road to wisdom. Then instead of laughing they follow you even more, hoping that at the heart of all the lies they’ll find the truth. And bit by bit they accept the unacceptable. Amazing. "
53 " Vimes felt a sudden surge of civic pride. There had to be something right about a citizenry which, when faced with catastrophe, thought about selling sausages to the participants. "
54 " He couldn’t help remembering how much he’d wanted a puppy when he was a little boy. Mind you, they’d been starving – anything with meat on it would have done. "
55 " If you let your mind dwell on rooms like this, you could end up being oddly sad and full of a strange diffuse compassion which would lead you to believe that it might be a good idea to wipe out the whole human race and start again with amoebas. "
56 " Vimes had never mastered ambition. It was something that happened to other people. "
57 " It’s a metaphor of human bloody existence, a dragon. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it’s also a bloody great hot flying thing. "
58 " And it be well for a knowlessman that he should not be here, for he would be taken from this place and his gaskin slit, his moules shown to the four winds, his welchet torn asunder with many hooks and his figgin placed upon a spike (...) "
59 " Some people are born to command. Some people achieve command. And others have command thrust upon them ... "
60 " You see, the only thing the good people are good at is overthrowing the bad people. And you're good at that, I'll grant you. But the trouble is it's the only thing you're good at. One day it's the ringing of the bells and the casting down of the evil tyrant, and the next it's everyone sitting around complaining that ever since the tyrant was overthrown no one's been taking out the trash. Because the bad people know how to plan. It's part of the specification, you might say. Every evil tyrant has a plan to rule the world. The good people don't seem to have the knack. "