Taxation, gentlemen, is very much like dairy farming. The task is to extract the maximum amount of milk with the minimum amount of moo.
It is a long-cherished tradition among a certain type of military thinker that huge casualties are the main thing. If they are on the other side then this is a valuable bonus.
Were you proposing to shoot these people in cold blood, sergeant?" "Nossir. Just a warning shot inna head, sir.
Oh, my dear Vimes, history changes all the time. It is constantly being re-examined and re-evaluated, otherwise how would we be able to keep historians occupied? We can't possibly allow people with their sort of minds to walk around with time on thei...
Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
All that yohoho stuff's for landlubbers, or it would be if we ever used words like landlubber. Do you know the difference between port and starboard? I don't. I've never even drunk starboard.
Look, sir, I know Angua. She's not the useless type. She doesn't stand there and scream helplessly. She makes other people do that.
I shall fear not. According to the Testament of Mezerek, the fisherman Nonpo spent four days in the belly of a giant fish," said Constable Visit. The thunder seemed particularly loud in the silence. "Washpot, are we talking miracles here?" said Reg e...
We need to borrow your boat," said Vimes. "Bugger off!" "I'm choosing to believe that was a salty nautical expression meaning 'Why, certainly,'" said Vimes.
Someone broke from the scrum and, punching and kicking, staggered towards the Klatchian goal. "Isn't that man your butler?" said Ahmed. "Yes." "One of your soldiers said he bit a man's nose off." Vimes shrugged. "He's got a very pointed look if I don...
It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn't th...
You haven't heard of him? And he is a D'reg!" Mrs Goriff pulled at her husband's arm. "D'reg?" said Angua. "A warlike desert tribe," said Carrot. "Very fierce. Honourable, though. They say that if a D'reg is your friend he's your friend for life." "A...
Silk stockings. With . Well, they were out. There were a lot of things he'd do for Sybil, but if garters figured anywhere in the relationship they weren't going to be on him.
Vimes awoke with a noseful of camel. There are far worse awakenings, but not as many as you might think.
Colon looked awkward, as if the bunched underwear of the past was tangling itself in the crotch of recollection.
Vimes was already lost. Oh, there was the sun, but that was just a . He could feel it on the side of his face. And the camel rocked from side to side. There was no real way of judging distance, except by haemorrhoids.
The intelligence of that creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it.
