William de Worde is the accidental editor of the Discworld's first newspaper. Now he must cope with the traditional perils of a journalists's life -- people who want him dead, a recovering vampire with a suicidal fascination for flash photography, some more people who want him dead in a different way and, worst of all, the man who keeps begging him to publish pictures of his humorously shaped potatoes.
William just wants to get at THE TRUTH. Unfortunately, everyone else wants to get at William. And it's only the third edition...
The rumor spread through the city like wildfire (which had quite often spread through Ankh-Morpork since its citizens had learned the words "fire insurance").
* * *
The dwarfs can turn lead into gold...
It reached the pointy ears of the dwarfs.
"Can we?"
"Damned if I know. I can't."
"Yeah, but if you could, you wouldn't say. I wouldn't say, if I could."
"Can you?"
"No!"
"Ah-ha!"
* * *
"You can't turn something into something else," said Corporal Nobbs. "The Alchemists have been trying it for years."
"They can gen'really turn a house into a hole in the ground," said Sergeant Colon.
* * *
...although it was possible to live on figs you soon wished you didn't.
* * *
And finally, on the lighter Side, it is being said that the Dwarfs can Turn Lead into Gold, thougnh no one knows whence the rumor comes, and Dwarfs going about their lawful occassions in the City are hailed with cries such as, e.g., "Hollah, short stuff, let's see you make some Gold then!" although only Newcomers do this because all here know what happens if you call a Dwarf "short stuff," viz., you are Dead.
--William de Worde reports the news
* * *
The world is made up of four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. This is a fact well known even to Corporal Nobbs. It's also wrong. There's a fifth element, and generally it's called Surprise.
* * *
...the dwarfs found out how to turn lead into gold by doing it the hard way. The difference between that and the easy way is that the hard way works.
* * *
Dibbler: "Ah, Mr. Word. Times is hard in the hot sausage trade."
William: "Can't make both ends meat, eh?"
* * *
If Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler was selling hot sausages, it was a sure sign that one of his more ambitious enterprises had gone wahooni-shaped yet again.
* * *
...Dibbler was an extremely good hot sausage salesman. He had to be, given the nature of his sausages.
* * *
As for Mr. Pin and Mr. Turnip, all that need be known about them at this point is that they are the kind of people who call you "friend." People like that aren't friendly.
* * *
No one can look harder than a dwarf. Perhaps it's because there is only quite a small amount of face between the statutory round iron helmet and the beard. Dwarf expressions are more concentrated.
* * *
William: "What happened to Mr. Dibbler?"
Goodmountain: "Was he the skinny man with the sausages?"
William: "That's right. Was he hurt?"
Goodmountain: "I don't think so. He sold young Thunderaxe a sausage in a bun, I do know that."
William: "Well, then is Mr. Thunderaxe all right?"
Goodmountain: "Probably. He shouted under the door just now that he was feeling a lot better but would stay where he was for the time being."
* * *
Ankh-Morpork people considered that spelling was a sort of optional extra. They believed in it in the same way they believed in punctuation; it didn't matter where you put it, so long as it was there.
* * *
...calling a tavern The Bucket was not a decision destined to feature in Great Marketing Decisions of History.
* * *
[The frogs] were small, brightly colored, and happy little creatures who secreted some of the nastiest toxins in the world, which is why the job of looking after the large vivarium where they happily passed their days was given to first-year students, on the basis that if they got things wrong there wouldn't be too much education wasted.
* * *
In fact [the Bursar] was incurably insane and hallucinated more or less continually, but by a remarkable stroke of lateral thinking his fellow wizards had reasoned, in that case, that the whole business could be sorted out if only they could find a formula that caused him to hallucinate that he was completely sane.
[Footnote: This is a very common hallucination, shared by most people.]
* * *
...many people in the universe have also had the misplaced belief that they can safely ignore gravity, mostly after taking some local equivalent of dried frog pills, and this has led to much extra work for elementary physics and caused brief traffic jams in the streets below.
* * *
The Archchancellor tended to combine wooden-headed stupidity with distressing insight.
* * *
Ridcully: "You know I've always wanted a paperless office--"
Bursar: "Yes, Archchancellor, that's why you hide it all in cupboards and throw it out of the window at night."
* * *
There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty.
The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass! Who's been pinching my beer?
* * *
The staff at Hugglestones prized keenness, believing that in sufficient quantities it could take the place of lesser attributes like intelligence, foresight, and training.
* * *
William found that he now thought of prayer as a sophisticated way of pleading with thunderstorms.
* * *
He was all in favor of the countryside, provided that it was on the other side of a window.
* * *
[William] enjoyed reading and writing. He liked words. Words didn't shout or make loud noises, which pretty much defined the rest of his family.
* * *
[Rupert de Worde] had died for his beliefs; chief among them was the very Hugglestonian one that bravery could replace armor, and that Klatchians would turn and run if you shouted loud enough.
* * *
William's father, during their last meeting, had gone on at some length about the proud and noble traditions of the de Wordes. These had mostly involved unpleasant deaths, preferably of foreigners, but somehow, William gathered, the de Wordes had always considered that it was a decent second prize to die themselves.
* * *
The Bursar tried to look the young dwarf sternly up and down, although this was a pretty pointless intimidatory tactic to use on dwarfs, since they had very little up to look down from.
* * *
There were no flies on C.M.O.T. Dibbler. He would have charged them rent.
* * *
...what was visible in Goodmountain's face had the cheerful scowl of someone who's worked out how to turn lead into still more gold.
* * *
Bursar: "Uh, by the way, do you people have an Annual Dinner?"
Goodmountain: "Oh, yes. Definitely."
Bursar: "When is it?"
Goodmountain: "When would you like it?"
* * *
It was a puzzle why things were always dragged kicking and screaming. No one ever seemed to want to, for example, lead them gently by the hand.
* * *
Bursar: "Oh, I think it's time to embrace the exciting challenges presented to us by the Century of the Fruitbat."
William: "We ... that's the one we're just about to leave, sir."
Bursar: "Then it's high time we embraced them, don't you think?"
* * *
...the brothers Ridcully were solid as rocks. And, in some respects, as sensible.
* * *
"Flexibility and understanding have always been my watchwords," [Lord Vetinari] said.
"My god, have they?"
* * *
Vetinari: "I'm sure no one could call me a despot, your reverence."
Hughnon: "Not twice at any rate, ahaha."
* * *
"And these are your reasons, my lord?"
"Do you think I have others?" said Lord Vetinari. "My motives, as ever, are entirely transparent."
Hughnon reflected that "entirely transparent" meant either that you could see right through them or that you couldn't see them at all.
* * *
"Once upon a time nations fought like great grunting beasts in a swamp. Ankh-Morpork ruled a large part of that swamp because it had the best claws. But today gold has taken the place of steel and, my goodness, the Ankh-Morpork dollar seems to be the currency of choice. Tomorrow... perhaps the weaponry will be just words. The most words, the quickest words, the last words."
* * *
"Look out of the window. Tell me what you see."
"Fog."
Vetinari sighed. Sometimes the weather had no sense of narrative convenience.
* * *
"Kings and lords come and go and leave nothing but statues in a desert, while a couple of young men tinkering in a workshop change the way the world works."
* * *
"It'll end in trouble, my lord," said Ridcully. He'd found it a good general comment in practically any debate. Besides, it was so often true.
* * *
It would be clear to any experienced person that what was going on here was "good cop, bad cop" with the peculiar drawback that there were no cops.
* * *
Charlie: "But ten thousand dollars doesn't sound like the kind of money you get for doing something right. Not for just saying a few words."
Mr. Pin: "Mr. Tulip here once got even more money than that just for saying a few words, Charlie."
Mr. Tulip: "Yeah, I said, 'Give me all the ---ing cash or the girl gets it.'"
* * *
"'... Make ... more ... money ... inn ... youre ... Spare ... Time...'" he said. "Sounds like Mr. Dibbler has been back."
* * *
He could understand why [the letter blocks] worried people. Put us together in the right way, they seemed to say, and we can be anything you want. We could even be something you don't want. We can spell anything. We can certainly spell trouble.
* * *
Vetinari: "And is this building built on a crack in space-time?"
Goodmountain: "What?"
Vetinari: "When one has been ruler of this city as long as I have, one gets to know with a sad certainty that whenever some well-meaning soul begins a novel enterprise they always, with some kind of uncanny foresight, site it at the point where it will do maximum harm to the fabric of reality."
* * *
"...the wizards seem to break into the Dungeon Dimensions so often they might as well install a revolving door."
* * *
"...it would be nice to think that someone, somewhere in this city, is engaged in some simple enterprise that is not going to endup causing tentacled monsters and dread apparations to stalk the streets eating people."
* * *
William stepped forward at a healthy fraction of the speed of terror.
* * *
Lord Vetinari stood leaning on his stick and looking at the press with an air of benevolent interest, while behind him William de Worde explained the political realities of Ankh-Morpork, especially those relating to sudden death. With gestures.
* * *
Vetinari: "On the whole, I wish to avoid any low-level difficulties at this time, what with the unsettled situation in Uberwald and the whole Muntab question."
William: "Where's Muntab?"
Vetinari: "Exactly."
* * *
Goodmountain: "Special rate for government jobs."
Vetinari: "Oh, but I wouldn't dream of paying any less than other customers."
Goodmountain: "I wasn't going to charge you less than--"
* * *
Mr. Tulip: "From what I hear he mostly doesn't do a ---ing thing!"
Mr. Pin: "Yeah. One of the hardest things to do properly, in politics."
* * *
It wasn't that [Mr. Tulip] had a drug habit. He wanted to have a drug habit. What he had was a stupidity habit...
* * *
In a street where furtive people were selling Clang, Slip, Chop, Rhino, Skunk, Triplin, Floats, Honk, Double Honk, Congers and Slack, Mr Tulip had an unerring way of finding the man who was retailing curry powder at what worked out as six hundred dollars a pound.
* * *
[Mr. Tulip had] tried normality once, and hadn't liked it.
* * *
Lord de Worde had not, himself, been a violent man. He'd merely employed them.
* * *
There was this to be said about the Smell of Foul Ole Ron, an odor so intense that it took on a personality of its own and fully justified the capital letter: after the initial shock the organs of small just gave up and shut down, as if no more able to comprehend the thing than an oyster can comprehend the ocean.
* * *
[The Smell] had developed to such a degree that it now led a semi-independent life of its own, and often went to the theater by iteself, or read small volumes of poetry. Ron was outclassed by his smell.
* * *
Goodmountain: "He isn't saying anything."
William: "Well, usually he just stands there until people give him something to go away. Er ... you heard of things like the Welcome Wagon, where various neighbors and traders greet newcomers to an area?"
Goodmountain: "Yes."
William: "Well, this is the dark side."
* * *
William: "Hey, you can't sell it that cheap."
Goodmountain: "Why not?"
William: "Why? Because ... because ... because, well, anyone will be able to read it, that's why!"
Goodmountain: "Good, 'cos that means anyone'll be able to pay twenty pence. There's lots more poor folk than rich folk and it's easier to get money out of 'em."
* * *
"It's a deal," said Goodmountain, who spat on his hand and would have held it out to seal the contract if William hadn't gripped it urgently.
"Don't."
"What's wrong?"
William sighed. "Have you got any horribly disfiguring diseases?"
"No!"
"Do you want some?"
--Don't shake hands with Foul Ole Ron, kids
* * *
Twelve people lievd under the Misbegot Bridge and in a life of luxury, although luxury is not hard to achieve when you define it as something to eat at least once a day and especially when you have such a broad definition of "something to eat."
* * *
Technically they were beggars, although they seldom had to beg. Possibly they were thieves, although they only took what had been thrown away, usually by people hurrying to be out of their presence.
* * *
There was Arnold Sideways, whose lack of legs only served to give him an extra advantage in any pub fight, where a man with good teeth at groin height had it all his way.
* * *
"We could live like kings on a dollar a day, Arnold."
"What, you mean someone'd chop our heads off?"
* * *
Mr. Pin lit a cigar. Smoking was his one vice. At least, it was his only vice that he thought of as a vice. All the others were just job skills.
* * *
Mr. Pin ... was not very good at sustained, mindless violence, and admired the fact that Mr. Tulip had an apparently bottomless supply.
* * *
It was quite hard to hire Mr. Tulip and Mr. Pin. You had to know the right people. To be more accurate, you had to know the wrong people, and you got to know them by hanging around a certain kind of bar and surviving, which was kind of a first test.
* * *
Mr. Tulip: "Who says we've never committed a ---ing crime in Ankh-Morpork?"
Mr. Slant: "As I understand it, you have never been to this city before."
Mr. Tulip: "Well? We've had all ---ing day."
* * *
Mr. Pin: "If there was a policeman's ball, we would be among the first to buy a ticket."
Mr. Tulip: "'Specially if it was mounted on a plinth, or a little display stand of some sort, 'cos we like beautiful things."
--A new twist on an old joke
* * *
"Well, --- me, it's a ---ing da Quirm," he said. "I seen a print of it. Woman Holding Ferret. He did it just after he moved from Genua and was influenced by ---ing Caravati. Look at that ---ing brushwork, will ya? See the way the line of the hand draws the ---ing eye into the picture? Look at the quality of the light on the landscape you can see through the ---ing window there. See the way the ferret's nose follows you around the room? That's ---ing genius, that is. I don't mind telling you that if I was here by myself I'd be in ---ing tears."
* * *
The Big Wahooni: The world's rarest and most evil-smelling vegetable, and consequently much prized by connoisseurs (who seldom prize anything cheap and common).
* * *
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 mannerism for manners.
* * *
Sacharissa stood there panting. She had a well-crafted supply of other features that never go out of fashion at all and are perfectly at home in any century.
* * *
She was still looking at him doubtfully, but natural Ankh-Morpork interest in the distant prospect of a dollar was gaining the upper hand.
* * *
"It's not a ---ing harpsichord, it's a ---ing virginal," growled Mr. Tulip. "One ---ing string to a note instead of two! So called because it was an instrument for ---ing young ladies!"
"My word, was it?" said one of the chairs. "I thought it was just a sort of early piano!"
* * *
Your Brain On drugs is a terrible sight, but Mr. Tulip was living proof of the fact that so was Your Brain on a cocktail of horse liniment, sherbet, and powdered water-retention pills.
* * *
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.
* * *
He knew about concerned citizens. Wherever they were, they all spoke the same private language, where "traditional values" meant "hang someone."
* * *
"And now... this meeting of the Committee to Unelect the Patrician is declared closed. And hasn't happened."
* * *
Lord Vetinari by habit rose so early that bedtime was merely an excuse to change his clothes.
* * *
"Drumknott, I believe it is the right of every citizen of Ankh-Morpork to walk the streets unmolested."
"Good gods, sir! Is it?"
* * *
"Are you poised for the exciting new millenium that lies before us, Drumknott? Are you ready to grasp the future with a willing hand?"
"I don't know, my lord. Is special clothing required?"
* * *
...William didn't meet many literate people. He met the sort to whom a pen was a piece of difficult machinery.
* * *
"You didn't tell me about the dwarfs!"
"Do you mind?"
"Oh, no. Dwarfs are very law-abiding and respectable, in my experience."
William now realized that he was talking to a girl who had never been in certain streets when the bars were closing.
* * *
William: "Mr. Goodmountain, can you think of any reason I should put this in the paper?"
Goodmountain: "There's seventy-three reasons. That's 'cos there's seventy-three names."
* * *
"Der Patrician will see you now," said the troll.
"I didn't have an appointment with Lord Vetinari!"
"Ah, well," said the troll, "you'd be amazed at how many people has appointments wid der Patrician an' dey don't know it."
* * *
Words resemble fish in that some specialized ones can survive only in a kind of reef, where their curious shapes and usages are protected from the hurly-burly of the open sea. "Rumpus" and "fracas" are found only in certain newspapers (in much the same way that "beverages" are only found in certain menus). They are never used in normal conversation.
* * *
"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."
* * *
Vetinari: "I believe the Guild of Engravers has some things it wishes to discuss with Mr. Goodmountain, William, but I have always thought that we should go forward to the future."
William: "Yes, sir. Quite hard to go any other way."
* * *
...[Dibbler] was a good judge of people, especially when it involved judging when to step innocently around a corner and then run like hell...
* * *
You didn't often look into the eyes of someone who'd kill because it seemed a good idea at the time.
* * *
Moving his hands carefully, Dibbler opened the special section of his tray, the high-class one that contained sausages whose contents were (1) meat (2) from a known four-footed creature (3) probably land-dwelling.
* * *
"Finest pork."
"Good, are they?"
"You'll never want to eat another, sir."
* * *
Dibbler: "Let me tell you about these sausages. When someone chopped off his thumb in the abattoir, they don't even stop the grinder. You prob'ly won't find any rat in them 'cos rats don't go near the place. There's animals in there that ... well, you know how they say life began in some kind of big soup? Same with these sausages. If you want a bad sausage, you won't get better than these."
Mr. Pin: "You keep them for your special customers, do you?"
Dibbler: "To me, sir, every customer is special."
* * *
Mr. Pin: "Do you know what they called a sausage-in-a-bun in Quirm?"
Mr. Tulip: "No?"
Mr. Pin: "They call it le sausage-in-le-bun."
Mr. Tulip: "What, in a ---ing foreign language? You're ---ing kidding!"
Mr. Pin: "I'm not a ---ing kidder, Mr. Tulip."
Mr. Tulip: "I mean, they ought to call it a ... a ... sausage dans lar derriere."
--Thank you, Quentin Tarintino
* * *
"Why doesn't he just jump?"
"He's thinking about it. It's a big step, after all."
* * *
He realized he was not dead. One reason for this was the face of Corporal Nobbs of the Watch looking down at him. William considered that he had lived a relatively blameless life and, if he died, did not expect to encounter anything with a face like Corporal Nobbs's, the worst thing ever to hit a uniform if you didn't count seagulls.
* * *
Nobbs: "Ah, you're all right."
William: "Feel ... faint."
Nobbs: "I could give you the kiss of life if you like."
William: "Much better now!"
Nobbs: "Only we learned it down the Watch House and I haven't had a chance to try it yet..."
William: "Fit as a fiddle!"
Nobbs: "...I've been practicing on my hand and everything..."
* * *
"You have wisely purchased the Dis-organizer Mk II, the latest in biothaumaturgic design, with a host of other features and no resembalance whatsoever to the Mk I, which you may have inadvertently destroyed by stamping on it heavily!"
* * *
"This device is provided without warranty of any kind as to reliability, accuracy, existence or otherwise fitness for any particular purpose and Bioalchemic Products specifically does not warrant, guarantee, imply or make any representations as to its merchantability for any particular purpose and furthermore shall have no liability for or responsibility to you or any other person, entity or diety with respect of any loss or damage whatsoever caused by this device or object or by any attempts to destroy it by hammering it against a wall or dropping it into a deep well or any other means whatsoever and moreover asserts that you indicate your acceptance of this agreement or any other agreement that may be substituted at any time by coming within five miles of the product or observing it through large telescopes or by any other means because you are such an easily cowed moron who will happily accept arrogant and unilateral conditions on a piece of highly priced garbage that you would not dream of accepting on a bag of dog biscuits and is used solely at your own risk."
--And you thought Microsoft's warranties were bad...
* * *
"And how will you be paying?" said the wizard.
Mr. Pin snapped his fingers. Mr. Tulip drew himself up and out, squared his shoulders and cracked knuckles that were like two bags of pink walnuts.
"Before we ---ing talk about paying," said Mr. Tulip, "we want to talk to the bloke that wrote that --ing warranty."
* * *
The zombie was more difficult. For a start he was gray, shading to green in places, and smelled very strongly of artificial hyacinth aftershave, some of the more recent zombies having realized that their chance of making friends in their new life would be greatly improved if they smelled of flowers rather than just smelled.
* * *
"Mr. Tulip is not a scary man," said Mr. Pin. This was flying in the face of the current evidence, he had to admit.
* * *
Charlie: "I've heard of this Vetinari. If this goes wrong, he'll have me thrown in the scorpion pit!"
Mr. Pin: "Well, the scorpion pit isn't as bad as it's cracked up to be, you know?"
Mr. Tulip: "It's a ---ing picnic compared to me."
* * *
Mr. Pin hated the sight of Charlie trying to be clever. It was like watching a dog try to play the trombone.
* * *
"It's an order. You're his boss. And you have to give him a haughty stare ... look, how can I put it? You're a shopkeeper. Imagine that he's asked for credit."
* * *
A miscreatn stole $200 worth of silver from H. Hogland and Son, Jewllrs., of Nonsuch Street yesterday p.m. Mr Hogland, (32) who was threatened at knifepoint, told the Times: "I shall recognise the man if I should see him again because not many people have a stocking on their head."
* * *
It contained a number of slim devices on a bed of black velvet, and a description of any one of them would certainly involve the word "sharp."
* * *
...William wondered why he had always disliked people who said "no offense meant." Maybe it was because they found it easier to say "no offense meant" than actually to refrain from giving offense.
* * *
That wasn't the way it worked, was it. If it was in the paper, it was news. If it was news it went in the paper, and if it was in the paper it was news. And it was the truth.
* * *
"He's a vampire!"
"I object most stronkly," said the hidden Otto. "It iss such an easy assumption to believe that everyvun with an Uberwald accent is a vampire, is it not? There are many thousand of people from Uberwald who are not vampires!"
William waved his hand aimlessly, trying to shrug off the embarassment.
"All right, I'm sorry, but--"
"I am a vampire, as it happens," Otto went on. "But if I had said 'Hello my cheeky cock sparrow mate old boy by crikey,' what vould you have said zen, eh?"
"We'd have been completely taken in," said William.
* * *
[The dwarfs had] been insulted because of their dilligence and because of their height, but they had kept their heads down* and prospered.
(Footnote: Which was not hard, as unkind people pointed out.)
* * *
Then the trolls had come, and they got on a little better, because people don't throw as many stones at creatures seven feet tall who could throw rocks back.
* * *
The gnomes had integrated quickly, despite a bad start, because they were tough and even more dangerous to cross than a troll; at least a troll couldn't run up your trouser leg.
* * *
[Vampires] weren't sociable, even amongst themselves; they didn't think as a species; they were unpleasantly weird; and they sure as hell didn't have their own food shops.
* * *
...So now it was dawning on some of the brighter ones that the only way people would accept vampires was if they stopped being vampires. That was a high price to pay for social acceptability, but perhaps not so high as the one that involved having our head cut off and your ashes scattered on the river. A life of steak tartare wasn't too bad if you compared it with a death of stake au naturel.
* * *
In any case anyone eating raw steak from an Ankh-Morpork slaughterhouse was embarking on a life of danger and excitement that should satisfy anyone.
* * *
Otto: "Light in all itz forms is mine passion. Light is my canvas, shadows are my brush."
Sacharissa: "But strong light hurts you! It hurts vampires!"
Otto: "Yes. It iss a bit of a bugger, but zere you go."
* * *
"That sounds like Mr. Windling. It sounds like my father, too, except that at least he can spell 'undesirable' and wouldn't use crayon."
* * *
Otto: "You know zat another term for an iconographer would be 'photographer'? From the old word photus in Latation, vhich means--"
William: "'To prance around like a pillock ordering everyone about as if you owned the place'."
Otto: "Ah, you know it!"
* * *
"Let me in, I'm nosy" was not a request likely to achieve success.
* * *
William: "That's Sergeant Detrius on the gate."
Otto: "Ah. A troll. Very stupid."
William: "But hard to fool. I'm afraid I'll have to try the truth."
Otto: "Vy vill that vork?"
William: "He's a policeman. The truth usually confuses them. They don't often hear it."
* * *
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.
* * *
"Fiddyment, you take dese ... two to Mister Vimes. Dey are not to fall down any steps on der way or any stuff like dat."
* * *
William's class understood that justice was like coal or potatoes. You ordered it when you needed it.
* * *
William therefore felt predisposed to like Vimes, if only because of the type of enemies he made, but as far as he could see everything about the man could be prefaced by the word "badly", as in -spoken, -educated and -in need of a drink.
* * *
It wasn't that [Vimes] wore bad clothes. He just seemed to generate an internal scruffiness field. The man could rumple a helmet.
* * *
Vimes: "And you'll let me see what you've written?"
William: "Of course. I'll make sure you get one of the first papers off the press, sir."
Vimes: "I meant before it gets published, and you know it."
William: "To tell you the truth, no, I don't think I should do that, sir."
Vimes: "I am the commander of the Watch, lad."
William: "Yes, sir. And I'm not. I think that's my point, really, although I'll work on it some more."
* * *
Carrot: "They are the facts, sir."
Vimes: "But they're not the right facts! They're stupid facts!"
Carrot: "I know, sir. I can't imagine His Lordship trying to kill anyone."
Vimes: "Are you mad? I can't imagine him saying sorry!"
* * *
DO NOT BE ALARMED. The former bearer of this card has suffered a minor accident. You vill need a drop of blood from any species, and a dustpan and brush.
* * *
William: "Would you like me to say that if anyone saw something suspicious they should tell you, sir?"
Vimes: "In this town? We'd need every man on the Watch just to control the queue."
* * *
Truth was what he told. Honesty was sometimes not the same thing.
* * *
The Watch would probably like it if everyone spent their time indoors, with their hands on the table where people could see them.
* * *
You had to assume he was a human being because he was broadly the right shape, could talk, and wasn't covered in hair.
* * *
"Smile, please..."
"I am smilin'."
"Stop smiling, please."
* * *
A screaming vampire is always the center of attention.
* * *
Lord Vetinari was supposed to have tried to kill someone, and that didn't make sense, if only because the person he had tried to kill was apparently still alive.
* * *
He saw the trolls first, because even when they're standing at the back a group of four big trolls are metaphorically to the fore of any picture.
* * *
...[Mr. Slant] wore the expression of one who, while not seeking to be unpleasant in himself, was the cause of much unpleasantness in other people.
* * *
It didn't take a major excuse for trolls and dwarfs to fight; sometimes, being on the same world was enough.
* * *
William: "Hold on, hold on, there must be a law against killing lawyers."
Goodmountain: "Are you sure?"
William: "There're still some around, aren't there?"
* * *
When people say clearly something, that means there's a huge crack in their argument and they know things aren't clear at all.
* * *
"Yes, but how much trouble are we in already?" said William. "On a scale of one to ten?"
"At the moment... about eight," said Sacharissa. "But when the next edition is on the streets" --she shut her eyes a moment and her lips moved in calculation-- "about two thousand, three hundred and seventeen?"
* * *
If stress were food, he'd succeeded in turning his life into porridge.
* * *
The dog in front of William didn't look as if it could talk, but it did look as if it could swear.
* * *
"THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YE FRET"
* * *
"We don't often talk about Corporal Nobbs's species."
* * *
"But I'm not doing anything wrong," said William.
"No, it may just be you're not doing anything illegal," said Vimes.
* * *
Vimes: "All I ask is that you try not to bleed all over the street."
Willliam: "I'll try."
Vimes: "And don't write that down."
Willliam: "Fine."
Vimes: "And don't write down that I said don't write that down."
Willliam: "Okay. Can I write down that you said that I shouldn't write down that you said--"
* * *
Vimes: "The doctors of this city are a fine body of men, and I would not see a word written against them. One of my staff just happens to have... special skills."
Willliam: "You mean he can tell someone else's arse from their elbow?"
* * *
Angua: "There's a goddess of Truth, I believe."
Vimes: "Can't have many followers, then."
* * *
Vimes: "Have they got that problem sorted out, Sergeant?"
Angua: "Yes, sir. The pneumatic message system and the speaking tubes are definitely separated now."
Vimes: "Are you sure? You do know Constable Keenside had all his teeth knocked out yesterday."
Angua: "They say it can't happen again, sir."
Vimes: "Well, obviously it can't. He hasn't got any more teeth."
* * *
"Igors are very much into self-improvement. Fine surgeons, though. Just don't shake hands with one in a thunderstorm--"
* * *
Angua: "And he spotted Igor's second thumb, and hardly anyone else has noticed the swimming potatoes."
Vimes: "Igor hasn't got rid of them yet?"
Angua: "No, sir. He believes that instant fish and chips are only a generation away."
* * *
"Find out who's running the [betting] book, and when you have found out that it is Nobby, take it off him."
* * *
...they looked like a pair of lepidopterists who'd stumble across an entirely new kind of butterfly, and found it trying to wave a tiny little net.
* * *
"A theft of twenty-five dollars entitles you to immunity from further street theft for a period of a full six months plus, for this week only, the choice of this handsome box of crystal wine glass or a useful set of barbecue tools, which will be the envy of your friends."
* * *
"Lord Vetinari feels that since there'll always be some crime in the city, it might as well be organized."
* * *
Ankh-Morpork INQUIRER
The News You Only Hear About
* * *
"All right, find the three letters with the fewest spelling mistakes and send Rocky around to hire the writers."
* * *
"In the history of this city, gentlemen, we have put on trial at various times seven pigs, a tribe of rats, four horses, one flea, and a swarm of bees. Last year a parrot was allowed as a prosecution witness in a serious murder case, and I had to arrange a witness protection scheme for it. I believe it is now pretending to be a very large budgerigar a long way away."
* * *
"This is Ankh-Morpork," snapped the lawyer. "We are a very cosmopolitan city. Being dead in Ankh-Morpork is sometimes only an inconvenience, do you understand? We have wizards, we have mediums of all sizes. And bodies do have a habit of turning up. We want nothing that is going to give the Watch a clue, do you understand?"
"They'd listen to a ---ing dead man?" said Mr. Tulip.
"I don't see why not. You are," said the zombie.
* * *
Mr. Tulip: "That ---ing zombie is ging to end up on the end o a couple of ---ing handy and versatile kebab skewers. An' then I'm gonna put an edge on this ---ing spatula. An' then ... then I'm gonna get medieval on his arse."
Mr. Pin: "How, exactly?"
Mr. Tulip: "I thought maybe a maypole. An' then a display of country dancing, land tillage under the three-field system, several plagues, and, if my ---ing hand ain't too tired, the invention of the ---ing horse collar."
* * *
Mr. King: "Stuff like your paper of news goes in Bin Six, Low Grade Paper Waste. I sells most of that to Bob Holtely up in Five and Seven Yard."
William: "What does he do with it?"
Mr. King: "Pulps it for lavatory paper. The wife swears by it. Pers'nly I cut out the middleman."
* * *
William felt the distinct unease of a well-educated man who has to confront the fact that the illiterate man watching him could probably out-think him three times over.
* * *
A dwarf is also very good at making use of things other people have thrown away, even if they haven't actually thrown them away yet.
* * *
Otto: "Keep avay from me! And do not breathe like zat!"
Sacharissa: "Like what?"
Otto: "Zer bosoms going in and out and up and down like zat! I am a vampire! A fainting young lady, please understand, zer panting, zer heaving of bosoms ... it calls somezing terrible from within ... But I vill be stronk!"
--Kicking addictions aren't easy for anyone
* * *
"Veil, you see, if I vas to say something portentous like 'zer dark eyes of zer mind' back home in Uberwald, zer would be a sudden crash of thunder," said Otto. "And if I vas to point at a castle on a towering crag and say 'Yonder is... zer castle,' a volf would be bound to howl mournfully." He sighed. "In zer old country, zer scenery is psychotropic and knows vot is expected of it. Here, alas, people just look at you in a funny vay."
* * *
For the vampires [Biers] was a place to hang up. For the werewolves, it was where you let your hair down. For the bogeymen, it was a place to come out of the closet. For the ghouls, it did a decent meat pasty and chips.
* * *
The barman nodded. The important thing, he'd found, was to make sure ordinary people paid for their drinks as they bought them. It wasn't good business to let them run a tab. That showed an unwarranted optimism about the future.
* * *
"It's a good apron," said the voice in the gloom.
"It is the --ing envy of all my friends," Mr. Tulip growled.
In the silence Mr. Pin heard the unseen drinkers calculating the likely number of friends of Mr. Tulip. It was not a calculation that would involve a simple thinker taking off their shoes.
* * *
Mr. Tulip: "What now?"
Mr. Pin: "Time to think of a plan B."
Mr. Tulip: "Why don't we just ---ing hit people until someone tells us where the dog is?"
Mr. Pin: "Tempting. But we'll leave that for plan C--"
* * *
"THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YE FRED"
* * *
William: "Who was that hero who was condemned to push a rock up a hill and every time he got it to the top it rolled down again?"
Sacharissa: "Someone who needed a wheelbarrow?"
* * *
William: "Why are you bothering with it, then?"
Sacharissa: "Twenty-six people are mentioned by name."
William: "As accordionists?"
Sacharissa: "Yes."
William: "Won't they complain?"
Sacharissa: "They didn't have to play the accordion."
* * *
...one of the strange things about eating at Mrs. Arcanum's was that you got more leftovers than you got original meals. That is, there were far more meals made up from what were traditionally considered the prudently usable remains of earlier meals -- stews, bubble-and-squeak, curry -- than there were meals at which those remains could have originated.
* * *
Mrs. Arcanum provided big helpings, and they were men who measured culinary achievement by the amount you got on your plate.
* * *
He had adapted to Mrs. Arcanum's cuisine, but nothing except radical surgery would make him like her coffee.
* * *
Character assassination. What a wonderful idea. Ordinary assassination only works once, but this one works every day.
* * *
"He has yet to find out that what's in the public interest is not what the public is interested in."
* * *
...Mrs. Acanum came downstairs and into the kitchen armed with a lamp, a poker, and, most important, with her hair in curlers. The combination would be a winner against all but the most iron-stomached intruder.
* * *
[The newspaper press] was waiting there now. You worked hard, you fed it, and it was still just as hungry an hour later and out in the world all your work was heading for Bin Six in Piss Harry's and that was only the start of its troubles.
* * *
"Look, Mr. Goodmountain, I'm useless. I was educated to be useless. What we've always been supposed to do is hang around until there's a war and do something really stupidly brave and then get killed."
* * *
William: "My father is not a nice man. Do I have to draw you a picture? He doesn't much like me, and I don't like him. If it comes to that, he doesn't like anyone very much. Especially dwarfs and trolls."
Goodmountain: "No law says you have to like dwarfs and trolls."
William: "Yes, but there ought to be a law against disliking them the way he does."
Goodmountain: "Ah. Now you've drawn me a picture."
William: "Maybe you've heard the term 'lesser races'?"
Goodmountain: "And now you've colored it in."
* * *
Most dwarfs were still referred to as "he" as well, even when they are getting married. It was generally assumed that somewhere under all that chain mail one of them was female and that both of them knew which one this was. But the whole subject of sex was one that traditionally minded dwarfs did not discuss, possibly out of modesty, possibly because it didn't interest them very much, and certainly because they took the view that what two dwarfs decided to do together was entirely their own business.
* * *
Goodmountain grinned. "Don't worry too much about your father, lad. People change. My grandfather used to think humans were sort of hairless bears. He doesn't anymore."
"What changed his mind?"
"I reckon it was the dying that did it."
* * *
...something that distinguishes the Mr. Windlings of the universe is the term "in my humble opinion," which they think adds weight to their statements rather than indicating, in reality, "these are the mean little views of someone with the social grace of duckweed."
* * *
...years of listening to Lord de Worde's opinions had given [William] a certain ear. It told him when phrases like "the views of ordinary people," innocent and worthy in themselves, were being used to mean that someone should be whipped.
* * *
This part of the city had no real existence other than as a place you passed through to somewhere more interesting.
* * *
"Who's there?"
"Do you know what's good for you?"
"Er ... yes. Healthy exercise, regular meals, a good night's sleep."
* * *
"So who am I talking to?"
"You can call me ... Deep Bone."
* * *
Fire was always the terror in those parts of the city where wood and thatch predominated. That was why everyone had been so dead 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 put out.
* * *
"I'm not sure that [fire] was very mysterious," he said. "Old Mr. Hardy decided to light a cigar and forgot that he was bathing his feet in turpentine." Apparently someone had told him this was a cure for athlete's foot and, in a way, they had been right.
* * *
[Otto] caught sight of William and gave him the kind of big broad smile that only a vampire can give.
* * *
William: "What advice could a vampire give me about women?"
Otto: "Oh, my vord, vake up and smell zer garlic! Oh, zer stories I could tell you -- but I von't since I don't do zat sort of thing anymore, now zat I have seen the daylight. Let us just say, zey don't always scream."
* * *
"No, that's a poodle. It doesn't look a bit like the dog we're after--"
"--no, that's not it. How do I know? Because it's a cat. All right, then, why's it washing itself? No, I'm sorry, dogs don't do that--"
"--no, madam, that's a bulldog--"
"--no, that's not it. No, sir, I know that's not it. Because it's a parrot, that's why. You've taught it to bark and you've painted 'DoG' on the side of it but it's still a parrot--"
* * *
Sister Jennifer strode to the front desk. A man hopefully held up what was clearly a badger.
"He's been a bit ill--"
Sister Jennifer brought her fist down on the man's head.
William winced.
"Sister Jennifer's order believes in tough love," said Brother Pin.
* * *
[William] knew that some sections of the Omnian church still believed that the way to send a soul to heaven was to give the body hell. And Sister Jennifer couldn't be blamed for her looks, or even the size of her hands. And even if the backs of said hands were rather hairy, well, that was the sort of thing that happened out in the rural districts.
* * *
It was always wise to be polite to edged weapons.
* * *
"Where's that dwarf going?" said Pin, his hand reaching into his coat.
"Just into the cellar, sir. To... fetch some ink."
"Why? Looks like you've got lots of ink up here already."
"Er, the white ink, sir. For the spaces. And the middle of the Os."
* * *
It was dwarfish swearing, and it meant that the swearer was not only alive but angry too.
* * *
William was aware of the pneumatic warmth of Sacharissa in his arms. This was an experience of the sort which, in a life devoted to arranging words in a pleasing order, he had not dreamed would -- well, obviously dreamed, his inner editor corrected him, better make that expected -- would have come his way.
* * *
William: "Are you ... all right, Otto?"
Otto: "Vot? Oh, yes. Yes, I zink so. Mustn't grumble. Pretty good, really. it's just that I seem to have my head cut off, vhich you could say is a bit of a drawback--"
* * *
Several of the dwarfs slapped their thighs, half turned away and did the usual little pantomime that people do to indicate that they just can't believe someone else could be so damn stupid.
* * *
"All zat possibly happens is that a subject's own morphic signature aligns zer resons, or thing-particles, in phase-space according to zer Temporal Relevance Theory, creating zer effect of multiple directionless vindows vhich intersect vith the illusion of zer Present and create metaphoric images according to zer dictates of quasi-historical extrapoliation. You see? Nothing mysterious about it at all!"
--Easy for him to say...
* * *
"...there's nothing like a, yes, a tidal wave of dogs, fighting and biting and howling, to sort of, how can I put it, give a city a certain ... busyness. Epseically underfoot, because -- did I mention it? -- they're very nervous dogs too."
* * *
"We're not stupid. We only look stupid."
* * *
William: "But there's not a shoe shop in Wixon's Alley."
Vimes: "I never mentioned shoes."
William: "In fact the only shop that is even, er, remotely connected with leather is--"
Vimes: "That's the one."
William: "But that sells--"
Vimes: "Comes under the heading of leatherwork."
William: "Well, yes ... and rubber work, and ... feathers ... and whips ... and ... little jiggly things. But--"
Vimes: "Never been in there myself, although I believe Corporal Nobbes gets their catalogue."
* * *
Goodmountain: "This is unholy stuff. No more meddling with it, understand?"
William: "I didn't think dwarfs were religious."
Goodmountain: "We're not. But we know unholy when we see it, and I'm looking at it right now, I'm telling you."
* * *
He'd written "The." It was a reliable word, the definite article. The trouble was, all the things he was definite about were bad.
* * *
Sacharissa: "This... paper is a kind of hobby for you, isn't it? Oh, you believe in it, I'm sure you do, but if it all goes wahoonie-shaped you'll still have money. I won't. So if the way it can be kept going is by filling it with what you sneer at as olds, then that's what I'll do."
William: "I don't have money! I make my own living!"
Sacharissa: "Yes, but you were able to choose!"
* * *
"Someone has to care about the... the big truth... Vetinari might not be 'a very nice man', but I had breakfast today with someone who'd be a lot worse if he ran the city, and there are lots more like him. And what's happening now is wrong. And as for your damn parrot fanciers, if they don't care about anything much beyond things that go squawk in cages then one day there'll be someone in charge of this place who'll make them choke on their own budgies. You want that to happen? If we don't make an effort all they'll get is silly... stories about talking dogs and Elves Ate My Gerbil, so don't give me lectures on what's important and what's not, understand?"
* * *
"We're just getting penny-a-line advertisements from people wanting to sell surgical supports and backache cures!"
"So? The pennies add up!"
"So you want us to be known as The Paper You Can Put Your Truss In?"
* * *
"I ---ing hates pictures," snarled Mr. Tulip. "Remember that time in Mouldavia? All them posters they did? It's bad for a man's health, seeing his ---ing phiz on every wall with 'Dead or Alive' under it. It's like they can't ---ing decide."
* * *
Mr. Pin: "I think we should go and explain things to our lawyer friend."
Mr. Tulip: "Right! And then I'll rip his head off."
Mr. Pin: "That doesn't kill zombies."
Mr. Tulip: "Good, 'cos then he'll be able to see where I'm gonna ---ing shove it."
* * *
Coffin Henry: "One or two of the little buggers look done for. I'll give them mouth-to-mouth respiritoriation, shall I?"
Duck Man: "Certainly not, Henry. Have you no sense of hygene?"
Coffin Henry: "Jean who?"
Duck Man: "You can't kiss dogs! They could catch something dreadful!"
* * *
...there was no one who'd disguise themselves as a gnoll. You'd have to strap a compost heap on your back, to begin with.
* * *
"Mister Vimes is going to go round the twist," said the voice of Deep Bone. "He's going to go totally Librarian-poo. He's going to invent new ways of being angry just so's he can try them out on you--"
* * *
It was a traditional dwarf ax. One side was a pickax, for the extraction of interesting minerals, and the other side was a war ax, because the people who own the land with the valuable minerals in it can be so unreasonable sometimes.
* * *
[Sacharissa had] 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.
* * *
Sacharissa: "You're not going to kill anyone, are you?"
Boddony: "Miss, we don't do that sort of thing!"
Sacharissa: "Well ... perhaps just make them a bit sorry, then?"
* * *
Sacharissa: "You're just going to break in?"
Boddony: "We'll say we were lost."
Sacharissa: "Lost underground? Dwarfs?"
Boddony: "All right, we'll say we're drunk. People'll believe that."
* * *
William had never seen anyone to whom the word "harangued" could be so justifiably applied. It meant someone who had been talked at by Sacharissa for twenty minutes.
* * *
Classically, very few people have considered that cleanliness was next to godliness, apart from in a very sternly abridged dictionary. A rank loincloth and hair in an advanced state of matted entanglement have generally been the badges of office of phophets whose injunction to disdain earthly things starts with soap.
* * *
William: "You are an immoral opportunist, Mr. Dibbler."
Dibbler: "It's worked so far."
* * *
"You can tell as many lies as you want if it's advertising. That's allowed."
* * *
Dibbler: "So ... what would I be selling, exactly?"
Sacharissa: "Space."
Dibbler: "Just space? Nothing? Oh, I can do that. I can sell nothing like anything! It's only when I try to sell something that everything goes wrong."
* * *
"It was a shock. The nose just shuts down. It was like walking around a corner and running into Foul Ole Ron."
"Ye gods! That bad?"
* * *
The result was ... pink. The pinkness was only one aspect of the thing, but it was so ... pink that it dominated everything else, even the topiary-effect tail with the fluffy knob on the end.
* * *
Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove.
* * *
...everything about it suggested "poodle" except for the whole thing itself, which suggested walking away.
* * *
...anything that stays thrown away in Ankh-Morpork is real rubbish.
* * *
...no one could spit and ooze like Coffin Henry, no one could be as legless as Arnold Sideways, and nothing in the world could smell like Foul Ole Ron.
* * *
Man Interviews Dog.
* * *
William took a deep draught of the tea. It was thick and stewed, but it was also sweet and hot. And slightly lemony. All in all, he considered, it could have been much worse.
"Yes, we're very fortunate when it comes to slices of lemon," said the Duck Man, busily fussing over the tea things. "Why, it is indeed a bad day when we can't find two or three slices floating down the river."
William stared fixedly at the river wall.
Spit or swallow, he thought, the eternal conundrum.
* * *
Mr. Tulip was good at thinking in split-seconds, and when it came to art appreciation he could easily think in centuries, but he was not happy over middle distances.
* * *
The New Firm didn't go around threatening people. They were the threat.
* * *
Mr. Pin: "And it's all okay if you have a potato when you die?"
Mr. Tulip: "Yep. You're allowed to come back and have another life."
Mr. Pin: "Even if... even if you've done things which people might think were bad?"
Mr. Tulip: "Like chopping up people and ---ing shovin' 'em off cliffs?"
Mr. Pin: "Yeah, that kind of thing."
Mr. Tulip: "We-ell, it's okay so long as you're really ---ing sorry about it."
* * *
"But... I thought you had to pray in deserts and go to a temple every day, and sing songs, and give stuff to the poor...?"
"Oh, you can do all that too, sure," said Mr. Tulip. "Just so long as you've got your ---ing potato."
"And you come back alive?" said Mr. Pin, still trying to find the small print.
"Sure. No point in coming back dead. Who'd notice the ---ing difference?"
* * *
[Mr. Tulip] admired the way Mr. Pin wasn't frightened of difficult things, like long sentences.
* * *
Sacharissa: "You don't think a dress like this would be a bit ... forward, do you?"
Rocky: "You're quite a lot forward already."
Sacharissa: "I meant, make me look like a fast woman!"
Rocky: "Ah, right. No. Def'nitly not."
Sacharissa: "Really?"
Rocky: "Sure. No one could run much in a dress like dat."
* * *
"Don't you come near me! Don't you dare come near me! If you come near me I'll -- I'll write it down!"
* * *
It was said of the dwarfs that they cared more about things like iron and gold than they did about people, because there was only a limited supply of iron and gold in the world whereas there seemed to be more and more people everywhere you looked.
* * *
"Are you ---ing Death?"
JUST DEATH WILL SUFFICE, I THINK.
* * *
Mr. Tulip raised a trembling hand.
"Is this the bit where my whole life passes in front of my eyes?" he said.
NO, THAT WAS THE BIT JUST NOW.
"Which bit?"
THE BIT, said Death, BETWEEN YOU BEING BORN AND YOU DYING. NO, THIS ... MR. TULIP, THIS IS YOUR WHOLE LIFE AS IT PASSED BEFORE OTHER PEOPLE'S EYES...
* * *
Sacharissa: "There's all these dwarfs in the city. We could produce a magazine for them. I mean ... what's the modern dwarf wearing this season?"
Goodmountain: "Chain mail and leather. What are you talking about? It's always chain mail and leather!"
* * *
Sacharissa: "You think you're writing words that'll last for ever? It's not like that. This newspaper stuff... that's words that last for a day. Maybe a week."
William: "And then they get thrown away."
Sacharissa: "Perhaps a few hang on. In people's heads."
William: "That's not where the paper ends up. Quite the reverse."
* * *
"I think they were after all of us," said William. "I wish I'd had a chance to ask him a few questions, even so..."
"You mean like 'Is this the first time you've strangled anyone?'" said Boddony. "Or 'How old are you, Mr. Killer?'"
* * *
William: "A killer with a personal Dis-organizer?"
Boddony: "The Things To Do Today section is going to be interesting, then."
* * *
"Do you want me to wipe the contents of my memory?" [The imp] produced a cotton-wool bud and prepared to insert it into one very large ear. "Erase Memory Y/N?"
* * *
"Er... there's something done on the leather in pokerwork," said Sacharissa.
"What does it say?"
"'Not A Very Nice Person At All'," she read. "I wonder what kind of person would put that on a wallet?"
"Someone who wasn't a very nice person," said William.
-- This one's for Samuel L. Jackson
* * *
"Let us use your 'ing' presses or I'll 'ing' shoot your 'ing' head 'ing' off!" she screamed. "I think that's how you're supposed to say it, isn't it?"
* * *
"Right, lads," said the dwarf, "here's how it works. Every man who goes home early tonight 'cos of a headache gets a hundred dollars, all right? It's an old Klatchian custom."
"And what happens if we don't go?" said the foreman, picking up a mallet.
"Vell," said a voice by his ear, "that's ven you get a... headache."
There was a flash of lightning and a roll of thunder. Otto punched the air triumphantly.
"Yes!"
* * *
"'Ing.' I feel so much better for saying that, you know? 'Ing.' 'Inginginginging.' I wonder what it means?"
* * *
Sacharissa: "Are you sure of all this, William?"
William: "Yes."
Sacharissa: "I mean, some bits -- are you sure it's all true?"
William: "I'm sure it's all journalism."
Sacharissa: "And what is that supposed to mean?"
William: "It means it's true enough for now."
* * *
[Mr. Pin] stopped when it saw Death and then, to Death's amazement, turned to look behind it. This had never happened before. Most people, upon coming face-to-face with Death, ceased worrying about anything behind them.
* * *
[Death] sighed deeply. WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN?
The Death of Rats looked up from the feast of the potato.
SQUEAK, he said.
Death waved a hand dismissively.
WELL, YES, OBVIOUSLY ME, he said. I JUST WONDERED IF THERE WAS ANYONE ELSE.
* * *
...what was the worst that could happen?
So many things, he thought as he set out again, that it would be hard to decide which one was the worst.
* * *
"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?"
* * *
Lord de Worde: "Do you really think that family is a matter of money?"
William: "We-ll, yes, according to history. Money, land, and titles. It's amazing how often we failed to marry anyone who didn't have at least two out of three."
* * *
"Shall I bite you, Mister Lordship? Vell, maybe not, because Villiam here thinks I am a good person. ... Now, maybe I have to ask myself, how good am I? Or maybe I just have to ask myself ... am I better zan you?"
* * *
William: "Of all the bone-headed, stubborn, self-centered arrogant--"
Otto: "But you make up for it in other vays."
William: "I meant my father."
* * *
William: "Did I say 'thank you?'"
Otto: "No, you did not."
William: "Oh dear."
Otto: "No, you noticed that you didn't, so zat is okay."
* * *
"Come on, Mister de Worde. We're on the same side here!"
"No. We're just on two different sides that happen to be side by side."
* * *
"It was for your own good," Vimes growled.
"I didn't know it was your job to decide what was good for me."
* * *
"Fred, send someone to take Mr. de Worde down to the cells, will you?" [Vimes] yelled. "I'm calling it protective custody for now," he added, turning to William.
"Protecting me from whom?"
"Well, I personally have an overwhelming urge to give you a ding alongside the ear."
* * *
"I shall argue that if withholding information from the Watch is a crime, every person in the city is guilty."
* * *
DOG BITES MAN!
* * *
"Well, I wrote the article in the Times!" he snapped. "And what's in there is what I say! Me! Because I found things out, and checked things, and people who say 'ing' a lot tried to kill me! I'm not the man that's the brother of some man you met in the pub! I'm not some stupid rumour put about to make trouble! So just remember that, before you try any of that 'everyone knows' stuff!"
* * *
"The right to free speech is an old Ankh-Morpork tradition."
"Good heavens, is it?"
"Yes, my lord."
"How did that one survive?"
* * *
Mr. Cheese had been easy to deal with. He just wanted money. You know where you stand with simple people like that, even if it is with your hand in your wallet.
* * *
Newspaper people thought the floor was a big flat filing cabinet.
* * *
"...and this is Mrs. Tilly, who likes cats and really nasty murders..."
* * *
"...Mrs. Tilly, I think you wrote a lovely well-spelled and gramatical letter to us suggesting that everyone under the age of eighteen should be flogged once a week to stop them being so noisy?"
"Once a day, Mr. de Worde," said Mrs. Tilly. "That'll teach 'em to go around being young!"
* * *
Rocky was supplying some sports news, and while it was unreadable to William, he put it in on the basis that anyone keen on sport probably couldn't read.
* * *
Vetinari: "...I thought I should take a moment to come and see this 'free press' Commander Vimes has told me about at considerable length. However, it appears to be firmly bolted down."
William: "Er, no, sir. I mean 'free' in the sense of what is printed, sir."
Vetinari: "But surely you charge money?"
William: "Yes, but--"
Vetinari: "Oh, I see. You meant you should be free to print what you like?"
William: "Well ... broadly, yes, sir."
* * *
"I have certainly noticed that groups of clever and intelligent people are capable of really stupid ideas."
* * *
"So... we have what the people are interested in, and human interest stories, which is what humans are interested in, and the public interest, which no one is interested in."
"Except the public, sir," said William, trying to keep up.
"Which isn't the same as people and humans?"
"I think it's more complicated than that, sir."
* * *
William: "We won't be bribed, either."
Vetinari: "Bribed? My dear sir, seeing what you're capable of doing for nothing, I'd hesitate to press even a penny in your hand."
* * *
Vetinari: "In return, however, I must ask you not to upset Commander Vimes. More than necessary."
William: "I'm sure we can pull together, sir."
Vetinari: "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. It's the only way to make progress."
* * *
William: "Look, we are not interested in pet precipitation, spontaneous combustion, or people being carried off by weird things from out of the sky--"
Sacharissa: "Unless it happens."
William: "Well, obviously we are if it does happen. But when it doesn't, we're not. Okay? News is unusual things happening--"
Sacharissa: "And usual things happening."
William: "And usual things, yes. But news is mainly what someone somewhere doesn't want you to put in the paper--"
Sacharissa: "Except that sometimes it isn't."
* * *
"...it doesn't say anywhere that we have to publish every day, does it?"
"Except at the top of the newspaper," said Sacharissa.
"Yes, but you can't believe everything you read in the newspapers."
* * *
Wizards doing odd things wasn't news. Wizards doing odd things was wizards.
* * *
A few [beer barrels] smashed, filling the gutter with suds. The others, thumping and banging into one another, became the focus of attention of every upright citizen who could recognize a hundred gallons of beer which suddenly didn't belong to anyone anymore and was heading for freedom.
* * *
"All right, all right," said William. "Find some kid, bribe him to get Otto, I'll talk to that Plucky Watchman who grabbed the old lady in A Mercy Dash, you cover the Big Smash, okay?"
"I'll find the kid," said Sacharissa, pulling out her own notebook, "but you cover the accident and the Beer Barrel Bonanza and I'll talk to the White-Haired Granny."
* * *
Many people were in distant pursuit of the barrels, and the odd scream suggested that thirsty people seldom realize how hard it is to stop a hundred gallons of beer in a big oak cask when it's on a roll.
* * *
They simply appeared to be men who wanted to help lost horses, and take them home and make them better. If this meant dyeing areas of their coat and swearing blind they'd owned them for the past two years, then so be it.
* * *
Sacharissa: "Look at it like this. Some people are heroes. And some people jot down notes."
William: "Yes, but that's not very--"
Sacharissa: "Sometimes they're the same person."
* * *
...nothing has to be true forever. Just for long enough, to tell you the truth.