Best 199 quotes in «discworld quotes» category

I thought dwarfs loved gold," said Angua. "They just say that to get it into bed.

It’s an inconvenience, true enough, and I don’t like it at all, but I know that you do it for everyone, Mister Death. Is there any other way?’ NO, THERE ISN’T, I’M AFRAID. WE ARE ALL FLOATING IN THE WINDS OF TIME. BUT YOUR CANDLE, MISTRESS WEATHERWAX, WILL FLICKER FOR SOME TIME BEFORE IT GOES OUT – A LITTLE REWARD FOR A LIFE WELL LIVED. FOR I CAN SEE THE BALANCE AND YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT, AND IF YOU ASK ME, said Death, NOBODY COULD DO ANY BETTER THAN THAT . . .

It's not gambling to play against someone who's no good. It's common sense.

It was a Guild of Assassins, after all. Black was what you wore. The night was black and so were you. And black had such style, and an Assassin without style, everyone agreed, was just a highly paid arrogant thug.

It's rude to stare," said the troll. Its mouth opened with a little crest of foam, and shut again in exactly the same way that water closes over a stone. "Is it? Why?" asked Rincewind. How does he hold himself together, his mind screamed at him. Why doesn't he spill?

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.

Nanny Ogg gave this the same consideration as would a nuclear physicist who'd just been told that someone was banging two bits of sub-critical uranium together to keep warm.

It wasn't by eliminating the impossible that you got at the truth, however improbable; it was by the much harder process of eliminating the possibilities. You worked away, patiently asking questions and looking hard at things. You walked and talked, and in your heart you just hoped like hell that some bugger's nerve'd crack and he'd give himself up.

Many things went on at Unseen University and, regrettably, teaching had to be one of them. The faculty had long ago confronted this fact and had perfected various devices for avoiding it. But this was perfectly all right because, to be fair, so had the students.

Mr Vimes," said Mrs Winkings, "ve cannot help but notice that you still haf not employed any of our members in the Vatch..." Say 'Watch', why don't you? Vimes thought. I know you can. Let the twenty-third letter of the alphabet enter your life.

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.

Look down, your grace," said Skimmer. "Mhm, mhm." Vimes realized he could feel the faintest prick of a knife blade on his stomach. "Look down further," he said. Inigo looked down. He swallowed. Vimes had a knife, too. "You really are no gentleman, then," he said. "Make a sudden move and neither are you," said Vimes.

My Lord... what is Death like?" called the old man tremulously. "When I have investigated it fully, I will let you know," came the faintest of modulations on the breeze. "Yes," murmured the Loremaster. A thought struck him. "During daylight, please," he added.

Nanny Ogg usually went to bed early. After all, she was an old lady. Sometimes she went to bed as early as 6 a.m.

never ask the tight-rope walker how he keeps his balance. if he stops to think about it, he falls off

Night poured over the desert. It came suddenly, in purple.

News is unusual things happening— And usual things happening [...] But news is mainly what someone somewhere doesn't want you to put in the paper— Except that sometimes it isn't [...] News, [...] all depends. But you'll know it when you see it.

Occasionally a few bubbles would eructate to the surface like the ghosts of beans on bath night.

No-one likes being told it's their lucky day. That sort of thing does not bode well. When someone tells you it's your lucky day, something bad is about to happen.

Now if I'd seen him, really there, really alive, it'd be in me like a fever. If I thought there was some god who really did care two hoots about people, who watched 'em like a father and cared for 'em like a mother . . . well, you wouldn't catch me saying things like 'there are two sides to every question' and 'we must respect other people's beliefs.' You wouldn't find me being gen'rally nice in the hope that it'd all turn out right in the end, not if that flame was burning in me like an unforgivin' sword. And I did say burnin', Mister Oats, 'cos that's what it'd be. You say that you people don't burn folk and sacrifice people anymore, but that's what true faith would mean, y'see. Sacrificin' your own life, one day at a time, to the flame, declarin' the truth of it, workin' for it, breathin' the soul of it . . . That's religion. Anything else is . . . is just bein' nice. And just a way of keepin' in touch with the neighbors. "Anyway, that's what I'd be, if I really believed. And I don't think that's fashionable right now, 'cos it seems that if you sees evil you have to wring you rhands and say 'oh deary me, we must debate this.' That my two penn'orth, Mister Oats.

Of course, to be fair, that was a parent's job. The world was so full of sharp bends that if they didn't put a few twists in you, you wouldn't stand a chance of fitting in.

On the Kite, the situation was being 'workshopped'. This is the means by which people who don't know anything get together to pool their ignorance.

OK, Reg and me will help you up, come on-' 'Me? But I can't stand heights!' 'I thought you could turn into a bat?' 'Yeah, but a very nervous one!

Once people get the idea that they can listen to music for nothing, where will it end?

On nights such as this, witches are abroad. Well, not actually abroad. They don't like the food and you can't trust the water and the shamans always hog the deckchairs.

Oh, good grief," said Vimes. "Look, it's quite simple, man. I was expected to go "At last, alcohol!", and chugalug the lot without thinking. Then some respectable pillars of the community" - he removed the cigar from his mouth and spat - "were going to find me, in your presence, too - which was a nice touch - with the evidence of my crime neatly hidden but not so well hidden that they couldn't find it." He shook his head sadly. "The trouble is, you know, that once the taste's got you it never lets go." "But you've been very good, sir," said Carrot. "I've not seen you touch a drop for -" "Oh, that," said Vimes. "I was talking about policing, not alcohol. There's lots of people will help you with the alcohol business, but there's no one out there arranging little meetings where you can stand up and say, "My name is Sam and I'm a really suspicious bastard.

On a million hillsides the girl ran, on a million bridges the girl chose, on a million paths the woman stood... All different, all one. All she could do for all of them was be herself, here and now, as hard as she could.

She knew a cutting, incisive, withering and above all a self-evident answer existed. It was just that, to her extreme annoyance, she couldn't quite bring it to mind.

People don't want to see what can't possibly exist.' - Mort

People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other.

Several times he had to flatten himself against the shelves as a thesaurus thundered by. He waited patiently as a herd of Critters crawled past, grazing on the contents of the choicer books and leaving behind them piles of small slim volumes of literary criticism.

Sacharissa saw a movement. Boddony had pulled his axe out from under the bench. It was a traditional dwarf axe. One side was a pickaxe, for the extraction of interesting minerals, and the other side was a war axe, because the people who owned the land with the valuable minerals in it can be so unreasonable sometimes.

...she was definitely feeling several twinkles short of a glitter...

She taught me so much, she said to herself. She built me as we were walking around after the sheep, and she told me all those things that I needed to know, and the first thing was to look after people. Of course, the other thing had been to look after the sheep.

Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot one, and there’ll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland? In fifty years’, thirty years’, ten years’ time the world will be very nearly back on its old course. History always has a great weight of inertia.

Simon did everything inexpertly. He was really good at it.

Silk stockings. With garters. 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.

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't use the sugar tongs, I know that.

SOD YOU, THEN, Death said.

The commander went, as they say in Ankh-Morpork, totally Librarian on them.

Susan stared at him. The blue glow in Death’s eyes gradually faded, and as the light died it sucked at her gaze so that it was dragged into the eye sockets and into the darkness beyond… …which went on and on, for ever. There was no word for it. Even eternity was a human idea. Giving it a name gave it a length; admittedly, a very long one. But this darkness was what was left when eternity had given up. It was where Death lived. Alone.

That just goes to show that you never know, although what it is we never know I suspect we'll never know.

The boldest of the three moved suddenly, grabbed Angua and pulled her upright. "We walk out of here unharmed or the girl gets it, all right?" he snarled. Someone sniggered. "I hope you're not going to kill anyone," said Carrot. "That's up to us!" "Sorry, was I talking to you?" said Carrot.

Still, he’d have to eat something and the dark brown goo that half filled the tin was the only available food in this vicinity that didn’t have at least six legs. He didn’t even think about eating mutton. You couldn’t, when it was looking at you so pathetically. He poked the goo with the stick. It gripped the wood like glue. “Gerroff!” A blob eventually came loose. Rincewind tasted it, gingerly. It was just possible that if you mixed yeasty beer and vegetables together you’d get— No, what you got was salty-tasting beery brown gunk. Odd, though…It was kind of horrible, but nevertheless Rincewind found himself having another taste.

That --ing zombie is going to end up on the end of a couple of --ing handy and versatile kebab skewers,' said Mr Tulip. 'An' then I'm gonna put an edge on this --ing spatula. An' then... then I'm gonna get medieval on his arse.' There were more pressing problems, but this one intrigued Mr Pin. 'How, exactly?' he said. 'I thought maybe a maypole,' said Mr Tulip reflectively. 'An' then a display of country dancing, land tillage under the three-filed system, several plagues and, if my --ing hand ain't too tired, the invention of the --ing horse collar.

That was a dhlang!" he said. "An evil spirit! The peasants down in the valleys hang up charms against them! But I thought they were just a superstition!" "No, they're a substition," said Susan. "I mean they're real, but hardly anyone really believes them. Mostly everyone believes in things that aren't real. Something very strange is going on. Those things are all over the place, and they've got bodies. That's not right. We've got to find the person who built the clock - " "And, er, what are you, Miss Susan?" "Me? I'm...a schoolteacher." She followed his gaze to the wrench that she still carried in her hand, and shrugged. "It can get pretty rough at break time, can it?" said Lobsang.

The barricade was taking some while to dismantle. Chair legs and planks and bedsteads and doors and baulks of timber had settled into a tangled mass. Since every piece belonged to someone, and Ankh-Morpork people care about that sort of thing, it was being dismantled by collective argument.

The Death of the Disc was a traditionalist who prided himself on his personal service and spent most of the time being depressed because this was not appreciated. He would point out that no one feared death itself, just pain and separation and oblivion, and that it was quite unreasonable to take against someone just because he had empty eye sockets and a quiet pride in his work. He still used a scythe, he'd point out, while the Deaths of other worlds had long ago invested in combine harvesters.

The Great God Om waxed wroth, or at least made a spirited attempt. There is a limit to the amount of wroth that can be waxed one inch from the ground, and he was right up against it.

The end of times?" said Nanny. "Look, Tiff, Esme tol' me to say, if you want to see Esmerelda Weatherwax, then just you look around. She is here. Us witches don't mourn for very long. We are satisfied with happy memories - they're there to be cherished.