Snuff Quotes
"Everything that is expelled from a goblin’s body was clearly once part of them and should, therefore, be treated with reverence and stored properly so that it can be entombed with its owner in the fullness of time."
"Humanity may come to terms with the dwarf, the troll, and even the orc... Predators respect other predators, do they not?"
"I must say that goblins live on the edge, often because they have been driven there. When nothing else can survive, they do."
"There’s always paperwork. It is well known that any drive to reduce paperwork only results in extra paperwork."
"Where there are policemen there’s crime, sergeant, remember that."
"Everyone should occasionally break the law in some small and delightful way, Drumknott. It’s good for the hygiene of the brain."
"He has won a little battle and a man who can win little battles is well set up to win big ones."
"In short, Drumknott, a certain amount of harmless banditry amongst the lower classes is to be smiled upon if not actively encouraged, for the health of the city."
"If a poor man will spend a year in prison for stealing out of hunger, how high would the gallows need to be to hang the rich man who breaks the law out of greed?"
"The law is one and immutable. It does not care who anybody is."
"A day without a singe is a day without sunshine."
"The only important thing in a fight to the death is that the death should not be yours."
"Gentility is all very well, but practicality has its uses."
"If I was you, and this is me talking off the top of my head, I’d be putting in a lot of fighting, and dead bodies falling out of wardrobes."
"It’s as if they don’t think. I just wanted to shake their ideas up a bit."
"I’m a copper, a policeman, and something here is calling to me."
"Once a street boy always a street boy, sir. It comes with us, in the pinch."
"You’re a bloody fool, man! Put that damn thing down! You keep it on a hair trigger!"
"This passed without notice, except by the geranium and a raggedy figure hiding in the rhododendrons, that said ‘Snack!’ to itself, but resolutely carried on staring at Vimes."
"Sybil sighed and said sternly, ‘Well, then, can I hope that at least this can be done without further vegetable carnage?’"
"She turned her attention back to Feeney, a man now confronted by a cannon loaded with a thousand years of upper-class self-assurance."
"‘Then you are invited to tea,’ she said cheerfully. ‘There are some very eligible young ladies coming, and I’m sure that they will be most excited to see a young man who is prepared to dance on the very edge of hell.’"
"Remember, in the country there is always somebody watching you, he thought, and probably listening too."
"‘Everything,’ said Vimes. ‘For one thing, no policeman swears allegiance to the civil power, he swears allegiance to the law.’"
"No, sir, none at all, sir. My granddad and my dad could go like that sometimes. Totally blank. It makes people nervous."
"The only little problem is that you allowed him to do it, as I recall, without so much as a murmur."
"‘But it was not illegal,’ said his wife icily."
"‘You do not swear to obey magistrates! I’d like to see what it was that you signed—’ Vimes stopped talking because the little metal plate in the lock-up door slid open to reveal Feeney’s mother, looking very nervous."
"I shall be honoured by your hospitality, Mistress Upshot."
"What’s a bit of smuggling? You’ve just pulled the dragon’s tail and made him angry!"
"When I was nothing but a subaltern, dear, one of the first things I learned was that you never give away your position by frantic firing."
"‘Everybody knows that his ancestor killed a king, so I can’t imagine a Vimes would jib at killing a blacksmith,’ said the Honourable Ambrose."
"‘And he was just a street kid and a drunkard!’ said Letitia."
"But we haven’t done anything wrong … Have we?"
"‘I don’t know about any bishops,’ said Vimes, ‘but something is going on here and I can feel the tingle, felt it on the day I came here, and it’s tingling on my land.’"
"‘I’m not your brother!’ Vimes shouted. ‘I’m not a killer!’"
"‘My mum is very keen on the aristocracy,’ Feeney confided as he unlocked the door of the lock-up with an unfeasibly large key."
"Your cooperation will be taken into consideration."
"Goodness is about what you do. Not what you pray to."
"The jurisdiction of a good man extends to the end of the world."
"They run and I chase. I don’t know if it’s metaphysical, or something like that."
"I need to spend a moment in quiet contemplation, understand?"
"The hard way is also quite easy, in a manner of speaking."
"Goblins may be wretched, unhygienic and badly fed, and in that they are pretty much like the commonality of most of mankind."
"I am not above the law, but I stand right underneath it, and I hold it up!"
"You never know your luck; after all, Feeney could be a coming man, right?"
"And if the law applies to goblins then goblins have rights."
"I don’t know where they came from, and no more do you, okay?"
"If it was someone in the front of the crowd who had loosed his crossbow then surely I would have seen it."
"Don’t be surprised, Willikins, I recall your prowess with even a standard military bow during the war."
"If there are more of those bloody things out there, I want to make certain that I’ve still got one too."
"There’s no point in hurrying. After your first splash, you’d seen it all before."
"And then for a moment his inner eyes looked at Koom Valley."
"I recognize your eyes and I’m interested to see what you’re going to do next."
"If you cut their leg off they wouldn’t notice until they fell over."
"We’re so close I can see the faces of their crew."
"Depriving an innocent man of his liberty even for a week, captain, is a very serious crime."
"Goblins can speak, they have a society and I’ve heard one of them play music that would make a bronze statue burst into tears."
"You could have done something. You could have done anything. You could have done everything."
"One law, ladies and gentlemen ... One size fits all!"
"Every man jack of you. Huge, dangerous, deadly weapons."
"I fight dirty, you can depend on that, and I'll fight anybody."
"The law is there for the people, rather than the other way round."
"He's a choirboy, he really is, but there has to be some justice in the world."
"I'm paying to have that clacks tower made permanent."
"The world runs on it, the heavens run on it and without order, lad, one second cannot follow another."