As every student of exploration knows, the prize goes not to the explorer who first sets foot upon the virgin soil but to the one who gets that foot home first. If it is still attached to his leg, this is a bonus.

***

...Vimes's grin was as funny as the one that moves very fast towards drowning men. And has a fin on top.

***

...the man had been a zombie for several hundred years although historical accounts suggested that the only difference dying had made to Mr. Slant was that he'd started to work through his lunch break.

***

"...why don't they like us now? Do we owe them money?"
"No. Mostly they owe us money. Which is, of course, a far better reason for their dislike."

***

"Taxation, gentlemen, is very much like dairy farming. The task is to extract the maximum amount of milk with the minimum of moo. And I am afraid to say that these days all I get is moo."

***

"I do like entertaining people after the faculty of Unseen University have entertained them to lunch. They tend not to move about much and they'll agree to practically anything if they think there's a chance of a stomach powder and a small glass of water."

***

"The only thing I can sugest," [Angua] said, "is that women are quite often attracted to men who can make them laugh."
Nobby brightened. "Really?" he said. "I ought to be well in there, then."
"Good."
"People laugh at me all the time."

***

He quite liked the wizards. They didn't commit crimes. Not Vimes's type of crimes, anyway. The occult wasn't Vimes's beat. The wizards might well mess up the very fabric of time and space but they didn't lead to paperwork, and that was fine by Vimes.

***

And there was nothing finer than a wizard dressed up formally, until someone could find a way of inflating a Bird of Paradise, possibly by using an elastic band and some kind of gas.

***

No wonder this man was a diplomat. You couldn't trust him an inch, he thought in loops, and you couldn't help liking him despite it.

***

The Barbican had been the fortified gateway in the days when Ankh-Morpork didn't regard an attacking army a marvellous commercial opportunity.

***

"Were you proposing to shoot these people in cold blood, Sergeant?" "Nossir. Just a warning shot inna head, sir."

***

It was a typical Saturday Night Special [crossbow], so badly made and erratic that the only safe place to be when it was first would be directly behind it, and even then you would be running a risk. ... Probably the only way you could reliably hurt someone with it was to beat them over the head.

***

It is a long-cherished tradition among a certain type of military thinker than huge casualties are the main thing. If they are on the other side then this is a valuable bonus.

***

"Wazir comes from Smale, you see," said Carrot. "And Mr. Gorriff comes from Elharib, and the two countries only stopped fighting ten years ago. Religious differences."
"Ran out of weapons?" said Vimes.
"Ran out of rocks, sir. They ran out of weapons last century."

***

Rust: "To be frank ... the city is to be placed under martial law."
Vimes: "Yessir? What kind of law's that, sir?"
Rust: "You know very well, Vimes."
Vimes: "Is it the kind where you yell 'Stop!' before you fire, sir, or the other kind?"

***

One of the universal rules of happiness is: always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.

***

"You, sir, are no gentleman," said Rust.
"I knew there was something about me that I liked."

***

Vimes: "You told them it wasn't compulsory?"
Detritus: "Yessir! I said, 'It ain't compuls'ry, you just gotta,' sir."
Vimes: "Detritus, I wanted volunteers."
Detritus: "'sright, sir. They volunteered all right, I saw to that."

***

The watchmen realized that the man holding them up had paused to redesign his weapon and had given it to them to hold while he looked for a screwdriver. This was a thing that did not often happen.

***

Being picked for something because of your "special qualities" was tantamount to being volunteered. Anyway, what was so special about "special qualities"? Limpets had special qualities.

***

Veni, vermini, vomui, I came, I got ratted, I threw up? Visi, veneri, vamoosi, I visited, I caught an embarassing disease, I ran away?

***

"It is always useful to face an enemy who is prepared to die for his country. This means that both you and he have exactly the same aim in mind."

***

Colon: "Er ... what is this thing called?"
Leonard of Quirm: "Well, because it is submersed in a marine environment I've always called it the Going-Under-The-Water-Safely Device."

***

...the Patrician was against printing because if people knew too much it would only bother them.

***

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.

***

"Is there anything to eat?"
"There's some more of that garlic sausage. Or there's the cheese. Or cold beans."
"We're in a tin with no air and we're supposed to eat cheese? I ain't even going to comment on the beans."

***

...to a werewolf all humans looked alike: they looked appetizing.

***

"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."

***

Animals tended to like Nobby. He didn't smell wrong.

***

Jugglers will tell you that juggling with items that are identical is always easier than a mixture of all shapes and sizes. This is even the case with chainsaws, although of course when the juggler misses the first chainsaw it is only the start of his problems.

***

Colon: "Didn't know you could juggle, sir."
Vetinari: "You mean you can't, sergeant?"
Colon: "Nossir!"
Vetinari: "How strange. It's hardly a skill, is it? One knows what the objects are and where they want to go. After that it's just a case of letting them occupy the correct positions in time and space."
Colon: "You're very good at it, sir. Practise often, do you?"
Vetinari: "Until today, I've never tried. After Ankh-Morpork, sergeant, a handful of flying melons present a very minor problem indeed."

***

"Veni, vici ...Vetinari."

***