Men at Arms:
Overview
He [Edward d'Eath] could think in italics. Such people needed watching.
Preferably from a safe distance.
[p. 13]
'Pride is all very well, but a sausage is a sausage.'
[p. 32, Gaspode, submitted by Michael Bafford]
'Sometimes there has to be a civil war, and sometimes, afterwards, it's best to pretend something didn't happen. Sometimes people have to do a job, and then they have to be forgotten.'
[p. 71]
There were such things as Dwarf gods (...) they'd seen the need for gods as a sort of supernatural equivalent of a hard hat. Besides, when you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it's nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, 'Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-coninuum!' or 'Aaargh, primitive-and-out-moded-concept on a crutch!'
[p. 82, submitted by Michael Bafford]
'There's stranger people in this world than Corporal Nobbs, my lad.'
Carrot's expression slid into a rictus of intrigued horror.
'Gosh.'
[p. 87]
'I thought dwarfs didn't believe in devils and demons and stuff like that.'
'That's true, but... we're not sure if they know.'
[p. 124]
'Do you think there's such a thing as a criminal mind?'
Carrot almost audibly tried to work this out.
'What. . . you mean like . . . Mr Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, sir?'
'He's not a criminal.'
'You have eaten one of his pies, sir?'
'I mean. . . yes . . . but . . . he's just geographically divergent in the financial hemisphere.'
'Sir?'
'I mean he just disagrees with other people about the position of things. Like money. He thinks it should all be in his pocket.'
[p. 129, submitted by Michael Bafford]
I'm on the path, he thought. I don't have to know where it leads. I just have to follow.
[p. 153]
'Now what were we going for today? Decisiveness, yes?'
'Yes. Well, no. Maybe'
[p. 156, submitted by Michael Bafford]
Sham Harga had run a successful eatery for many years by always smiling, never extending credit, and realizing that most of his customers wanted meals properly balanced between the four food groups: sugar, starch, grease and burnt crunchy bits.
[p. 173, submitted by Michael Bafford]
'There's a limit to the power of a spring, no matter how tightly one winds it.'
'Oh, yes. Yes. And you hope that if you wind a spring one way, all its energies will unwind the other way. And sometimes you have to wind the spring as tight as it will go,' said Vetinari,' and pray it doesn't break.'
[p. 198]
'Where's the gritsucker? And the rock?'
'Ah,' said Vimes, 'you are referring to those representative members of our fellow sapient races who have chosen to throw in their lots with the people of this city?'
'I mean the dwarf and the troll,' said Quirke.
[p. 226]
'I'll see you all tomorrow. If there is one.'
[p. 227]
He glanced cautiously at the dancing shapes, which made weird and worrying shapes on the far wall - strange biped animals, eldritch underground things...
Carrot sighed.
'Stop making shadow pictures, Detritus.'
[p. 239]
He [Carrot] could lead armies, Angua thought. He really could. Some people have inspired whole countries to great deeds because of the power of their vision. And so could he. Not because he dreams about marching hordes, or world domination, or an empire of a thousand years. Just because he thinks that everyone's really decent underneath and would get along just fine if only they made an effort, and he believes that strongly it burns like a flame that is bigger than he is.
[p. 244]
Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.
[p. 258]
'An appointment is an engagement to see someone, while a morningstar is a large lump of metal used for viciously crushing skulls. It is important not to confuse the two.'
[p. 260, Carrot]
'He's mad, isn't he?'
'No, mad's when you froth at the mouth,' said Gaspode. ' He's insane. That's when you froth at the brain.'
[p. 299]
Personal isn't the same as important. What sort of person could think like that? And it dawned on him that while Ankh in the past had had its share of evil rulers, and simply bad rulers, it had never yet come under the heel of a good ruler. That might be the most terrifying prospect of all.
[p. 365]