Fred Colon quotes
Colon was a sizeist, at least when it came to people smaller than himself. (GG)
‘“Every bottle matured for up to seven minutes”,’quoted Colon. ‘“Ha’a drop afore ye go”, it says on the label. Damn right, too. I had a drop once, and I went all day.' (GG)
'Fine Art. It’s just men paintin’ pictures of young wimmin in the nudd. The altogether,’explained Colon the connoisseur. ‘The caretaker told me. Some of them don’t even have any paint on their brushes, you know.' (GG)
Sergeant Colon owed thirty years of happy marriage to the fact that Mrs. Colon worked all day and Sergeant Colon worked all night. They communicated by means of notes. He got her tea ready before he left at night, she left his breakfast nice and hot in the oven in the mornings. They had three grown-up children, all born, Vimes had assumed, as a result of extremely persuasive handwriting. (GG)
Colon didn’t reply. I wish Captain Vimes were here, he thought. He wouldn’t have known what to do either, but he’s got a much better vocabulary to be baffled in. (GG)
... Sergeant Colon did know the meaning of the word "irony". He thought it meant "sort of like iron". (RM)
'Well, Nobby, you’re what I might call a career soldier, right?’
‘‘S’right, Fred.’
‘How many dishonourable discharges have you had?’
‘Lots,’ said Nobby, proudly. ‘But I always puts a poultice on ‘em.' (MA)
'We are armed with the truth. What can harm us if we are armed with the truth?’
‘Well, a crossbow bolt can, e.g., go right through your eye and out the back of your head,’ said Sergeant Colon. (MA)
Sergeant Colon went back to his desk, surreptitiously opened his drawer and pulled out the book he was reading. It was called Animal Husbandry. He’d been a bit worried about the title - you heard stories about strange folk in the country - but it turned out to be nothing more than a book about how cattle and pigs and sheep should breed.
Now he was wondering where to get a book that taught them how to read. (FC)
'Why are you all covered in crap, Fred?’
‘Well, sir, you know that creek that you’re up without a paddle? It started there and it’s got worse, sir.' (FC)
Colon in particular had great difficulty with the idea that you went on investigating after someone had confessed. It outraged his training and experience. You got a confession and there it ended. You didn’t go around disbelievingpeople. You disbelieved people only when they said they were innocent. Only guilty people were trustworthy. (FC)
'Well, there’s…’ Colon racked his brains. ‘There’s al-gebra. That’s like sums with letters. For…for people whose brains aren’t clever enough for numbers, see?' (J)
'It's a far, far better thing I do now than I have ever done before,’ said Nobby.
‘Right,’ said Sergeant Colon. They walked on in silence for a while and he added: ‘O’ course, that’s not difficult.' (J)
Colon had always thought that heroes had some special kind of clockwork that made them go out and die famously for god, country, and apple pie, or whatever particular delicacy their mother made. It had never occurred to him that they might do it because they’d get yelled at if they didn’t. (J)
And Sergeant Colon once again knew a secret about bravery. It was arguable a kind of enhanced cowardice – the knowledge that while death may await you if you advance it will be a picnic compared to the certain living hell that awaits should you retreat. (J)
It wasn’t that he was illiterate, but Fred Colon did need a bit of a think and a run-up to tackle anything much longer than a list and he tended to get lost in any word that had more than three syllables. He was, in fact, functionally literate. That is, he thought of reading and writing like he thought about boots – you needed them, but they weren’t supposed to be fun, and you got suspicious about people who got a kick out of them. (FE)
Lord Vetinari paused. He found it difficult to talk to Frederick Colon. He dealt on a daily basis with people who treated conversation as a complex game, and with Colon he had to keep on adjusting his mind in case he overshot. (FE)
'I don’t know how to do officering.’
‘No one knows how to do officering, Fred. That’s why they’re officers. If they knew anything, they’d be sergeants. (FE)
The little flickering part of his brain that was still sparking coherent thought through the fog of mind-numbing terror that filled Colon’s head was telling him that he was so far out of his depth that the fish had lights on their noses. (FE)
'People get mistaken about old Fred, sir. He’s a man with a solid bottom to his character.’
‘He’s got a solid bottom to his bottom, ca- Mister Ironfoundersson.’
‘I mean he doesn’t flap in an emergency, sir.’
‘He doesn’t do anything in an emergency,’ said the Patrician. ‘Except possibly hide.' (FE)
A penny could drop through wet cement faster than it could drop for Fred Colon. (FE)
'... there’s a lot goes on that we don’t know about.’
‘Like what, exactly?’ retorted Colon. ‘Name me one thing that’s going on that you don’t know about. There – you can’t, can you?' (NW)
If Ankh-Morpork had a grid, there would have been gridlock. Since it did not it was, in the words of Sergeant Colon, ‘a case of no one being able to move because of everyone else’. Admittedly, this phrase, while accurate, did not have the same snap. (NW)
‘That’s very high-class talkin’, that is.’
‘I can hardly understand him!’
‘Shows it’s high class, Nobby. It wouldn’t be much good if people like you could understand him, right?' (Th)
'War, Nobby. Huh! What’s it good for?’ he said.
‘Dunno, sarge. Freeing slaves, maybe?’
‘Absol-Well, okay.’
‘Defending yourself from a totalitarian aggressor?’
‘All right, I’ll grant you that, but -’
‘Saving civilization against a horde of -’
‘It doesn’t do any good in the long run is what I’m saying, Nobby, if you’d listen for five seconds together,’ said Fred
Colon sharply.
‘Yeah, but in the long run what does, sarge?' (Th)
He kept the cell keys in a tin box in the bottom drawer of his desk, a long way out of reach of any stick, hand, dog, cunningly thrown belt or trained Klatchian monkey spider*.
*Making Fred Colon possibly unique in the annals of jail history. (Th)
He knew in his heart that spinning upside down around a pole wearing a costume you could floss with definitely was not Art, and being painted lying on a bed wearing nothing but a smile and a small bunch of grapes was good solid Art, but putting your finger on why this was the case was a bit tricky. (Th)
'We’ve had a burglareah, officer!’
‘Burglar rear?’ said Nobby.
‘Oh dear, sir,’ said Colon, putting a warning on the corporal’s shoulder. ‘Anything taken?’
‘Years, I rather think that’s hwhy it was a burglareah.' (Th)
'... young lady wearing two sequins and a bootlace comes up and says she’s a friend of yours! I did not know where to put my face!’
‘You’re not supposed to put it anywhere, sarge. They throw you out for that sort of thing,’ said Nobby. (Th)
'Dancing around without her vest and practic’ly no drawers on. Is that any way to behave?’
Nobby considered this deep metaphysical question from various angles. ‘Er…yes?’ he ventured. (Th)
Colon and Nobby had lived a long time in a dangerous occupation and the knew how not to be dead. To wit, by arriving when the bad guys had got away. (RS)
‘“Every bottle matured for up to seven minutes”,’quoted Colon. ‘“Ha’a drop afore ye go”, it says on the label. Damn right, too. I had a drop once, and I went all day.' (GG)
'Fine Art. It’s just men paintin’ pictures of young wimmin in the nudd. The altogether,’explained Colon the connoisseur. ‘The caretaker told me. Some of them don’t even have any paint on their brushes, you know.' (GG)
Sergeant Colon owed thirty years of happy marriage to the fact that Mrs. Colon worked all day and Sergeant Colon worked all night. They communicated by means of notes. He got her tea ready before he left at night, she left his breakfast nice and hot in the oven in the mornings. They had three grown-up children, all born, Vimes had assumed, as a result of extremely persuasive handwriting. (GG)
Colon didn’t reply. I wish Captain Vimes were here, he thought. He wouldn’t have known what to do either, but he’s got a much better vocabulary to be baffled in. (GG)
... Sergeant Colon did know the meaning of the word "irony". He thought it meant "sort of like iron". (RM)
'Well, Nobby, you’re what I might call a career soldier, right?’
‘‘S’right, Fred.’
‘How many dishonourable discharges have you had?’
‘Lots,’ said Nobby, proudly. ‘But I always puts a poultice on ‘em.' (MA)
'We are armed with the truth. What can harm us if we are armed with the truth?’
‘Well, a crossbow bolt can, e.g., go right through your eye and out the back of your head,’ said Sergeant Colon. (MA)
Sergeant Colon went back to his desk, surreptitiously opened his drawer and pulled out the book he was reading. It was called Animal Husbandry. He’d been a bit worried about the title - you heard stories about strange folk in the country - but it turned out to be nothing more than a book about how cattle and pigs and sheep should breed.
Now he was wondering where to get a book that taught them how to read. (FC)
'Why are you all covered in crap, Fred?’
‘Well, sir, you know that creek that you’re up without a paddle? It started there and it’s got worse, sir.' (FC)
Colon in particular had great difficulty with the idea that you went on investigating after someone had confessed. It outraged his training and experience. You got a confession and there it ended. You didn’t go around disbelievingpeople. You disbelieved people only when they said they were innocent. Only guilty people were trustworthy. (FC)
'Well, there’s…’ Colon racked his brains. ‘There’s al-gebra. That’s like sums with letters. For…for people whose brains aren’t clever enough for numbers, see?' (J)
'It's a far, far better thing I do now than I have ever done before,’ said Nobby.
‘Right,’ said Sergeant Colon. They walked on in silence for a while and he added: ‘O’ course, that’s not difficult.' (J)
Colon had always thought that heroes had some special kind of clockwork that made them go out and die famously for god, country, and apple pie, or whatever particular delicacy their mother made. It had never occurred to him that they might do it because they’d get yelled at if they didn’t. (J)
And Sergeant Colon once again knew a secret about bravery. It was arguable a kind of enhanced cowardice – the knowledge that while death may await you if you advance it will be a picnic compared to the certain living hell that awaits should you retreat. (J)
It wasn’t that he was illiterate, but Fred Colon did need a bit of a think and a run-up to tackle anything much longer than a list and he tended to get lost in any word that had more than three syllables. He was, in fact, functionally literate. That is, he thought of reading and writing like he thought about boots – you needed them, but they weren’t supposed to be fun, and you got suspicious about people who got a kick out of them. (FE)
Lord Vetinari paused. He found it difficult to talk to Frederick Colon. He dealt on a daily basis with people who treated conversation as a complex game, and with Colon he had to keep on adjusting his mind in case he overshot. (FE)
'I don’t know how to do officering.’
‘No one knows how to do officering, Fred. That’s why they’re officers. If they knew anything, they’d be sergeants. (FE)
The little flickering part of his brain that was still sparking coherent thought through the fog of mind-numbing terror that filled Colon’s head was telling him that he was so far out of his depth that the fish had lights on their noses. (FE)
'People get mistaken about old Fred, sir. He’s a man with a solid bottom to his character.’
‘He’s got a solid bottom to his bottom, ca- Mister Ironfoundersson.’
‘I mean he doesn’t flap in an emergency, sir.’
‘He doesn’t do anything in an emergency,’ said the Patrician. ‘Except possibly hide.' (FE)
A penny could drop through wet cement faster than it could drop for Fred Colon. (FE)
'... there’s a lot goes on that we don’t know about.’
‘Like what, exactly?’ retorted Colon. ‘Name me one thing that’s going on that you don’t know about. There – you can’t, can you?' (NW)
If Ankh-Morpork had a grid, there would have been gridlock. Since it did not it was, in the words of Sergeant Colon, ‘a case of no one being able to move because of everyone else’. Admittedly, this phrase, while accurate, did not have the same snap. (NW)
‘That’s very high-class talkin’, that is.’
‘I can hardly understand him!’
‘Shows it’s high class, Nobby. It wouldn’t be much good if people like you could understand him, right?' (Th)
'War, Nobby. Huh! What’s it good for?’ he said.
‘Dunno, sarge. Freeing slaves, maybe?’
‘Absol-Well, okay.’
‘Defending yourself from a totalitarian aggressor?’
‘All right, I’ll grant you that, but -’
‘Saving civilization against a horde of -’
‘It doesn’t do any good in the long run is what I’m saying, Nobby, if you’d listen for five seconds together,’ said Fred
Colon sharply.
‘Yeah, but in the long run what does, sarge?' (Th)
He kept the cell keys in a tin box in the bottom drawer of his desk, a long way out of reach of any stick, hand, dog, cunningly thrown belt or trained Klatchian monkey spider*.
*Making Fred Colon possibly unique in the annals of jail history. (Th)
He knew in his heart that spinning upside down around a pole wearing a costume you could floss with definitely was not Art, and being painted lying on a bed wearing nothing but a smile and a small bunch of grapes was good solid Art, but putting your finger on why this was the case was a bit tricky. (Th)
'We’ve had a burglareah, officer!’
‘Burglar rear?’ said Nobby.
‘Oh dear, sir,’ said Colon, putting a warning on the corporal’s shoulder. ‘Anything taken?’
‘Years, I rather think that’s hwhy it was a burglareah.' (Th)
'... young lady wearing two sequins and a bootlace comes up and says she’s a friend of yours! I did not know where to put my face!’
‘You’re not supposed to put it anywhere, sarge. They throw you out for that sort of thing,’ said Nobby. (Th)
'Dancing around without her vest and practic’ly no drawers on. Is that any way to behave?’
Nobby considered this deep metaphysical question from various angles. ‘Er…yes?’ he ventured. (Th)
Colon and Nobby had lived a long time in a dangerous occupation and the knew how not to be dead. To wit, by arriving when the bad guys had got away. (RS)