Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett
It is in the nature of the universe that the person who always keeps you waiting ten minutes will, on the day you are ten minutes tardy have been ready ten minutes earlier and will make a point of not mentioning this. (FE)
The young woman stood on a corner in the Shades. Her general stance indicated that she was, in the specialised patois of the area, a lady-in-waiting. To be more precise, a lady-in-waiting for Mr Right, or at least Mr Right Amount. (FE)
'... you know what people call men who wear wigs and gowns, don't you?'
'Yes, miss.'
'You do?'
'Yes, miss. Lawyers, miss.' (FE)
Dwarf bread was made as a meal of last resort and also as a weapon and a currency. (FE)
'I don't know a lot about diplomacy, but I do know it's never just about one thing.' (FE)
You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was 'But we've always done it this way.' A million dead people can't have been wrong, can they? (FE)
Sam Vimes could parallel-process. Most husbands can. They learn to follow their own line of thought while at the same time listening to what their wives say. And the listening is important, because at any time they could be challenged and must be ready to quote the last sentence in full. A vital additional skill is being able to scan the dialogue for telltale phrases, such as ‘and they can deliver it tomorrow’ or ‘so I’ve invited them for dinner’ or ‘they can do it in blue, really quite cheaply’. (FE)
He knew he had hidden depths. There was nothing in them that he'd like to see float to the surface. (FE)
He was the most civilized man she’d ever met. Not a gentleman, thank goodness, but a gentle man. (FE)
It was so thickly forested, so creased by little mountain ranges and beset by rivers, that it was largely unmapped. It was mostly unexplored, too*.
*At least by proper explorers. Just living there doesn’t count. (FE)
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. (FE)
... the midden has hit the windmill...' (FE)
It often seemed to him that Leonard, who had pushed intellect into hitherto undiscovered uplands, had discovered there large and specialised pockets of stupidity. (FE)
.... kingship was a bit like a grand piano - you could put a cover over it, but you could still see what shape it was underneath. (FE)
‘Tell me, Leonard,’ he said. ‘Has it ever occurred to you that one day wars will be fought with brains?’
Leonard picked up his cup of coffee. ‘Oh dear. Won’t that be rather messy?’ he said. (FE)
‘Can you think of any reason why someone would kill him?’
The troll scratched his head. ‘Well, ‘cos dey wanted him dead, I reckon. Dat’s a good reason.’ (FE)
'Was there a third party?'
'I dunno. I never get invited to dem fings.' (FE)
Carrot was very keen on modernizing the watch, and in some strange way sending a message via the tube was so much more modern than simply opening the door and shouting, which is what Mr Vimes did. (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)
‘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)
A penny could drop through wet cement faster than it could drop for Fred Colon. (FE)
There was a gentle snore from Lady Sybil. A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores. (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)
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)
Vimes hated and despised the privileges of rank, but they had this to be said for them: at least they meant that you could hate and despise them in comfort. (FE)
‘There has never been an authenticated case of an unprovoked wolf attacking an adult human being,’ said Carrot. They were both huddling under his cloak.
And after a while Gaspode said, ‘An’ that’s good, is it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We-ell, o’course us dogs only has little brains, but it seems to me that what you just said was pretty much the same as sayin’ “no unprovokin’ adult human bein’ has ever returned to tell the tale,” right? I mean, your wolf has just got to make sure they kill people in quiet places where no one’ll ever know, yes?’ (FE)
Killing a stranger without malice or satisfaction, other than the craftsman’s pride in a job well done, is such a rare talent that armies spend months trying to instill it into their young soldiers. (FE)
‘Gaspode’s the name,’ barked Gaspode, with insane cheerfulness. ‘‘m a dog. That’s a kind of wolf, sort of thing. So, what’s your name, then?
‘Go avay.’
‘No offence meant. ‘ere, I heard tell wolves mate for life, right?’
‘Vell?’
‘Wish I could.’ (FE)
‘…a lot of diplomacy lies in appearing to be a lot more stupid than you are. You've made a good start, Your Grace.’ (FE)
... if things went all pear-shaped in a hurry, one small dog had all the survival chances of a chocolate kettle on a very hot stove. (FE)
'I've got very odd thumbs when it comes to pricking.' (FE)
Dogs had a much easier sex life than humans, Gaspode decided. That was something to look forward to, if he ever managed to have one. (FE)
The really odd thing about human sex, though, was the way it went on even when people were fully clothed and sitting on opposite sides of the fire. (FE)
‘You’re so…unthinkingly nice about it! And sooner or later a girl can have too much nice!’ (FE)
People in drought-stricken areas would have paid good money to have Igor pronounce ‘sausages’. (FE)
‘Here, a butcher can be hanged if his sausages are not all meat, and at that it must be from a named domesticated animal, and I perhaps should add that by named I do not mean that it should have been called ‘Spot’ or ‘Ginger’…’ (FE)
...there was probably an expensive problem here, so the guards were inclined to leave it to someone who earned more money than them. (FE)
Ah, he’s already lied to me, thought Vimes. We’re being diplomatic. (FE)
‘When people say “We must move with the times,” they really mean “You must do it my way.”’ (FE)
'Dwarfs are very argumentative, sir. Of course, many wouldn't agree.' (FE)
And the ones that survived went on to survive again, because surviving is a matter of practice. (FE)
Well, he thought, so this is diplomacy. It’s like lying, only to a better class of people. (FE)
'Money doesn't need to talk, it merely has to listen.' (FE)
‘Dem diplomatics all want you to come for drinky-poos an’ stories about chickens,’ the troll added helpfully.
‘Cocktails, I think you’ll find,’ said Vimes… (FE)
...Sam Vimes had learned a lot from watching Lady Sybil. She didn’t mean to act like that, but she’d been born to it, into a class that had always behaved this way: you went through the world as if there was no possibility that anyone would stop you or question you, and most of the time that’s exactly what didn’t happen. (FE)
Sam Vimes was an uncomplicated man when it came to what poets called ‘the lists of love’. He’d noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination – but at the end of the day they’d settle quite happily for egg and chips, if it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato. (FE)
It wasn’t that the dwarfs ignored sex, it really didn’t seem important to them. If humans thought the same way, his job would be a lot simpler. (FE)
Vimes had once discussed the Ephebian idea of ‘democracy’ with Carrot and had been rather interested in the idea that everyone* had a vote until he found out that while he, Vimes, would have a vote, there was no way in the rules that anyone could prevent Nobby Nobbs from having one as well. Vimes could see the flaw there straight away.
*Apart from the women, children, slaves, idiots and people who weren’t really our kind of people. (FE)
‘I am convinced of your innocence, of course.’
‘Really? Me too,’ growled Vimes. ‘In fact I’m so convinced of my innocence I don’t even know what it is I’m innocent of!’ (FE)
The news that they have nothing to fear is guaranteed to strike terror into the hearts of innocents everywhere. (FE)
Freedom could get you killed. (FE)
Vimes was hazy on rural issues, but weren't there supposed to be charcoal burners, woodcutters and ... he tried to think ... little girls taking goodies to granny? The stories Vimes had learned as a kid suggested that all forests were full of bustle, activity and the occasional scream. (FE)
Didn’t they do something like this up in Nothingfjord? He’d heard stories. They had hot steamy baths and then ran around in the snow hitting one another with birch logs, didn’t they? Or something. There was nothing really daft that some foreigner wouldn’t do somewhere. (FE)
‘Strength is good,’ said Wolf, folding Vimes’s clothes neatly. ‘But like some other good things, it only remains good if it is not possessed by too many people.’ (FE)
…a werewolf can have a bad hair day all over. (FE)
He pushed his luck. It was clearly too weak to move by itself. (FE)
‘Humans hate werewolves because they see the wolf in us, but wolves hate us because they see the human inside - and I don’t blame them!’ (FE)
The chaffing qualities of frozen underwear can be seriously underestimated. (FE)
‘I’m going to die?’
POSSIBLY.
‘Possibly? You turn up when people are possibly going to die?’
OH, YES. IT’S QUITE THE NEW THING. IT’S BECAUSE OF THE UNCERTAINTY PRINICIPLE.
‘What’s that?’
I’M NOT SURE.
‘That’s very helpful.’
I THINK IT MEANS PEOPLE MAY OR MAY NOT DIE. I HAVE TO SAY IT’S PLAYING HOB WITH MY SCHEDULE, BUT I TRY TO KEEP UP WITH MODERN THOUGHT. (FE)
It wasn’t just that his brain was writing cheques that his body couldn’t cash. It had gone beyond that. Now his feet were borrowing money that his legs hadn’t got, and his back muscles were looking for loose change under the sofa cushions. (FE)
‘Ah, this must be the famous Ankh-Morpork sense of humour, yes?’
‘No, that was just irony,’ Vimes shouted, still looking for an arboreal escape route. ‘You’ll know when we’ve got on to the famous Ankh-Morpork sense of humour when I start talking about breasts and farting, you smug bastard!’ (FE)
‘It wasn’t until ten years ago that they replaced trial by ordeal here with trial by lawyer, and that was only because they found that lawyers were nastier.’ (FE)
‘…being a short dog in deep snow is not good for the ol’ wossnames…’ (FE)
... what you were made as wasn't what you had to be or what you might become ... (FE)
…you found that what you really wanted was power and there were much politer ways of getting it. And then you realized that power was a bauble. Any thug had power. The true prize was control. Lord Vetinari knew that. When heavy weights were balanced on the scales, the trick was to know where to place your thumb.
And all control started with the self. (FE)
Now this he understood. He was never at ease with politics, where good and bad were just, apparently, two ways of looking at the same thing or, at least, were described like that by the people who were on the side Vimes thought of as ‘bad’.
It was all too complicated and, where it was complicated, it meant that someone was trying to fool you. But on the street, in hot pursuit, it was all so clear. Someone was going to be still standing at the end of the chase, and all you had to concentrate on was making sure it was you. (FE)
He was never at ease with politics, where good and bad were just, apparently, two ways of looking at the same thing or, at least, were described like that by the people who were on the side Vimes thought of as 'bad'. (FE)
‘You’re good at anger, your grace. You save it up for when you need it.’ (FE)
The young woman stood on a corner in the Shades. Her general stance indicated that she was, in the specialised patois of the area, a lady-in-waiting. To be more precise, a lady-in-waiting for Mr Right, or at least Mr Right Amount. (FE)
'... you know what people call men who wear wigs and gowns, don't you?'
'Yes, miss.'
'You do?'
'Yes, miss. Lawyers, miss.' (FE)
Dwarf bread was made as a meal of last resort and also as a weapon and a currency. (FE)
'I don't know a lot about diplomacy, but I do know it's never just about one thing.' (FE)
You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was 'But we've always done it this way.' A million dead people can't have been wrong, can they? (FE)
Sam Vimes could parallel-process. Most husbands can. They learn to follow their own line of thought while at the same time listening to what their wives say. And the listening is important, because at any time they could be challenged and must be ready to quote the last sentence in full. A vital additional skill is being able to scan the dialogue for telltale phrases, such as ‘and they can deliver it tomorrow’ or ‘so I’ve invited them for dinner’ or ‘they can do it in blue, really quite cheaply’. (FE)
He knew he had hidden depths. There was nothing in them that he'd like to see float to the surface. (FE)
He was the most civilized man she’d ever met. Not a gentleman, thank goodness, but a gentle man. (FE)
It was so thickly forested, so creased by little mountain ranges and beset by rivers, that it was largely unmapped. It was mostly unexplored, too*.
*At least by proper explorers. Just living there doesn’t count. (FE)
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. (FE)
... the midden has hit the windmill...' (FE)
It often seemed to him that Leonard, who had pushed intellect into hitherto undiscovered uplands, had discovered there large and specialised pockets of stupidity. (FE)
.... kingship was a bit like a grand piano - you could put a cover over it, but you could still see what shape it was underneath. (FE)
‘Tell me, Leonard,’ he said. ‘Has it ever occurred to you that one day wars will be fought with brains?’
Leonard picked up his cup of coffee. ‘Oh dear. Won’t that be rather messy?’ he said. (FE)
‘Can you think of any reason why someone would kill him?’
The troll scratched his head. ‘Well, ‘cos dey wanted him dead, I reckon. Dat’s a good reason.’ (FE)
'Was there a third party?'
'I dunno. I never get invited to dem fings.' (FE)
Carrot was very keen on modernizing the watch, and in some strange way sending a message via the tube was so much more modern than simply opening the door and shouting, which is what Mr Vimes did. (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)
‘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)
A penny could drop through wet cement faster than it could drop for Fred Colon. (FE)
There was a gentle snore from Lady Sybil. A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores. (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)
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)
Vimes hated and despised the privileges of rank, but they had this to be said for them: at least they meant that you could hate and despise them in comfort. (FE)
‘There has never been an authenticated case of an unprovoked wolf attacking an adult human being,’ said Carrot. They were both huddling under his cloak.
And after a while Gaspode said, ‘An’ that’s good, is it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We-ell, o’course us dogs only has little brains, but it seems to me that what you just said was pretty much the same as sayin’ “no unprovokin’ adult human bein’ has ever returned to tell the tale,” right? I mean, your wolf has just got to make sure they kill people in quiet places where no one’ll ever know, yes?’ (FE)
Killing a stranger without malice or satisfaction, other than the craftsman’s pride in a job well done, is such a rare talent that armies spend months trying to instill it into their young soldiers. (FE)
‘Gaspode’s the name,’ barked Gaspode, with insane cheerfulness. ‘‘m a dog. That’s a kind of wolf, sort of thing. So, what’s your name, then?
‘Go avay.’
‘No offence meant. ‘ere, I heard tell wolves mate for life, right?’
‘Vell?’
‘Wish I could.’ (FE)
‘…a lot of diplomacy lies in appearing to be a lot more stupid than you are. You've made a good start, Your Grace.’ (FE)
... if things went all pear-shaped in a hurry, one small dog had all the survival chances of a chocolate kettle on a very hot stove. (FE)
'I've got very odd thumbs when it comes to pricking.' (FE)
Dogs had a much easier sex life than humans, Gaspode decided. That was something to look forward to, if he ever managed to have one. (FE)
The really odd thing about human sex, though, was the way it went on even when people were fully clothed and sitting on opposite sides of the fire. (FE)
‘You’re so…unthinkingly nice about it! And sooner or later a girl can have too much nice!’ (FE)
People in drought-stricken areas would have paid good money to have Igor pronounce ‘sausages’. (FE)
‘Here, a butcher can be hanged if his sausages are not all meat, and at that it must be from a named domesticated animal, and I perhaps should add that by named I do not mean that it should have been called ‘Spot’ or ‘Ginger’…’ (FE)
...there was probably an expensive problem here, so the guards were inclined to leave it to someone who earned more money than them. (FE)
Ah, he’s already lied to me, thought Vimes. We’re being diplomatic. (FE)
‘When people say “We must move with the times,” they really mean “You must do it my way.”’ (FE)
'Dwarfs are very argumentative, sir. Of course, many wouldn't agree.' (FE)
And the ones that survived went on to survive again, because surviving is a matter of practice. (FE)
Well, he thought, so this is diplomacy. It’s like lying, only to a better class of people. (FE)
'Money doesn't need to talk, it merely has to listen.' (FE)
‘Dem diplomatics all want you to come for drinky-poos an’ stories about chickens,’ the troll added helpfully.
‘Cocktails, I think you’ll find,’ said Vimes… (FE)
...Sam Vimes had learned a lot from watching Lady Sybil. She didn’t mean to act like that, but she’d been born to it, into a class that had always behaved this way: you went through the world as if there was no possibility that anyone would stop you or question you, and most of the time that’s exactly what didn’t happen. (FE)
Sam Vimes was an uncomplicated man when it came to what poets called ‘the lists of love’. He’d noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination – but at the end of the day they’d settle quite happily for egg and chips, if it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato. (FE)
It wasn’t that the dwarfs ignored sex, it really didn’t seem important to them. If humans thought the same way, his job would be a lot simpler. (FE)
Vimes had once discussed the Ephebian idea of ‘democracy’ with Carrot and had been rather interested in the idea that everyone* had a vote until he found out that while he, Vimes, would have a vote, there was no way in the rules that anyone could prevent Nobby Nobbs from having one as well. Vimes could see the flaw there straight away.
*Apart from the women, children, slaves, idiots and people who weren’t really our kind of people. (FE)
‘I am convinced of your innocence, of course.’
‘Really? Me too,’ growled Vimes. ‘In fact I’m so convinced of my innocence I don’t even know what it is I’m innocent of!’ (FE)
The news that they have nothing to fear is guaranteed to strike terror into the hearts of innocents everywhere. (FE)
Freedom could get you killed. (FE)
Vimes was hazy on rural issues, but weren't there supposed to be charcoal burners, woodcutters and ... he tried to think ... little girls taking goodies to granny? The stories Vimes had learned as a kid suggested that all forests were full of bustle, activity and the occasional scream. (FE)
Didn’t they do something like this up in Nothingfjord? He’d heard stories. They had hot steamy baths and then ran around in the snow hitting one another with birch logs, didn’t they? Or something. There was nothing really daft that some foreigner wouldn’t do somewhere. (FE)
‘Strength is good,’ said Wolf, folding Vimes’s clothes neatly. ‘But like some other good things, it only remains good if it is not possessed by too many people.’ (FE)
…a werewolf can have a bad hair day all over. (FE)
He pushed his luck. It was clearly too weak to move by itself. (FE)
‘Humans hate werewolves because they see the wolf in us, but wolves hate us because they see the human inside - and I don’t blame them!’ (FE)
The chaffing qualities of frozen underwear can be seriously underestimated. (FE)
‘I’m going to die?’
POSSIBLY.
‘Possibly? You turn up when people are possibly going to die?’
OH, YES. IT’S QUITE THE NEW THING. IT’S BECAUSE OF THE UNCERTAINTY PRINICIPLE.
‘What’s that?’
I’M NOT SURE.
‘That’s very helpful.’
I THINK IT MEANS PEOPLE MAY OR MAY NOT DIE. I HAVE TO SAY IT’S PLAYING HOB WITH MY SCHEDULE, BUT I TRY TO KEEP UP WITH MODERN THOUGHT. (FE)
It wasn’t just that his brain was writing cheques that his body couldn’t cash. It had gone beyond that. Now his feet were borrowing money that his legs hadn’t got, and his back muscles were looking for loose change under the sofa cushions. (FE)
‘Ah, this must be the famous Ankh-Morpork sense of humour, yes?’
‘No, that was just irony,’ Vimes shouted, still looking for an arboreal escape route. ‘You’ll know when we’ve got on to the famous Ankh-Morpork sense of humour when I start talking about breasts and farting, you smug bastard!’ (FE)
‘It wasn’t until ten years ago that they replaced trial by ordeal here with trial by lawyer, and that was only because they found that lawyers were nastier.’ (FE)
‘…being a short dog in deep snow is not good for the ol’ wossnames…’ (FE)
... what you were made as wasn't what you had to be or what you might become ... (FE)
…you found that what you really wanted was power and there were much politer ways of getting it. And then you realized that power was a bauble. Any thug had power. The true prize was control. Lord Vetinari knew that. When heavy weights were balanced on the scales, the trick was to know where to place your thumb.
And all control started with the self. (FE)
Now this he understood. He was never at ease with politics, where good and bad were just, apparently, two ways of looking at the same thing or, at least, were described like that by the people who were on the side Vimes thought of as ‘bad’.
It was all too complicated and, where it was complicated, it meant that someone was trying to fool you. But on the street, in hot pursuit, it was all so clear. Someone was going to be still standing at the end of the chase, and all you had to concentrate on was making sure it was you. (FE)
He was never at ease with politics, where good and bad were just, apparently, two ways of looking at the same thing or, at least, were described like that by the people who were on the side Vimes thought of as 'bad'. (FE)
‘You’re good at anger, your grace. You save it up for when you need it.’ (FE)
