... upper class etiquette in Ankh-Morpork held that, while you could snub your friends any time you felt like it, it was the height of bad form to be impolite to your worst enemy. (NW)
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A city like Ankh-Morpork was only two meals away from chaos at the best of times. (NW)
It wasn’t that the city was lawless. It had plenty of laws. It just didn’t offer many opportunities not to break them. (NW)
There is no such thing as a whisper in Ankh-Morpork when the sum involved had the word 'thousand' in it somewhere; people could hear you think kind of money in Ankh Morpork. (SM)
The people of Ankh-Morpork liked novelty. The trouble was that they didn’t like novelty for long. (MP)
There was not a lot that could be done to make Morpork a worse place. A direct hit by meteorite, for example, would count as gentrification. (P)
It was said that everything in Ankh-Morpork was for sale except for the beer and the women, both of which one merely hired. (S)
Throat took a deep breath of the thick city air. Real air. You would have to go a long way to find air that was realer than Ankh-Morpork air. You could tell just by breathing it that other people had been doing the same thing for thousands of years. (MP)
'It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. You think Dopey the Mutt there would last five minutes in Ankh-Morpork? He set one paw in some o’ the streets, he’s three sets of fur gloves an’ Crispy Fried No. 27 at the nearest Klatchian all-night carry-out.' (MP)
... the people of Quirm called the people of Ankh-Morpork sphincters, mostly for fun. Mostly. (RS)
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)
She knew about old money, which was somehow hallowed by the fact that people had hug on to it for years, and she knew about new money, which seemed to be being made by all these upstarts that were flooding into the city these days. But under her powdered bosom she was an Ankh-Morpork shopkeeper, and knew that the best kind of money was the sort that was in her hand rather than someone else’s. The best kind of money was mine, not yours. (Ma)
By now the whole of downtown Morpork was alight, and the richer and worthier citizens of Ankh on the far bank were bravely responding to the situation by feverishly demolishing the bridges. (COM)
People came to Ankh-Morpork to seek their fortune. Unfortunately, other people sought it too. (SM)
In the night time streets of Ankh-Morpork caution is an absolute. There is no such thing as moderately cautious. You are either very cautious, or you are dead. You might be walking around and breathing, but you’re dead, just the same. (GG)
Ankh-Morpork has always had a fine tradition of welcoming people of all races, colours and shapes, if they have money to spend and a return ticket. (RM)
But some did make it to the great melting pot called Ankh-Morpork. They arrived with no money– sailors charged what the market would bear, which was everything – but they had a mad gleam in their eye and they opened shops and restaurants and worked twenty-four hours a day. People called this the Ankh-Morpork Dream (of making piles of cash in a place where your death was unlikely to be a matter of public policy). And it was dreamed all the stronger by people who didn’t sleep. (IT)
'You’ll be upholding the honour of Ankh-Morpork, remember!’
‘Really, dear? What shall I do with the other hand?’ said Vimes ... (Th) According to the history books, the decisive battle that ended the Ankh-Morpork Civil War was fought between two handfuls of bone-weary men in a swamp early one misty morning and, although one side claimed victory, ended with a practical score of Humans 0, ravens 1,000, which is the case with most battles. (MP)
She smiled at him.
And then it arose and struck Vimes that, in her own special category, she was quite beautiful; this was the category of all the women, in his entire life, who had ever thought he was worth smiling at. She couldn’t do worse, but then, he couldn’t do better. So maybe it balanced out. She wasn’t getting any younger but then, who was? And she had style and money and common-sense and self-assurance and all the things that he didn’t, and she had opened her heart, and if you let her she could engulf you; the woman was a city. And eventually, under siege, you did what Ankh-Morpork had always done – unbar the gates, let the conquerors in, and make them your own. (GG) ... everyone had been so dead set against any form of fire brigade, reasoning – with impeccable Ankh-Morpork logic – that any bunch of men who were paid to put out fires would naturally see to it that there was a plentiful supply of fires to put out. (TT)
Phrenology, as everyone knows, is a way of reading someone’s character, aptitude and abilities by examining the bumps and hollows on their head. Therefore –according to the kind of logical thinking that characterizes the Ankh-Morpork mind – it should be possible to mould someone’s character by giving them carefully graded bumps in all the right places. You can go into a shop and order an artistic temperament with a tendency to introspection and a side order of hysteria. What you actually get is hit on the head with a selection of different size mallets, but it creates employment and keeps the money in circulation, and that’s the main thing. (MA)
'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) The people of Ankh-Morpork had a straightforward, no-nonsense approach to entertainment, and while they were looking forward to seeing a dragon slain, they’d be happy to settle instead for seeing someone being baked alive in his own armor. (GG)
It was the usual Ankh-Morpork mob in times of crisis; half of them were here to complain, a quarter of them were here to watch the other half, and the remainder were here to rob, importune or sell hot dogs to the rest. (GG)
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