Thud by Terry Pratchett
…as the dwarfs say, where there is trouble you will always find a troll. (Th)
It started out as a perfect day. It would soon enough be an imperfect one, he knew, but just for these few minutes it was possible to pretend that it wouldn’t be. (Th)
‘…I couldn’t tell you even if I knew, because of zer Freedom of zer Press.’
‘Freedom to pour oil on a flame, d’you mean?’ Vimes demanded.
‘That’s freedom for you,’ said Otto. No vun said it vas nice.’ (Th)
Nobby was human, just like many other officers. It was just that he was the only one who had to carry a certificate to prove it. (Th)
‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodies? Your grace.’
‘I know that one,’ said Vimes. Who watches the watchmen? Me, Mr Pessimal.’
‘Ah, but who watches you, your grace?’ said the inspector, with a brief smile.
‘I do that too. All the time,’ said Vimes. (Th)
…he talked about history and destiny and all the other words that always got trotted out to put a gloss on slaughter. It was heady stuff, except that brains weren’t involved. (Th)
‘…this 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)
‘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)
…it was always nice to look at the pictures of big pink women with no clothes on. (Th)
‘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)
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)
‘… 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?’ (Th)
Vampires were fine right up until the point where, suddenly, they weren’t. (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)
Vimes had never got on with any game more complex than darts. Chess in particular had always annoyed him. It was the dumb way the pawns went off and slaughtered their fellow pawns while the kings lounged about doing nothing that always got him; if only the pawns united, maybe talked the rooks round, the whole board could’ve been a republic in a dozen moves. (Th)
‘To see the light is to be blinded. Do you not know that in darkness the eyes open wider?’ (Th)
Vimes maintained three tray: In, Out and Shake It All About; the last one was where he put everything he was too busy, angry, tired or bewildered to do anything about. (Th)
…a smirk makes a subtle noise if you’re listening for it. (Th)
Vimes had got around to a Clean Desk policy. It was a Clean Floor strategy that eluded him at the moment. (Th)
‘I am, therefore I think.’ (Th)
‘…if dere was a PhD in bein’ fick, youse wouldn’t be able to find a pencil.’ (Th)
‘What’s the worst they can do to me?’
‘Rip off your head, grind you to mince and make soup from your bones, sir,’ said Detritus promptly. (Th)
‘I bin askin’ questions.’
‘So are we.’
‘I bin askin’ questions more louder,’ said the troll. ‘I get lotsa answers. Sometimes I am getting’ answers to questions I ain’t even asked yet.’ (Th)
And the trouble with clues, as Mister Vimes always said, was that they were so easy to make. You could walk around with a pocket full of the bloody things. (Th)
People who probably weren’t bad could kill you. (Th)
‘Didn’t know what’d hit ’em, eh?’ said Vimes.
Detritus looked mildly offended at this. ‘Oh no, sir,’ he said, ‘I made sure they knew I hit ’em.’ (Th)
The nose is also the only organ that can see backwards in time. (Th)
…ballet had to be Art even though it was a bit short on plinths and urns, on account of it being expensive to look at… (Th)
Coffee was only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your slightly older self. (Th)
‘What would you do if I asked you an outright question, Vimes?’
‘I’d tell you an outright lie, sir.’ (Th)
‘A wise ruler thinks twice before directing violence against someone because he does not approve of what they say.’
Once again, Vimes did not comment. He himself directed violence daily and with a certain amount of enthusiasm against people because he didn’t approve of them saying things like ‘Give me all your money’ or ‘What are you going to do about it, copper?’ But perhaps rulers had to think differently. (Th)
‘Do you want a lawyer?’
‘No, I ate already.’ (Th)
‘….when we talk to you, do you want someone to be on your side?’
‘Yes, please. Everyone,’ said Brick promptly. (Th)
‘…it was more a case o’ mis-taken-iden-tity,’ Detritus protested.
‘You mean he didn’t know who I was?’ said Vimes. ‘That didn’t seem -’
‘Nosir. He didn’t know who he was, sir.’ (Th)
‘You can talk the dwarf out of the dark, but you can’t take the dark out of the dwarf.’ (Th)
‘Who knows what old evil exists in the deep darkness under the mountains? There’s no darkness like it.’ (Th)
Sybil’s female forebears had valiantly backed up their husbands as distant embassies were besieged, had given birth on a camel or in the shade of a stricken elephant, had handed around the little gold chocolates while trolls were trying to break into the compound, or had merely stayed at home and nursed such bits of husbands and sons as made it back from endless little wars. The result was a species of woman who, when duty called, turned into solid steel. (Th)
When people are trying to kill you, it means you’re doing something right. It was a rule Sam had lived by. (Th)
‘My gods, man, you’re covered in blood!’ Sybil burst out.
‘Yes, your ladyship,’ said Willikins smoothly. ‘May I say in mitigation that it is not, in fact, mine.’ (Th)
‘Ramkins have never run away from anything’ Sybil declared.
‘Vimeses have run like hell all the time,’ said Vimes, too diplomatic to mention the aforesaid ancestors who came home in pieces. ‘That means you fight where you want to fight.’ (Th)
Usually she got her own way and he was happy to give it to her, but the unspoken agreement was that when he really insisted, she listened. It’s a married couple thing. (Th)
It was a brave female dwarf who advertised the fact, in a society where the wearing of even a decent, floor-length, leather-and-chain-mail dress instead of leggings positioned you, on the moral map, on the far side of Tawnee and her hard-working co-workers at the Pink Pussy Cat Club. But introduce a gurgling kid into the room and you could spot them instantly, for all their fearsome clang and beards you could lose a rat in. (Th)
‘Some of us think that darkness isn’t a depth, it’s a state of mind.’ (Th)
Beating people up in little rooms…he knew where that led. And if you did it for a good reason, you’d do it for a bad one. You couldn’t say ‘We’re the good guys’ and do bad-guy things. (Th)
‘I used to be good at tiddley-rats* when I was a nipper…’
*A famous Ankh-Morpork gutter game, second only to Dead Rat conkers. Turd Races in the gutter appear to have died out, despite an attempt to take them upmarket with the name poosticks. (Th)
…she was pleasant easygoing company, if you avoided allusion, irony, sarcasm, repartee, satire and words longer than ‘chicken’. (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)
‘This gentleman is here to make sure we don’t use the rubber truncheon, sergeant.’
‘Didn’t know we had one Mister Vimes,’ said Fred.
‘We haven’t,’ said Vimes. ‘No point in hitting ’em with something that bounces, eh?’ (Th)
Fun. What is it good for?
It’s not pleasure, joy, delight, enjoyment or glee. It’s a hollow, cruel, vicious little bastard, a word for something sought with an hilarious couple of wobbly antennae on your head and the words ‘I want It!’ on your shirt, and it tends to leave you waking up with your face stuck to the street. (Th)
‘Sometimes you need to flooze regularly…’ (Th)
Sam Vimes looked panicky, a figure of authority caught once again in a domestic situation. (Th)
‘She used to say that a girl who knew how to use a set square and protractor would go a long way in life.’ (Th)
‘Shoes, men, coffins…never accept the first one you see.’ (Th)
‘I don’t gallivant! I’ve never gallivanted. I don’t know how to vant! I don’t even have a galli!’ (Th)
‘Taking a force there now could have far-reaching consequences, Vimes!’
‘Good! You told me to drag them into the light! As far as they’re concerned, I am far-reaching consequences!’ (Th)
‘…spies? I thought we were chums with the Low King!’
‘Of course we are,’ said Vetinari. ‘And the more we know about each other, the friendlier we shall remain. We’d hardly bother to spy on our enemies. What would be the point?’ (Th)
‘Given, then, a contest between an invisible and very powerful quasi-demonic thing of pure vengeance on the one hand, and the commander on the other, where would you wager, say…one dollar?’
‘I wouldn’t, sir. That looks like one that would go to the judges.’ (Th)
Home was where you had to feel safe. If you didn’t feel safe, it wasn’t home. (Th)
‘…and that’s why I don’t like magic, captain. ’Cos it’s magic. You can’t ask questions, it’s magic. It doesn’t explain anything, it’s magic. You don’t know where it comes from, it’s magic! That’s what I don’t like about magic, it does everything by magic!’ (Th)
‘It’s one of the lesser-known failings of the vampire. No one knows why. It goes with having big windows and easily torn curtains. A sort of undeath-wish, you might say. However clever they are, they can’t resist thinking that no one will recognize their name if they spell it backwards.’ (Th)
Detritus was comforting Brick, who’d not picked a good day to go cold turkey, it was turning out to be frozen roc. (Th)
They all seemed to have names likes Bunny or Bubbles, they kept in touch meticulously, they’d all married influential and powerful men, they all hugged one another when they met and went on about the good old days in Form 3b or whatever, and if they acted together, they could probably run the world or, it occurred to Vimes, might already be doing so.
They were Ladies Who Organize. (Th)
…Ladies Who Organize are seldom thrown by guests arriving unexpectedly early. (Th)
…a wide, mist-filled, thundering cauldron of white water that elsewhere would have a name like Devil’s Cauldron but here was nameless because this was Koom Valley and for Koom Valley there just weren’t enough devils and they didn’t have enough cauldrons. (Th)
HAS IT EVER STRUCK YOU THAT THE CONCEPT OF A WRITTEN NARRATIVE IS SOMEWHAT STRANGE? Said Death. (Th)
…YOU ARE HAVING A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE, WHICH INESCAPABLY MEANS THAT I MUST UNDERGO A NEAR VIMES EXPERIENCE. (Th)
IT IS A MADE-UP STORY. VERY STRANGE. ALL ONE NEEDS DO IS TURN TO THE LAST PAGE AND THE ANWER IS THERE. WHAT, THEREFORE, IS THE POINT OF DELIBERATEDLY NOT KNOWING? (Th)
And his mind worked fast, flying in emergency supplies of common sense, as human minds do, to construct a huge anchor in sanity and prove that what had happened hadn’t really happened and, if it had happened, hadn’t happened much. (Th)
‘What kind of creature defines itself by hatred?’ (Th)
…that was a bit too pat, but nature can be like that. Sometimes you got sunsets so pink that they had no style at all. (Th)
‘You’ll be upholding the honour of Ankh-Morpork, remember!’
‘Really, dear? What shall I do with the other hand?’ said Vimes… (Th)
‘Peace comes with a rather large bill, captain.’
‘And a few dividends, sir,’ said Carrot. (Th)
It started out as a perfect day. It would soon enough be an imperfect one, he knew, but just for these few minutes it was possible to pretend that it wouldn’t be. (Th)
‘…I couldn’t tell you even if I knew, because of zer Freedom of zer Press.’
‘Freedom to pour oil on a flame, d’you mean?’ Vimes demanded.
‘That’s freedom for you,’ said Otto. No vun said it vas nice.’ (Th)
Nobby was human, just like many other officers. It was just that he was the only one who had to carry a certificate to prove it. (Th)
‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodies? Your grace.’
‘I know that one,’ said Vimes. Who watches the watchmen? Me, Mr Pessimal.’
‘Ah, but who watches you, your grace?’ said the inspector, with a brief smile.
‘I do that too. All the time,’ said Vimes. (Th)
…he talked about history and destiny and all the other words that always got trotted out to put a gloss on slaughter. It was heady stuff, except that brains weren’t involved. (Th)
‘…this 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)
‘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)
…it was always nice to look at the pictures of big pink women with no clothes on. (Th)
‘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)
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)
‘… 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?’ (Th)
Vampires were fine right up until the point where, suddenly, they weren’t. (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)
Vimes had never got on with any game more complex than darts. Chess in particular had always annoyed him. It was the dumb way the pawns went off and slaughtered their fellow pawns while the kings lounged about doing nothing that always got him; if only the pawns united, maybe talked the rooks round, the whole board could’ve been a republic in a dozen moves. (Th)
‘To see the light is to be blinded. Do you not know that in darkness the eyes open wider?’ (Th)
Vimes maintained three tray: In, Out and Shake It All About; the last one was where he put everything he was too busy, angry, tired or bewildered to do anything about. (Th)
…a smirk makes a subtle noise if you’re listening for it. (Th)
Vimes had got around to a Clean Desk policy. It was a Clean Floor strategy that eluded him at the moment. (Th)
‘I am, therefore I think.’ (Th)
‘…if dere was a PhD in bein’ fick, youse wouldn’t be able to find a pencil.’ (Th)
‘What’s the worst they can do to me?’
‘Rip off your head, grind you to mince and make soup from your bones, sir,’ said Detritus promptly. (Th)
‘I bin askin’ questions.’
‘So are we.’
‘I bin askin’ questions more louder,’ said the troll. ‘I get lotsa answers. Sometimes I am getting’ answers to questions I ain’t even asked yet.’ (Th)
And the trouble with clues, as Mister Vimes always said, was that they were so easy to make. You could walk around with a pocket full of the bloody things. (Th)
People who probably weren’t bad could kill you. (Th)
‘Didn’t know what’d hit ’em, eh?’ said Vimes.
Detritus looked mildly offended at this. ‘Oh no, sir,’ he said, ‘I made sure they knew I hit ’em.’ (Th)
The nose is also the only organ that can see backwards in time. (Th)
…ballet had to be Art even though it was a bit short on plinths and urns, on account of it being expensive to look at… (Th)
Coffee was only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your slightly older self. (Th)
‘What would you do if I asked you an outright question, Vimes?’
‘I’d tell you an outright lie, sir.’ (Th)
‘A wise ruler thinks twice before directing violence against someone because he does not approve of what they say.’
Once again, Vimes did not comment. He himself directed violence daily and with a certain amount of enthusiasm against people because he didn’t approve of them saying things like ‘Give me all your money’ or ‘What are you going to do about it, copper?’ But perhaps rulers had to think differently. (Th)
‘Do you want a lawyer?’
‘No, I ate already.’ (Th)
‘….when we talk to you, do you want someone to be on your side?’
‘Yes, please. Everyone,’ said Brick promptly. (Th)
‘…it was more a case o’ mis-taken-iden-tity,’ Detritus protested.
‘You mean he didn’t know who I was?’ said Vimes. ‘That didn’t seem -’
‘Nosir. He didn’t know who he was, sir.’ (Th)
‘You can talk the dwarf out of the dark, but you can’t take the dark out of the dwarf.’ (Th)
‘Who knows what old evil exists in the deep darkness under the mountains? There’s no darkness like it.’ (Th)
Sybil’s female forebears had valiantly backed up their husbands as distant embassies were besieged, had given birth on a camel or in the shade of a stricken elephant, had handed around the little gold chocolates while trolls were trying to break into the compound, or had merely stayed at home and nursed such bits of husbands and sons as made it back from endless little wars. The result was a species of woman who, when duty called, turned into solid steel. (Th)
When people are trying to kill you, it means you’re doing something right. It was a rule Sam had lived by. (Th)
‘My gods, man, you’re covered in blood!’ Sybil burst out.
‘Yes, your ladyship,’ said Willikins smoothly. ‘May I say in mitigation that it is not, in fact, mine.’ (Th)
‘Ramkins have never run away from anything’ Sybil declared.
‘Vimeses have run like hell all the time,’ said Vimes, too diplomatic to mention the aforesaid ancestors who came home in pieces. ‘That means you fight where you want to fight.’ (Th)
Usually she got her own way and he was happy to give it to her, but the unspoken agreement was that when he really insisted, she listened. It’s a married couple thing. (Th)
It was a brave female dwarf who advertised the fact, in a society where the wearing of even a decent, floor-length, leather-and-chain-mail dress instead of leggings positioned you, on the moral map, on the far side of Tawnee and her hard-working co-workers at the Pink Pussy Cat Club. But introduce a gurgling kid into the room and you could spot them instantly, for all their fearsome clang and beards you could lose a rat in. (Th)
‘Some of us think that darkness isn’t a depth, it’s a state of mind.’ (Th)
Beating people up in little rooms…he knew where that led. And if you did it for a good reason, you’d do it for a bad one. You couldn’t say ‘We’re the good guys’ and do bad-guy things. (Th)
‘I used to be good at tiddley-rats* when I was a nipper…’
*A famous Ankh-Morpork gutter game, second only to Dead Rat conkers. Turd Races in the gutter appear to have died out, despite an attempt to take them upmarket with the name poosticks. (Th)
…she was pleasant easygoing company, if you avoided allusion, irony, sarcasm, repartee, satire and words longer than ‘chicken’. (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)
‘This gentleman is here to make sure we don’t use the rubber truncheon, sergeant.’
‘Didn’t know we had one Mister Vimes,’ said Fred.
‘We haven’t,’ said Vimes. ‘No point in hitting ’em with something that bounces, eh?’ (Th)
Fun. What is it good for?
It’s not pleasure, joy, delight, enjoyment or glee. It’s a hollow, cruel, vicious little bastard, a word for something sought with an hilarious couple of wobbly antennae on your head and the words ‘I want It!’ on your shirt, and it tends to leave you waking up with your face stuck to the street. (Th)
‘Sometimes you need to flooze regularly…’ (Th)
Sam Vimes looked panicky, a figure of authority caught once again in a domestic situation. (Th)
‘She used to say that a girl who knew how to use a set square and protractor would go a long way in life.’ (Th)
‘Shoes, men, coffins…never accept the first one you see.’ (Th)
‘I don’t gallivant! I’ve never gallivanted. I don’t know how to vant! I don’t even have a galli!’ (Th)
‘Taking a force there now could have far-reaching consequences, Vimes!’
‘Good! You told me to drag them into the light! As far as they’re concerned, I am far-reaching consequences!’ (Th)
‘…spies? I thought we were chums with the Low King!’
‘Of course we are,’ said Vetinari. ‘And the more we know about each other, the friendlier we shall remain. We’d hardly bother to spy on our enemies. What would be the point?’ (Th)
‘Given, then, a contest between an invisible and very powerful quasi-demonic thing of pure vengeance on the one hand, and the commander on the other, where would you wager, say…one dollar?’
‘I wouldn’t, sir. That looks like one that would go to the judges.’ (Th)
Home was where you had to feel safe. If you didn’t feel safe, it wasn’t home. (Th)
‘…and that’s why I don’t like magic, captain. ’Cos it’s magic. You can’t ask questions, it’s magic. It doesn’t explain anything, it’s magic. You don’t know where it comes from, it’s magic! That’s what I don’t like about magic, it does everything by magic!’ (Th)
‘It’s one of the lesser-known failings of the vampire. No one knows why. It goes with having big windows and easily torn curtains. A sort of undeath-wish, you might say. However clever they are, they can’t resist thinking that no one will recognize their name if they spell it backwards.’ (Th)
Detritus was comforting Brick, who’d not picked a good day to go cold turkey, it was turning out to be frozen roc. (Th)
They all seemed to have names likes Bunny or Bubbles, they kept in touch meticulously, they’d all married influential and powerful men, they all hugged one another when they met and went on about the good old days in Form 3b or whatever, and if they acted together, they could probably run the world or, it occurred to Vimes, might already be doing so.
They were Ladies Who Organize. (Th)
…Ladies Who Organize are seldom thrown by guests arriving unexpectedly early. (Th)
…a wide, mist-filled, thundering cauldron of white water that elsewhere would have a name like Devil’s Cauldron but here was nameless because this was Koom Valley and for Koom Valley there just weren’t enough devils and they didn’t have enough cauldrons. (Th)
HAS IT EVER STRUCK YOU THAT THE CONCEPT OF A WRITTEN NARRATIVE IS SOMEWHAT STRANGE? Said Death. (Th)
…YOU ARE HAVING A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE, WHICH INESCAPABLY MEANS THAT I MUST UNDERGO A NEAR VIMES EXPERIENCE. (Th)
IT IS A MADE-UP STORY. VERY STRANGE. ALL ONE NEEDS DO IS TURN TO THE LAST PAGE AND THE ANWER IS THERE. WHAT, THEREFORE, IS THE POINT OF DELIBERATEDLY NOT KNOWING? (Th)
And his mind worked fast, flying in emergency supplies of common sense, as human minds do, to construct a huge anchor in sanity and prove that what had happened hadn’t really happened and, if it had happened, hadn’t happened much. (Th)
‘What kind of creature defines itself by hatred?’ (Th)
…that was a bit too pat, but nature can be like that. Sometimes you got sunsets so pink that they had no style at all. (Th)
‘You’ll be upholding the honour of Ankh-Morpork, remember!’
‘Really, dear? What shall I do with the other hand?’ said Vimes… (Th)
‘Peace comes with a rather large bill, captain.’
‘And a few dividends, sir,’ said Carrot. (Th)
