Quotes from Samuel Vimes
It always amazed Vimes how Nobby got along with practically everyone. It must, he’d decided, have something to do with the common denominator. In the entire world of mathematics there could be no denominator as common as Nobby. (GG)
'You remember?’
Vimes tried to. It wasn’t easy. He was vaguely aware that he drank to forget. What made it rather pointless was that he couldn’t remember what it was he was forgetting any more. In the end he just drank to forget about drinking. (GG)
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn’t as cynical as real life. (GG)
'Might have just been an innocent bystander, sir,’ said Carrot.
‘What, in Ankh-Morpork?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We should have grabbed him, then, just for the rarity value.' (GG)
That was how you got to be a power in the land, he thought. You never cared a toss about whatever anyone else thought and you were never, ever, uncertain about anything. (GG)
Say what you like about the people of Ankh-Morpork, they had always been staunchly independent, yielding to no man their right to rob, defraud, embezzle and murder on an equal basis. This seemed absolute right, to Vimes’s way of thinking. There was no difference at all between the richest man and the poorest beggar, apart from the fact that the former had lots of money, food, power, fine clothes, and good health. But at least he wasn’t any better. (GG)
What he couldn’t do with fifty thousand dollars ...
Vimes thought about this for a while and then thought of the things he could do with fifty thousand dollars. There were so many more of them, for a start. (GG)
Vimes knew that the barbarian hublander folk had legends about great chain-mailed, armour-bra’d, carthorse-riding maidens who swooped down on battlefields and carried off dead warriors on their cropper to a glorious roistering afterlife, while singing in a pleasing mezzo-soprano. Lady Ramkin could have been one of them. She could have led them. She could have carried off a battalion. (GG)
Vimes lowered the ape, who wisely didn’t make an issue of it because a man angry enough to lift 300 lbs of orangutan without noticing is a man with too much on his mind. (GG)
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)
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness. (MA)
'Hah! You're uniform doesn't scare me,' he said.
Vimes looked down at his battered breastplate and worn mail.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘This is not a scary uniform. I’m sorry. Forward, Corporal Carrot and Lance-Constable Detritus.’
The Assassin was suddenly aware of the sunlight being blocked out.
‘Now these, I think you’ll agree,’ said Vimes, from somewhere behind the eclipse, ‘are scary uniforms.’ (MA)
'People ought to think for themselves, Captain Vimes says. The problem is, people only think for themselves if you tell them to.' (MA)
'Do you think there’s such a thing as a criminal mind?’
Carrot almost audibly tried to work it 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? (MA)
‘You never get bad fortunes in cookies, ever noticed that? They never say stuff like: “Oh dear, things’re going to be really bad.” I mean, they’re never misfortune cookies.’
Vimes lit a cigar and shook the match to put it out. ‘That, Corporal, is because of one of the fundamental driving forces of the universe.’
‘What? Like, people who read fortune cookies are the lucky ones?’ said Nobby.
‘No. Because people who sell fortune cookies want to go on selling them.’ (FC)
'Oh, well, if you prefer, I can recognize handwriting,’ said the imp proudly. ‘I’m quite advanced.’
Vimes pulled out his notebook and held it up. ‘Like this?’ he said.
The imp squinted for a moment. ‘Yep,’ it said. ‘That’s handwriting, sure enough. Curly bits, spiky bits, all joined together. Yep. Handwriting. I’d recognize it anywhere.' (FC)
Vimes sighed. He was an honest man. He’d always felt that was one of the bigger defects in his personality. (FC)
People would probably say they had lived blameless lives.
But Vimes was a policeman. No one lived a completely blameless life. It might be just possible, by lying very still in a cellar somewhere, to get through a day without committing a crime. But only just. And, even then, you were probably guilty of loitering. (FC)
When Nobby had gone Vimes reached behind the desk and picked up a faded copy of Twurp’s Peerage or, as he personally thought of it, the guide to the criminal classes. You wouldn’t find slum dwellers in these pages, but you would find their landlords. And, while it was regarded as pretty good evidence of criminality to be living in a slum, for some reason owning a whole street of them merely got you invited to the very best social occasions. (FC)
What a mess the world was in, Vimes reflected. Constable Visit had told him the meek would inherit it, and what had the poor devils done to deserve that? (FC)
'You have the mind of a true policeman, Vimes.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Really? Was it a compliment?' (FC)
And he’s mastered policing as it is practised by the majority of forces in the universe, which is, basically, screaming angrily at people until they give in. (FC)
'You are in favour of the common people?’ said Dragon mildly.
‘The common people?’ said Vimes. ‘They’re nothing special. They’re no different from the rich and powerful except they’ve got no money or power. But the law should be there to balance things up a bit.' (FC)
'You really intend to prefer charges?’
‘I’d prefer violence,’ said Vimes loudly. ‘Charges is what I’m going to have to settle for.' (FC)
'I’ve given that viewpoint a lot of thought, sir, and reached the following conclusion: arseholes to the lot of ‘em, sir.' (FC)
'Can't argue with the truth, sir.'
'In my experience, Vimes, you can argue with anything.' (J)
It wasn’t proper police work, Vimes considered, unless you were doing something that someone somewhere would much rather you weren’t doing. (J)
Vimes awoke with a noseful of camel. There are far worse awakenings, but not as many as you might think. (J)
The night is always old. He’d walked too often down dark streets in the secret hours and felt the night stretching away, and known in his blood that while days and kings and empires come and go, the night is always the same age, always aeons deep. (J)
... he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable then of going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? (J)
'Fortune favours the brave, sir,’ said Carrot cheerfully.
‘Good. Good. Pleased to hear it, captain. What is her position vis à vis heavily armed, well prepared and excessively manned armies?’
‘Oh, no-one’s ever heard of Fortune favouring them, sir.' (J)
Downstairs, Sybil had cooked him a meal. She wasn’t a very good cook. This was fine by Vimes, because he wasn’t a very good eater. (J)
'Odd thing, ain’t it…you meet people one at a time, they seem decent, they got brains that work, and then they get together and you hear the voice of the people. And it snarls.' (J)
'... when you look at the state of mankind you are forced to accept the reality of the gods.' (LH)
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)
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)
'You sir, are no gentleman,’ said Rust.
‘I knew there was something about me that I liked.’ (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)
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)
Ah, he’s already lied to me, thought Vimes. We’re being diplomatic. (FE)
Well, he thought, so this is diplomacy. It’s like lying, only to a better class of people. (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)
'... a lot of diplomacy lies in appearing to be a lot more stupid than you are.' (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)
'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)
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)
'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)
'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 PRINCIPLE.
'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)
‘You’re good at anger, your grace. You save it up for when you need it.' (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)
'In return, however,’ said the Patrician, ‘I must ask you not to upset Commander Vimes.’ He gave a little cough. ‘More than necessary.’
‘I’m sure we can pull together, sir.’
‘Oh, I do hope not, I really do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.’
He smiled. ‘It’s the only way to make progress.' (TT)
'But I’m not doing anything wrong,’ said William.
‘No, it may just be you’re not doing anything illegal,’ said Vimes. (TT)
'I’m not dependable. Even I don’t depend on me, and I’m me.' (TT)
He knew about concerned citizens. Wherever they were, they all spoke the same private language, where ‘traditional values’ meant ‘hang someone’. (TT)
It wasn’t that he’d liked being shot at by hooded figures in the temporary employ of his many and varied enemies, but he’d always looked at it as some kind of vote of confidence. It showed that he was annoying the rich and arrogant people who ought to be annoyed. (NW)
... Vimes found it better to look at Authority for orders and then filter those orders through a fine mesh of common sense, adding a generous scoop of creative misunderstanding and maybe even incipient deafness if circumstances demanded, because Authority rarely descended to street level. (NW)
... Vimes liked to see a bit of battered armour around the place. It showed that someone had been battering it. (NW)
One of the hardest lessons of young Sam’s life had been finding out that the people in charge weren’t in charge.
It had been finding out that governments were not, on the whole, staffed by people who had a grip, and that plans were what people make instead of thinking. (NW)
'An' there's some kid outside says he’s got to speak to you, hnah, specially,’ Snouty went on. ‘Shall I give him a clip alongside the head?’
‘What does he smell like?' said Vimes, sipping the scalding corrosive tea.
‘Bottom of a baboon’s cage, sarge.’
‘Ah, Nobby Nobbs.' (NW)
'A copper doesn’t keep flapping his lip. He doesn’t let on what he knows. He doesn’t say what he’s thinking. No. He watches and listens and he learns and he bides his time. His mind works like mad but his face is a blank. Until he’s ready.' (NW)
‘You’re an interesting man, sergeant. You make enemies like a craftsman.’ (NW)
'I've met a few incorruptible men,’ said Madam Meserole. ‘They tend to die horrible deaths. The world balances out,
you see. A corrupt man in a good world, or a good man in a corrupt one…the equation comes out the same. The world does not deal well with those who don’t pick a side.’
‘I like the middle,’ said Vimes.
‘That gives you two enemies.' (NW)
Oh dear, here we go again, thought Vimes. Why did I wait until I was married to become strangely attractive to powerful women? Why didn’t it happen to me when I was sixteen? I could have done with it then. (NW)
Everyone was guilty of something. Vimes knew that. Every copper knew that. That was how you maintained your authority... (NW)
‘And are your men sober and clean-living?’ the woman demanded.
‘Whenever no alternative presents itself ma’am,’ said Vimes. (NW)
He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armour. It was gilt by association. (NW)
'Maybe the best way to build a bright new world is to peel some spuds in this one?' (NW)
One thing Vimes was learning fast was the natural vindictiveness of old ladies, who had no sense of fair play when it came to fighting soldiers; give a granny a spear and a hole to jab it through, and young men on the other side were in big trouble. (NW)
'But here’s some advice, boy. Don’t put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That’s why they’re called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes.' (NW)
When we break down, it all breaks down. (NW)
When people are trying to kill you, it means you’re doing something right. It was a rule Sam had lived by. (Th)
Vimes had got around to a Clean Desk policy. It was a Clean Floor strategy that eluded him at the moment. (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)
'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)
'You’ll be upholding the honour of Ankh-Morpork, remember!’
‘Really, dear? What shall I do with the other hand?’ said Vimes ... (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)
'I don’t gallivant! I’ve never gallivanted. I don’t know how to vant! I don’t even have a galli!' (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)
'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)
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)
Sam Vimes looked panicky, a figure of authority caught once again in a domestic situation. (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)
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)
'... 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)
'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)
'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)
'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)
'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)
'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)
YOU ARE HAVING A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE, WHICH INESCAPABLY MEANS THAT I MUST UNDERGO A NEAR VIMES EXPERIENCE . (Th)
'What would you do if I asked you an outright question, Vimes?’
‘I’d tell you an outright lie, sir.' (Th)
'Peace comes with a rather large bill, captain.’
‘And a few dividends, sir,’ said Carrot. (Th)
'Commander Vimes says, when life hands you a mess of spaghetti, just keep pulling until you find the meatball.' (MM)
‘Do you know why it’s called the countryside, Carrot? Because there’s bloody nothing there except damn trees, which we’re supposed to make a fuss about, but really they’re just stiff weeds!’ (Sn)
Why did they never find a vegetable that was bad for you, hey? And what was so wrong with onion gravy anyway? It has onions in it didn’t it? They made you fart, didn’t they? That was good for you, wasn’t it? He was sure he had read that somewhere. (Sn)
So much paperwork to read! So much paperwork to push away! So much paperwork to delegate! So much paperwork to pretend he hadn’t received and might have been eaten by the gargoyles. (Sn)
There was no point in arguing with Sybil, because even if you thought you’d won, it would turn out, by some magic unavailable to husbands, that you had, in fact, been totally misinformed. (Sn)
His job was to make sense of the world, and there were times when he wished that the world would meet him halfway. (Sn)
… the good guy was the good guy because he didn’t want anyone to see him being bad. He did not want to be ashamed. He did not want to be the darkness. (Sn)
Regrettably Sybil was right. At his age you had to be sensible. You sometimes had to catch your breath, while you still had some. (Sn)
‘… it’s quite easy for people to be jolly decent when they can afford to hire thoroughly un-decent people …’ (Sn)
…Commander Vimes didn’t like the phrase ‘The innocent have nothing to fear’, believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like ‘The innocent have nothing to fear’ … (Sn)
‘… if he gets out and away then you would find yourself in a situation so problematical that the word “problem” just would not fit the situation.’ (Sn)
… I’m too damn scared to tell Feeney that I’m too damn scared. Hah, the story of my life, too much of a damn coward to be a coward! (Sn)
‘…sometimes you should follow the arrogance … You should look for those who can’t believe that the law would ever catch them, who believe that they act out of a right that the rest of us do not have. The job of the officer of the law is to let them know that they are wrong!’ (Sn)
‘… there’s always an easy way, and then again, there’s always the hard way. Currently, this is the easy way, but the hard way is also quite easy, in a manner of speaking.’ (Sn)
‘What are we going to do, commander?’
And Vimes blinked and said, ‘Everything!’ (Sn)
Well, we live and learn, Vimes thought, or perhaps more importantly, we learn and live. (Sn)
‘ … there is also the possibility of becoming a matron if you reach the specified weight.’ (Sn)
It was often a good idea, Vimes had always found, to give the silly bits of the brain something to do, so they did not interfere with the important ones which had a proper job to fulfil. (Sn)
Every day, Commander Vimes of the City Watch would be home at six o’clock sharp to read to Young Sam, who was one year old.
Six o’clock, no matter what…
or who…
or why…
because some things are important. (WMC)
Why is Young Sam’s nursery full of farmyard animals anyway? Why are his books full of moo-cows and baa-lambs? He is growing up in a city. He will only see them on a plate! They go sizzle! (WMC)
Captain Vimes believed in logic, in much the same way as a man in a desert believed in ice – i.e., it was something he really needed, but this just wasn’t the world for it. (TC)
... he does the best he can in an imperfect world and calls it the law. (PP)
'You remember?’
Vimes tried to. It wasn’t easy. He was vaguely aware that he drank to forget. What made it rather pointless was that he couldn’t remember what it was he was forgetting any more. In the end he just drank to forget about drinking. (GG)
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn’t as cynical as real life. (GG)
'Might have just been an innocent bystander, sir,’ said Carrot.
‘What, in Ankh-Morpork?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We should have grabbed him, then, just for the rarity value.' (GG)
That was how you got to be a power in the land, he thought. You never cared a toss about whatever anyone else thought and you were never, ever, uncertain about anything. (GG)
Say what you like about the people of Ankh-Morpork, they had always been staunchly independent, yielding to no man their right to rob, defraud, embezzle and murder on an equal basis. This seemed absolute right, to Vimes’s way of thinking. There was no difference at all between the richest man and the poorest beggar, apart from the fact that the former had lots of money, food, power, fine clothes, and good health. But at least he wasn’t any better. (GG)
What he couldn’t do with fifty thousand dollars ...
Vimes thought about this for a while and then thought of the things he could do with fifty thousand dollars. There were so many more of them, for a start. (GG)
Vimes knew that the barbarian hublander folk had legends about great chain-mailed, armour-bra’d, carthorse-riding maidens who swooped down on battlefields and carried off dead warriors on their cropper to a glorious roistering afterlife, while singing in a pleasing mezzo-soprano. Lady Ramkin could have been one of them. She could have led them. She could have carried off a battalion. (GG)
Vimes lowered the ape, who wisely didn’t make an issue of it because a man angry enough to lift 300 lbs of orangutan without noticing is a man with too much on his mind. (GG)
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)
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness. (MA)
'Hah! You're uniform doesn't scare me,' he said.
Vimes looked down at his battered breastplate and worn mail.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘This is not a scary uniform. I’m sorry. Forward, Corporal Carrot and Lance-Constable Detritus.’
The Assassin was suddenly aware of the sunlight being blocked out.
‘Now these, I think you’ll agree,’ said Vimes, from somewhere behind the eclipse, ‘are scary uniforms.’ (MA)
'People ought to think for themselves, Captain Vimes says. The problem is, people only think for themselves if you tell them to.' (MA)
'Do you think there’s such a thing as a criminal mind?’
Carrot almost audibly tried to work it 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? (MA)
‘You never get bad fortunes in cookies, ever noticed that? They never say stuff like: “Oh dear, things’re going to be really bad.” I mean, they’re never misfortune cookies.’
Vimes lit a cigar and shook the match to put it out. ‘That, Corporal, is because of one of the fundamental driving forces of the universe.’
‘What? Like, people who read fortune cookies are the lucky ones?’ said Nobby.
‘No. Because people who sell fortune cookies want to go on selling them.’ (FC)
'Oh, well, if you prefer, I can recognize handwriting,’ said the imp proudly. ‘I’m quite advanced.’
Vimes pulled out his notebook and held it up. ‘Like this?’ he said.
The imp squinted for a moment. ‘Yep,’ it said. ‘That’s handwriting, sure enough. Curly bits, spiky bits, all joined together. Yep. Handwriting. I’d recognize it anywhere.' (FC)
Vimes sighed. He was an honest man. He’d always felt that was one of the bigger defects in his personality. (FC)
People would probably say they had lived blameless lives.
But Vimes was a policeman. No one lived a completely blameless life. It might be just possible, by lying very still in a cellar somewhere, to get through a day without committing a crime. But only just. And, even then, you were probably guilty of loitering. (FC)
When Nobby had gone Vimes reached behind the desk and picked up a faded copy of Twurp’s Peerage or, as he personally thought of it, the guide to the criminal classes. You wouldn’t find slum dwellers in these pages, but you would find their landlords. And, while it was regarded as pretty good evidence of criminality to be living in a slum, for some reason owning a whole street of them merely got you invited to the very best social occasions. (FC)
What a mess the world was in, Vimes reflected. Constable Visit had told him the meek would inherit it, and what had the poor devils done to deserve that? (FC)
'You have the mind of a true policeman, Vimes.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Really? Was it a compliment?' (FC)
And he’s mastered policing as it is practised by the majority of forces in the universe, which is, basically, screaming angrily at people until they give in. (FC)
'You are in favour of the common people?’ said Dragon mildly.
‘The common people?’ said Vimes. ‘They’re nothing special. They’re no different from the rich and powerful except they’ve got no money or power. But the law should be there to balance things up a bit.' (FC)
'You really intend to prefer charges?’
‘I’d prefer violence,’ said Vimes loudly. ‘Charges is what I’m going to have to settle for.' (FC)
'I’ve given that viewpoint a lot of thought, sir, and reached the following conclusion: arseholes to the lot of ‘em, sir.' (FC)
'Can't argue with the truth, sir.'
'In my experience, Vimes, you can argue with anything.' (J)
It wasn’t proper police work, Vimes considered, unless you were doing something that someone somewhere would much rather you weren’t doing. (J)
Vimes awoke with a noseful of camel. There are far worse awakenings, but not as many as you might think. (J)
The night is always old. He’d walked too often down dark streets in the secret hours and felt the night stretching away, and known in his blood that while days and kings and empires come and go, the night is always the same age, always aeons deep. (J)
... he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable then of going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? (J)
'Fortune favours the brave, sir,’ said Carrot cheerfully.
‘Good. Good. Pleased to hear it, captain. What is her position vis à vis heavily armed, well prepared and excessively manned armies?’
‘Oh, no-one’s ever heard of Fortune favouring them, sir.' (J)
Downstairs, Sybil had cooked him a meal. She wasn’t a very good cook. This was fine by Vimes, because he wasn’t a very good eater. (J)
'Odd thing, ain’t it…you meet people one at a time, they seem decent, they got brains that work, and then they get together and you hear the voice of the people. And it snarls.' (J)
'... when you look at the state of mankind you are forced to accept the reality of the gods.' (LH)
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)
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)
'You sir, are no gentleman,’ said Rust.
‘I knew there was something about me that I liked.’ (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)
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)
Ah, he’s already lied to me, thought Vimes. We’re being diplomatic. (FE)
Well, he thought, so this is diplomacy. It’s like lying, only to a better class of people. (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)
'... a lot of diplomacy lies in appearing to be a lot more stupid than you are.' (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)
'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)
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)
'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)
'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 PRINCIPLE.
'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)
‘You’re good at anger, your grace. You save it up for when you need it.' (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)
'In return, however,’ said the Patrician, ‘I must ask you not to upset Commander Vimes.’ He gave a little cough. ‘More than necessary.’
‘I’m sure we can pull together, sir.’
‘Oh, I do hope not, I really do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.’
He smiled. ‘It’s the only way to make progress.' (TT)
'But I’m not doing anything wrong,’ said William.
‘No, it may just be you’re not doing anything illegal,’ said Vimes. (TT)
'I’m not dependable. Even I don’t depend on me, and I’m me.' (TT)
He knew about concerned citizens. Wherever they were, they all spoke the same private language, where ‘traditional values’ meant ‘hang someone’. (TT)
It wasn’t that he’d liked being shot at by hooded figures in the temporary employ of his many and varied enemies, but he’d always looked at it as some kind of vote of confidence. It showed that he was annoying the rich and arrogant people who ought to be annoyed. (NW)
... Vimes found it better to look at Authority for orders and then filter those orders through a fine mesh of common sense, adding a generous scoop of creative misunderstanding and maybe even incipient deafness if circumstances demanded, because Authority rarely descended to street level. (NW)
... Vimes liked to see a bit of battered armour around the place. It showed that someone had been battering it. (NW)
One of the hardest lessons of young Sam’s life had been finding out that the people in charge weren’t in charge.
It had been finding out that governments were not, on the whole, staffed by people who had a grip, and that plans were what people make instead of thinking. (NW)
'An' there's some kid outside says he’s got to speak to you, hnah, specially,’ Snouty went on. ‘Shall I give him a clip alongside the head?’
‘What does he smell like?' said Vimes, sipping the scalding corrosive tea.
‘Bottom of a baboon’s cage, sarge.’
‘Ah, Nobby Nobbs.' (NW)
'A copper doesn’t keep flapping his lip. He doesn’t let on what he knows. He doesn’t say what he’s thinking. No. He watches and listens and he learns and he bides his time. His mind works like mad but his face is a blank. Until he’s ready.' (NW)
‘You’re an interesting man, sergeant. You make enemies like a craftsman.’ (NW)
'I've met a few incorruptible men,’ said Madam Meserole. ‘They tend to die horrible deaths. The world balances out,
you see. A corrupt man in a good world, or a good man in a corrupt one…the equation comes out the same. The world does not deal well with those who don’t pick a side.’
‘I like the middle,’ said Vimes.
‘That gives you two enemies.' (NW)
Oh dear, here we go again, thought Vimes. Why did I wait until I was married to become strangely attractive to powerful women? Why didn’t it happen to me when I was sixteen? I could have done with it then. (NW)
Everyone was guilty of something. Vimes knew that. Every copper knew that. That was how you maintained your authority... (NW)
‘And are your men sober and clean-living?’ the woman demanded.
‘Whenever no alternative presents itself ma’am,’ said Vimes. (NW)
He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armour. It was gilt by association. (NW)
'Maybe the best way to build a bright new world is to peel some spuds in this one?' (NW)
One thing Vimes was learning fast was the natural vindictiveness of old ladies, who had no sense of fair play when it came to fighting soldiers; give a granny a spear and a hole to jab it through, and young men on the other side were in big trouble. (NW)
'But here’s some advice, boy. Don’t put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That’s why they’re called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes.' (NW)
When we break down, it all breaks down. (NW)
When people are trying to kill you, it means you’re doing something right. It was a rule Sam had lived by. (Th)
Vimes had got around to a Clean Desk policy. It was a Clean Floor strategy that eluded him at the moment. (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)
'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)
'You’ll be upholding the honour of Ankh-Morpork, remember!’
‘Really, dear? What shall I do with the other hand?’ said Vimes ... (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)
'I don’t gallivant! I’ve never gallivanted. I don’t know how to vant! I don’t even have a galli!' (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)
'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)
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)
Sam Vimes looked panicky, a figure of authority caught once again in a domestic situation. (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)
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)
'... 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)
'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)
'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)
'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)
'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)
'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)
YOU ARE HAVING A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE, WHICH INESCAPABLY MEANS THAT I MUST UNDERGO A NEAR VIMES EXPERIENCE . (Th)
'What would you do if I asked you an outright question, Vimes?’
‘I’d tell you an outright lie, sir.' (Th)
'Peace comes with a rather large bill, captain.’
‘And a few dividends, sir,’ said Carrot. (Th)
'Commander Vimes says, when life hands you a mess of spaghetti, just keep pulling until you find the meatball.' (MM)
‘Do you know why it’s called the countryside, Carrot? Because there’s bloody nothing there except damn trees, which we’re supposed to make a fuss about, but really they’re just stiff weeds!’ (Sn)
Why did they never find a vegetable that was bad for you, hey? And what was so wrong with onion gravy anyway? It has onions in it didn’t it? They made you fart, didn’t they? That was good for you, wasn’t it? He was sure he had read that somewhere. (Sn)
So much paperwork to read! So much paperwork to push away! So much paperwork to delegate! So much paperwork to pretend he hadn’t received and might have been eaten by the gargoyles. (Sn)
There was no point in arguing with Sybil, because even if you thought you’d won, it would turn out, by some magic unavailable to husbands, that you had, in fact, been totally misinformed. (Sn)
His job was to make sense of the world, and there were times when he wished that the world would meet him halfway. (Sn)
… the good guy was the good guy because he didn’t want anyone to see him being bad. He did not want to be ashamed. He did not want to be the darkness. (Sn)
Regrettably Sybil was right. At his age you had to be sensible. You sometimes had to catch your breath, while you still had some. (Sn)
‘… it’s quite easy for people to be jolly decent when they can afford to hire thoroughly un-decent people …’ (Sn)
…Commander Vimes didn’t like the phrase ‘The innocent have nothing to fear’, believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like ‘The innocent have nothing to fear’ … (Sn)
‘… if he gets out and away then you would find yourself in a situation so problematical that the word “problem” just would not fit the situation.’ (Sn)
… I’m too damn scared to tell Feeney that I’m too damn scared. Hah, the story of my life, too much of a damn coward to be a coward! (Sn)
‘…sometimes you should follow the arrogance … You should look for those who can’t believe that the law would ever catch them, who believe that they act out of a right that the rest of us do not have. The job of the officer of the law is to let them know that they are wrong!’ (Sn)
‘… there’s always an easy way, and then again, there’s always the hard way. Currently, this is the easy way, but the hard way is also quite easy, in a manner of speaking.’ (Sn)
‘What are we going to do, commander?’
And Vimes blinked and said, ‘Everything!’ (Sn)
Well, we live and learn, Vimes thought, or perhaps more importantly, we learn and live. (Sn)
‘ … there is also the possibility of becoming a matron if you reach the specified weight.’ (Sn)
It was often a good idea, Vimes had always found, to give the silly bits of the brain something to do, so they did not interfere with the important ones which had a proper job to fulfil. (Sn)
Every day, Commander Vimes of the City Watch would be home at six o’clock sharp to read to Young Sam, who was one year old.
Six o’clock, no matter what…
or who…
or why…
because some things are important. (WMC)
Why is Young Sam’s nursery full of farmyard animals anyway? Why are his books full of moo-cows and baa-lambs? He is growing up in a city. He will only see them on a plate! They go sizzle! (WMC)
Captain Vimes believed in logic, in much the same way as a man in a desert believed in ice – i.e., it was something he really needed, but this just wasn’t the world for it. (TC)
... he does the best he can in an imperfect world and calls it the law. (PP)
