...He hated the very idea of the world being divided into the shaved and the shavers. Or those who wore the shiny boots and those who cleaned the mud off them. Every time he saw Willikins the butler fold his, Vimes's, clothes, he suppressed a terrible urge to kick the butler's shiny backside as an affront to the dignity of man.
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.
There were no public health laws in Ankh-Morpork. It would be like installing smoke detectors in Hell.
"Today Is A Good Day For Someone Else To Die!"
In all, I've had seventeen demands for your badge. Some want parts of your body attached. Why did you have to upset everybody?
It was Carrot who'd suggested to the Patrician that hardened criminals should be given the chance to "serve the community" by redecorating the homes of the elderly, lending a new terror to old age and, given Ankh-Morpork's crime rate, leading to at least one old lady having her front room wallpapered so many times in six months that now she could only get in sideways.
Vimes pounded through the fog after the fleeing figure. It wasn't quite so fast as him, despite the twinges in his legs and one or two warning stabs from his left knee, but whenever he came close to it some muffled pedestrian got in the way, or a cart pulled out of a cross street. This always happens in any police chase anywhere. A heavily laden lorry will always pull out of a side alley in front of the pursuit. If vehicles aren't involved, then it'll be a man with a rack of garments. Or two men with a large sheet of glass. There's probably some kind of secret society behind this.
You never ever volunteered. Not even if a sergeant stood there and said, "We need someone to drink alcohol, bottles of, and make love, passionate, to women, for the use of." There was always a snag. If a choir of angels asked for volunteers for Paradise to step forward, Nobby knew enough to take one smart pace to the rear.
Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate...
This wasn't the little piggy that went to market, or the little piggy who stayed at home... This little piggy looked like the little piggy that killed the boarhounds, disembowelled the horse, and ate the huntsman.
MR HOPKINSON, ARE YOU FULLY AWARE THAT YOU ARE DEAD?
"Dead? Oh no, I can't possibly be dead. Not at the moment. It's simply not convenient.”...
Mr Hopkinson's hand went through a table top. "Oh."
YOU SEE?
"This is most uncalled-for. Couldn't you have arranged a less awkward time
History had wanted surgery. Sometimes Dr Chopper is the only surgeon to hand. There's something final about an axe.
"He raised his hammer defiantly and opened his mouth to say, "Oh, yeah?" but stopped, because just by his ear he heard a growl. It was quite low and soft, but it had a complex little waveform which went straight down into a little knobbly bit in his spinal column where it pressed an ancient button marked Primal Terror."
