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The world is made up of four elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. This is a fact well known even to Corporal Nobbs. It’s also wrong. There’s a fifth element, and generally it’s called Surprise.
As for Mr Pin and Mr Tulip, all that need be known about them at this point is that they are the kind of people who call you ‘friend’. People like that aren’t friendly.
There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What’s up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don’t think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!
But too much reading had taken its toll. William found that he now thought of prayer as a sophisticated way of pleading with thunderstorms.
A military career somewhere was unlikely. William had a rooted objection to killing people he didn’t know.
Hughnon reflected that ‘entirely transparent’ meant either that you could see right through them or that you couldn’t see them at all.
Kings and lords come and go and leave nothing but statues in a desert, while a couple of young men tinkering in a workshop change the way the world works.’
William wondered why he always disliked people who said ‘no offence meant’. Maybe it was because they found it easier to say ‘no offence meant’ than actually refrain from giving offence.
lies could run round the world before the truth could get its boots on.
‘Who was that hero who was condemned to push a rock up a hill and every time he got it to the top it rolled down again?’ he said. Sacharissa didn’t look up. ‘Someone who needed a wheelbarrow?’
what’s in the public interest is not what the public is interested in.’
‘Are you saying people aren’t interested in the truth?’ ‘Listen, what’s true to a lot of people is that they need the money for the rent by the end of the week.
What Vetinari mostly does not do is a lot of harm. We’ve had rulers who were completely crazy and very, very nasty. And it wasn’t that long ago, either.
sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove.
‘What does it say?’ ‘“Not A Very Nice Person At All”,’ she read. ‘I wonder what kind of person would put that on a wallet?’
Part of him was beginning to understand that his readers might have a very relaxed attitude about the guilt of politicians but were red hot on things like the size of the weather.
The public thinks big, sensible, measured thoughts while people run around doing silly things?’
Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.’
‘But news is mainly what someone somewhere doesn’t want you to put in the paper—’
