The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

by Terry Pratchett

Nasty place, Uberwald. I heard where it’s a misery wrapped in an enema.

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.

We must demonstrate that there is no yellow in the Ankh-Morpork flag, mhm, mhm.” “There is,” said Vimes. “It’s on the owl and the collars of the hippos.”

if you’ll be advised by me, a lot of diplomacy lies in appearing to be a lot more stupid than you are. You’ve made a good start, Your Grace.

You see, a yennork would go off and be a human or be a wolf but they’d still be carrying the werewolf . . . blood, and then they’d marry and have children . . . or pups . . . and, well, that’s where the fairy-tale monsters come from. People with a bit of wolf and wolves with that extra capacity for violence that is so very human.”

“He sounds very well informed for a wolf,” said Carrot. Angua almost snarled at him. “He’s not stupid, you know. He can understand more than eight hundred words. A lot of humans get by on less!

“Then you can look the other way! I didn’t ask you to follow me! Do you think I’m proud of this? I’ve got a brother who’s a sheepdog!” “A champion sheepdog,” said Carrot earnestly. Gaspode watched Angua’s expression. It was one you’d never get on a dog. “You mean that,” she said at last. “You actually mean that, don’t you . . . you really do. And if you’d met him it wouldn’t worry you, would it? To you everyone’s a person. I have to sleep in a dog basket seven nights a month and that doesn’t worry you, either, does it?” “No. You know it doesn’t.”

The troll looked up at them, then at the trophies, and then grinned. It’s colder up here, Vimes thought. He’s quicker on the uptake.*

He’d be a genius at absolute zero

After a day like this, a lady’s maid with a long flowing beard now seemed perfectly normal.

“He got a big jar full of noses and a rabbit covered in ears.”

He could afford to put up with a nose breeder in exchange for surgery that didn’t involve screaming and buckets of boiling pitch.

Fred and Nobby were both wearing the same expression. It was the face of a man who has seen the light at the end of the tunnel and it has turned out to be the twinkle of the Fairy of Hope.