Carpe Jugulum (Discworld, #23; Witches, #6)

by Terry Pratchett

only those with their feet on rock can build castles in the air.

The smug mask of virtue triumphant could be almost as horrible as the face of wickedness revealed.

You had to choose. You might be right, you might be wrong, but you had to choose, knowing that the rightness or wrongness might never be clear or even that you were deciding between two sorts of wrong, that there was no right anywhere.

The reward for toil had been more toil. If you dug the best ditches, they gave you a bigger shovel.

books that were all about the world tended to be written by people who knew all about books rather than all about the world.

Listen, Magrat, I’d rather have ’em in here pissin’ out than outside pissin’ in. There’s more of them and they’ll make your ankles all wet.”

“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.” “Nope.” “Pardon?” “There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”

Nanny spat out the lemons. “Now we’ll try things my way,” she said. “I’m not good at thinkin’ like Granny but I’m bloody good at actin’ like me. Head-ology’s for them as can handle it. Let’s kick some bat.”

“Young man, if we’re going to wait for me to look interestin’ we’ll be here for years.”

You say that you people don’t burn folk and sacrifice people anymore, but that’s what true faith would mean, y’see? Sacrificin’ your own life, one day at a time, to the flame, declarin’ the truth of it, workin’ for it, breathin’ the soul of it. That’s religion. Anything else is just . . . is just bein’ nice. And a way of keepin’ in touch with the neighbors.”

it seems that if you sees evil now you have to wring your hands and say ‘oh deary me, we must debate this.’