Jingo (Discworld, #21; City Watch, #4)

by Terry Pratchett

The wizards might well mess up the very fabric of time and space but they didn’t lead to paperwork, and that was fine by Vimes.

But if you ask Mr. Slant he’ll say ‘This is a very interesting case,’ which as you know is lawyer-talk for ‘One thousand dollars a day plus expenses and it’ll take months.’

It was so 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? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.

They said he’d been educated at the Assassins’ School, but no one remembered what weapons he’d learned. He’d studied languages. And suddenly, with him in front of you, this didn’t seem like the soft option.

“This is military law. And military law is a sword. Not a two-edged sword. There’s only one edge, and it’s pointing at you.

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.”

“In fact, men, the general has this to say about ensuring against defeat when outnumbered, out-weaponed and out-positioned. It is . . .” he turned the page, “‘Don’t Have a Battle.’”

‘Give a man a fire and he’s warm for a day, but set fire to him and he’s warm for the rest of his life.’

Unfortunately, he knew they were doing it because Lord Vetinari was sitting in the Boat and would raise his eyebrows in no uncertain manner if they refused.