Monstrous Regiment (Discworld, #31; Industrial Revolution, #3)

by Terry Pratchett

It had been hard, very hard, to force herself to swing that cudgel. But once she had done it, it had felt easy.

Polly felt questing eyes boring into her. She was embarrassed, of course. But not for the obvious reason. It was for the other one, the little lesson that life sometimes rams home with a stick: you are not the only one watching the world, other people are also people, while you watch them they watch you, and they think about you while you think about them. The world isn’t just about you. There was going to be no possibility

the little lesson that life sometimes rams home with a stick: you are not the only one watching the world, other people are also people, while you watch them they watch you, and they think about you while you think about them. The world isn’t just about you.

Bein’ a soldier is not hard! If it was, soldiers would not be able to do it!

There was this about vampires; they could never look scruffy. Instead, they were . . . what was the word . . . dishabille. It meant untidy, but with bags and bags of style.

“You know what most of the milit’ry training is, Perks?” he went on. “All that yelling from little spitbubs like Strappi? It’s to turn you into a man who will, on the word of command, stick his blade into some poor sod just like him who happens to be wearing the wrong uniform. He’s like you, you’re like him. He doesn’t really want to kill you, you don’t really want to kill him. But if you don’t kill him first, he’ll kill you. That’s the start and finish of it. It don’t come easy without trainin’.

“But only because we are serving a Higher Purpose,” said Wazzer. And, just as Blouse could invert commas, Wazzer could drop capital letters into a spoken sentence.

The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they’ve found it.

You’re worrying people. You can’t just go around saying that a god is dead!” “Gone, then. Dwindled . . . I think,” said Wazzer, her brow furrowing. “No longer with us . . .” “We still get the Abominations!” Wazzer tried to concentrate. “No, they’re not real. They’re like . . . echoes. Dead voices in an ancient cave, bouncing back and forth, the words changing, making nonsense . . . like flags that were used for signals but now just flap in the wind . . .” Wazzer’s eyes went unfocused and her voice altered, became more adult, more certain “. . . and they come from no god. There is no god here now.” “So where do they come from?” “From your fear . . . They come from the part that hates the Other, that will not change. They come from the sum of all your pettiness and stupidity and dullness. You fear tomorrow, and you’ve made your fear your god.

And someone with no sense of the narrative of adventure had removed from the room anything with an edge and, for some reason, anything that could be eaten.

Revenge is not redress. Revenge is a wheel, and it turns backwards. The dead are not your masters.”