Men at Arms (Discworld, #15; City Watch, #2)

by Terry Pratchett

“That’s just a legend. That’s not real. Anyway, I’ve always been a bit puzzled about that story. What’s so hard about pulling a sword out of a stone? The real work’s already been done. You ought to make yourself useful and find the man who put the sword in the stone in the first place, eh?”

You know, that's a fair point. Surprised I never thought of it before.

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes “Boots” theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

Hey, that's how our world works, too!

She vaguely suspected that Carrot was trying to court her. But, instead of the usual flowers or chocolate, he seemed to be trying to gift-wrap a city.

I've done this. But you have to live in a place as awesome as The Fan for it to work.

“He’s bound to have done something,” Nobby repeated. In this he was echoing the Patrician’s view of crime and punishment. If there was crime, there should be punishment. If the specific criminal should be involved in the punishment process then this was a happy accident, but if not then any criminal would do, and since everyone was undoubtedly guilty of something, the net result was that, in general terms, justice was done.

Unfortunately, he is not alone in this belief.

“He said ‘Do Deformed Rabbit, it’s my favorite’,” Carrot translated.

I'm beginning to understand that this is a running joke throughout the series.

“You wouldn’t dare fire that thing in here! That’s a siege weapon! It’d go right through the wall!” “Eventually,” said Nobby.

It's nice when Nobby has a moment.

“I should like you to tell me,” said Carrot, “about events in this Guild House the night before last.” Dr. Whiteface stared at him in silence. Then he said, “If I don’t?” “Then,” said Carrot, “I am afraid I shall, with extreme reluctance, be forced to carry out the order I was given just before entering.”

Carrot's special brand of cleverness is just about my favorite thing in the Watch books.

“Where’s the crowd thickest?” said Carrot. “Anywhere the trolls are,” said Colon. He remembered himself. “Only joking,” he added.

Eh, don't worry. It's too warm for Detritus to get that joke.

“And you’re a wolf and human at the same time, right? Tricky, that. I can see that. Bit of a dichotomy, sort of thing. Makes you kind of like a dog. ’Cos that’s what a dog is, really. Half a wolf and half a human.

Interesting

“I appear…to be losing a lot of blood,” said Lord Vetinari. “Who would have thought you had it in you,” said Vimes, with the frankness of those probably about to die.

Shakespeare Reference!

amusingly

I would have said "amusedly" here. Cats are at least as amused by us as we are by them.

The one believed by every other dog, based on what might tentatively be called the truth of the heart, was that he survived his fall, fled the city, and eventually led a huge pack of mountain wolves who nightly struck terror into isolated farmsteads. It made digging in the middens and hanging around back doors for scraps seem…well, more bearable. They were, after all, only doing it until Big Fido came back.

Hey! People think like that too!