Changeling > Changeling's Quotes

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases - bestial atrocities, iron heel, blood-stained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder - one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy, the appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved”
― George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
― George Orwell

“Yeah, all right, but everyone knows they torture people," mumbled Sam.
"Do they?" said Vimes. "Then why doesn't anyone do anything about it?"
"'cos they torture people.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“Everybody does it!" Quirke burst out. "It's perks!"

"Everybody?" said Vimes. He looked around at the squad. "Anyone else here take bribes?"

His glare ran from face to face, causing most of the squad to do an immediate impression of the Floorboard and Ceiling Inspectors Synchronized Observation Team.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“Their families cordially detested one another.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“He moved on, in the centre of a widening circle. He wasn't an enemy, he was a nemesis.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“Well done,' said a voice somewhere behind him. 'Consciousness to sarcasm in five seconds!”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“That's the way it was. Privilege, which just means 'private law.' Two types of people laugh at the law; those that break it and those that make it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“Everyone says it's going to be Snapcase at the palace. He listens to the people."
"Yeah, right," said Vimes. And I listen to the thunder. But I don't do anything about it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“Sometimes it’s like watching a wasp land on a stinging nettle: someone’s going to get stung and you don’t care.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“The horsemen came closer.

Vimes was not good at horsemen. Something in him resented being addressed by anyone eight feet above the ground. He didn't like the sensation of being looked at by nostrils.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“When he was a boy he'd read books about great military campaigns, and visited the museums and looked with patriotic pride at the paintings of famous cavalry charges, last stands and glorious victories. It had come as rather a shock, when he later began to participate in some of these, to find that the painters had unaccountably left out the intestines. Perhaps they just weren't very good at them.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“To his mild surprise, the men were still out in the yard. Someone had even hung up the swordsmanship targets, which would certainly be helpful if the watch-men were faced with an enemy who was armless and tied to a pole.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“Who really knew what evil lurked in the heart of men?
ME.
Who knew what sane men were capable of?
STILL ME, I’M AFRAID.
Vimes glanced at the door of the last room. No, he wasn’t going in there again. No wonder it stank here.
YOU CAN’T HEAR ME, CAN YOU? OH. I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT, said Death, and waited.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“Y’know,’ he said, ‘it’s very hard to talk quantum using a language originally designed to tell other monkeys where the ripe fruit is.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“I've never heard of you and I know this city like the back of my hand,' said Vimes.
‘Right. And how often do you look at the back of your hand Mr Vimes?…”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“A city like Ankh-Morpork was only two meals away from chaos at the best of times.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armor. It was gilt by association.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“The plain old Sam Vimes had fought back. He got rid of most of the plumes and the stupid tights, and ended up with a dress uniform that at least looked as though its owner was male. But the helmet had gold decoration, and the bespoke armourers had made a new, gleaming breastplate with useless gold ornamentation on it. Sam Vimes felt like a class traitor every time he wore it. He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armour. It was gilt by association.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“He'd been a successful soldier, as these things went; he'd generally been on the winning side, and had killed more of the enemy by good if dull tactics than his own men by bad but exciting ones.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“The new captain looked up. Oh, good grief, Vimes thought. It's bloody Rust this time round!
And it was indeed the Hon. Ronald Rust, the god's gift to the enemy, any enemy, and a walking encouragement to desertion.
The Rust family had produced great soldiers, by the undemanding standards of 'Deduct your own casualties from those of the enemy, and if the answer is a positive number, it was a glorious victory' school of applied warfare. But Rust's lack of any kind of military grasp was matched only by his high opinion of the talent he in fact possessed only in negative amounts.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“The sound of running feet indicated that Sergeant Detritus was bringing some of the latest trainees back from their morning run. He could hear the jody Detritus had taught them. Somehow, you could tell it was made up by a troll: “Now we sing dis stupid song! Sing it as we run along! Why we sing dis we don’t know! We can’t make der words rhyme prop’ly!” “Sound off!” “One! Two!” “Sound off!” “Many! Lots!” “Sound off!” “Er…what?”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“But it must’ve happened!” snapped Vimes. “I told you, I can remember it! I was there yesterday!” “Nice try, but that doesn’t mean anything anymore,” said the monk. “Trust me. Yes, it’s happened to you, but even though it has, it might not. ’Cos of quantum. Right now, there isn’t a Commander Vimes–shaped hole in the future to drop you into. It’s officially Uncertain. But might not be, if you do it right. You owe it to yourself, Commander. Right now, out there, Sam Vimes is learning to be a very bad copper indeed. And he learns fast.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“...with the grin of one who mistakenly thinks he's a wit when he's only half a one.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“Nobby would nick anything and dodge anything, but he wasn't bad. You could trust him with your life, although you'd be daft to trust him with a dollar.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“Once you get troops on the streets, it’s only a matter of time before it goes bad. Some kid throws a stone, next minute there’s houses on fire and people getting killed.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“Just because you’re a zombie doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch