All the way to Genua there were people who’d been duped, fooled, swindled, and cheated by that face. The only thing he hadn’t done was hornswoggle, and that was only because he hadn’t found out how to.
above the columns was a high-minded frieze showing something allegorical involving maidens and urns. Most of the urns and, Moist noticed, some of the young women, had birds nesting in them. An angry pigeon looked down at Moist from a stony bosom. Moist had walked past the place
above the columns was a high-minded frieze showing something allegorical involving maidens and urns. Most of the urns and, Moist noticed, some of the young women, had birds nesting in them. An angry pigeon looked down at Moist from a stony bosom.
It would be hard to imagine an uglier building that hadn’t won a major architectural award.
“Overheads, sir. There’s overheads wherever you look.” “Even underfoot?” “There too, sir,”
gleamed a deep, deep green, and spoke of power and probity.
gleamed a deep, deep green, and spoke of power and probity.
the chairman’s desk, which was an object of desire and big enough to bury people in. It gleamed a deep, deep green, and spoke of power and probity. Moist assumed, as a matter of course, that it was lying.
I wouldn’t trust you with a bucket of water if my knickers were on fire!”
“Do you have a young lady?” she asked, raising the glass. “Yes.” “Does she know what you’re like?” “Yes. I keep telling her.” “Doesn’t believe you, eh? Ah, such is the way of a woman in love,” sighed Mrs. Lavish. “I don’t think it worries her, actually. She’s not your average girl.” “Ah, and she sees your inner self? Or perhaps the carefully constructed inner self you keep around for people to find? People like you . . .” she paused and went on: “ . . . people like us always keep at least one inner self for inquisitive visitors, don’t we?”
don’t let that worry you, Mr. Lipspick. Just because I’m employing an Igor and working in a cellar doesn’t mean I am some sort of madman, ha ha ha!” “Ha ha,” agreed Moist. “Ha hah hah!” said Hubert. “Hahahahahaha!! Ahahahahahahhhhh!!!!!
His teeth tried to tell him something, but he never listened to them. A man could go mad, listening to his teeth.
Time turned the evil bastards into rogues, and rogue was a word with a twinkle in its eye and nothing to be ashamed of.
the bank needs to be run by someone who understands banks.” “People who understand banks got it into the position it is in now,” said Vetinari. “And I did not become ruler of Ankh-Morpork by understanding the city. Like banking, the city is depressingly easy to understand. I have remained ruler by getting the city to understand me.”
They watched her nervously, as fighters do when approached by a self-confident civilian they know they’re not allowed to kill. In broken dwarfish she told them that the
They watched her nervously, as fighters do when approached by a self-confident civilian they know they’re not allowed to kill.
While it was said that men she had spurned jumped off bridges in despair, the only person known to have said this was Pucci herself.
You could say this about Pucci: she was easy to confide in, because she never bothered to listen.
“What’s this, sir?” “A note for a dollar. A dollar bill. It’s the latest thing.” “Do I have to sign it or anything?” “No, that’s the interesting bit. It’s a dollar. It can be anyone’s.” “I’d like it to be mine, thank you!”
“And if it all goes wahoonie-shaped,” said Mr. Proust, “you’ve still got the gold, right? Locked up down there in the cellar?” “Oh, yes, you’ve got to have the gold,” said Mr. Drayman. There was a general murmur of agreement, and Moist felt his spirits slump. “But I thought we’d all agreed that you don’t need the gold?” he said. In fact, they hadn’t, but it was worth a try. “Ah, yes, but it’s got to be there somewhere,” said Mr. Drayman. “It keeps banks honest,” said Mr. Poleforth, in the tone of plonking certainty that is the hallmark of that most knowledgeable of beings, The Man In The Pub.
So long as the gold was somewhere, it kept banks honest and everything was okay. Moist felt humbled by such faith. If the gold was somewhere, herons would no longer eat frogs, either. But, in fact, there was no power in the world that could keep a bank honest if it didn’t want to be.
Someone should have told her, in fact, that true style comes from innate cunning and mendacity. You can’t buy it.
the girl could flounce better than a fat turkey on a trampoline.
she tried to make self-esteem do the work of self-respect,
He made razzmatazz sound like some esoteric perversion.
I wonder . . .
I wonder . . . am I really a bastard or am I just really good at thinking like one?
“Why are you always in such a hurry, Mr. Lipwig?” “Because people don’t like change. But make the change happen fast enough and you go from one type of normal to another.”
Life with Mrs. Cake’s premonitions could get a little intricate at times, especially now they were getting recursive, but it was part of the Elm Street ethos that you were charitable toward the foibles of others in the hope of a similar attitude to your own.
“But he’s not a murderer or anything.” “I’m an Igor, thur. We don’t athk quethtionth.” “Really? Why not?” “I don’t know, thur. I didn’t athk.”
they were perfectionists. Ask them to build you a device and you wouldn’t get what you asked for. You’d get what you wanted.
“That is a very graphic analogy which aids understanding wonderfully while being, strictly speaking, wrong in every possible way,”
Students, eh? Love ’em or hate ’em, you’re not allowed to hit ’em with a shovel.
“Do you think I should pray, Igor?” said Moist, watching his face. “I couldn’t thay. The Igor position on prayer is that it is nothing more than hope with a beat to it.”
Disgrace and ignominy and Mr. Fusspot were staring him in the face, but only one of them was licking it.
The Umnian golems were bigger and heavier than the ones commonly seen around the town, but they were beautiful. Of course they were—they had probably been made by golems. And their builders had given them what looked like muscles, and calm, sad faces. In the last hour or so, in defiance of the watchmen, the lovable kids of the city had managed to scrawl a black mustache on this one.
“Miss Dearheart, always a pleasure,” he murmured, waving away the smoke. “I thought you were gone. Imagine my delight at finding you are not.”
“But I have sinned. Oh, indeed I have! I have worshiped false idols!” “Well, sometimes you can’t get real ones,”
Miss Drapes was silent. All she knew was that she was going to follow this to the end. After all, she’d spent the night in a man’s bedroom, and Lady Deirdre Waggon had a lot to say about that. She was technically a Ruined Woman, which seemed unfair given that, even more technically, she wasn’t.
it seemed to Igor that trouble hit Mr. Lipwig like a big wave hitting a flotilla of ducks.
“That is an order, Igor!” Igor beamed. At last. All this politeness had been getting on his nerves. What an Igor expected was insane orders. That was what an Igor was born (and, to some extent, made) for. A shouted order to do something of dubious morality with an unpredictable outcome? Thweeet!