Terry Pratchett

People were stupid, sometimes. They thought the Library was a dangerous place because of all the magical books, which was true enough, but what made it really one of the most dangerous places there could ever be was the simple fact that it was a library. (p. 183)

People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, "Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else." (p. 32)

"What's up, Sarge? Do you want to live forever?"

It was amazing, this mystic business. You tell them a lie, and then when you don't need it any more you tell them another lie and tell them they're progressing along the road to wisdom. Then instead of laughing they follow you even more, hoping that at the heart of all the lies they'll find the truth. And bit by bit they accept the unacceptable. Amazing. (p. 116)

To the axeman, all supplicants are the same height. (p. 5)

Something was very wrong. "Is that you, Brother Doorkeeper?" he ventured.

It must be something about high office. The altitude sends people mad. (p. 286)

"Have another drink, not-Corporal Nobby?" said Sergeant Colon unsteadily.

"The females are always the worst," said another hunter gloomily. "I knew this cross-eyed gorgon once, oh, she was a terror. Kept turning her own nose to stone." (p. 123)

"You can't give me my job back," repeated Vimes. "It was never yours to take away. I was never an officer of this city, or an officer of the king, or an officer of the Patrician. I was an officer of the law. It might have been corrupted and bent, but it was law, of a sort. There isn't any law now except: "You'll get burned alive if you don't watch out". Where's the place in there for me?"

"I don't think they have a king there," said Varneshi. "Just some man who tells them what to do."

Possibly in the dark hours of a sleepless night some of them might have remembered the subsequent events and formed a pretty good and gut-churning insight, to whit, that one of the things sometimes forgotten about the human spirit is that while it is, in the right conditions, noble and brave and wonderful, it is also, when you get right down to it, only human. (pp. 267-268)