“Mr Pin lit a cigar. Smoking was his one vice. at least, it was his only vice that he thought of as a vice. The others were just job skills.”

“The cigar made its traverse from one side of Harry King to the other. He was known to dote on his daughters, who he felt had rather suffered from having a father who needed to take two baths just to get dirty.”

“Uh. . . why does your partner keep saying 'ing.' Mr Pin?"..."Speech impediment.' said Pin.”

“Ah," said Mr Pin. "Right. I remember. You are concerned citizens." He knew about concerned citizens. Wherever they were, they all spoke the same private language, where 'traditional values' meant 'hang someone'.”

“Little fussy Otto, in his red-lined black opera cloak with pockets for all his gear, his shiny black shoes, his carefully cut widow's peak and, not least, his ridiculous accent that grew thicker or thinner depending on who he was talking to, did not look like a threat. He looked funny, a joke, a music-hall vampire. It had never previously occurred to Vimes that, just possibly, the joke was on other people.”

“Quite possibly, in those days, when his temper was more liable to explode into a spot of boots and fists, he might have helped them, just to get it out of his system. But as it happened the wheel turned the other way, toward the thought that two geezers kicking an old cove who was lying on the ground groaning were pox-ridden mucksnipes. So he had waded in and laid it on with a trowel...”

“There was, he thought, probably something in the idea that there were only a few people in the world. There were lots of bodies, but only a few people. That's why you kept running into the same ones.”