“Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat.They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.”

“No! Please! I'll tell you whatever you want to know!" the man yelled. "Really?" said Vimes. "What's the orbital velocity of the moon?""What?""Oh, you'd like something simpler?”

“And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things.”

“When he'd been small, people had said things like, "And what do you want to be, little man?" and he'd said, "I don’t know. What have you got?”

“Best to get it off his chest. Own up like a man. Take his medicine. Cards on table. Beating about bush, none of. Mercy, throw himself on.”

“You are very clever," said the old man shyly. "I would like to eat your brains, one day."For some reason the books of etiquette that Daphne's grandmother had forced on her didn't quite deal with this. Of course, silly people would say to babies, "You're so sweet I could gobble you all up!" but that sort of nonsense seemed less funny when it was said by a man in war paint who owned more than one skull. Daphne, cursed with good manners, settled for "It's very kind of you to say so.”

“You know what?' said Vimes aloud. 'This is going to be the world's first democratically killed dragon. One man, one stab.'Then you've got to stop them. You can't let them kill it!' said Lady Ramkin.Vimes blinked at her.Pardon?' he said.It's wounded!'Lady, that was the intention, wasn't it? Anyway, it's only stunned,' said Vimes.I mean you can't let them kill it like this,' said Lady Ramkin insistently. 'Poor thing!'What do you want to do, then?' demanded Vimes, his temper unravelling. 'Give it a strengthening dose of tar oil and a nice comfy basket in front of the stove?'It's butchery!'Suits me fine!'But it's a dragon! It's just doing what a dragon does! It never would have come here if people had left it alone!'Vimes thought: it was about to eat her, and she can still think like this. He hesitated. Perhaps that did give you the right to an opinion...”