“Vimes' meeting with the Patrician ended as all such meetings did, with the guest going away in possession of an unfocused yet very nagging suspicion that he'd only just escaped with his life.”

“He'd always known that the world was an interesting place, and his imagination had peopled it with pirates and bandits and spies and astronauts and similar. But he'd also had a nagging suspicion that, when you seriously got right down to it, they were all just things in books and didn't properly exist anymore.”

“Kamu harus yakin, when you meet an ending, it's just because you're going to meet a new start.”

“He's going to arrest the Patrician, Vimes told himself, the thought trickling through his brain like an icy rivulet. He's actually going to arrest the Patrician. The supreme ruler. He's going to arrest him. This is what he's actually going to do. The boy doesn't know the meaning of the word "fear." Oh, wouldn't it be a good idea if he knew the meaning of the word "survival"...”

“They were going round and round the island, but they did not meet because all were going at the same rate.”

“He'd spent his life travelling the path of least resistance, taking the easiest of routes, searching for the quickest of solutions, and with Kate, he'd discovered more satisfaction was found in fighting for something, in striving to meet her expectations.”