I have to write because if I don't get something down then after a while I feel it's going to bang the side of my head off.

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.

Always remember that the crowd that applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show.

Them as can do has to do for them as can't. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.

The hippo of recollection stirred in the muddy waters of the mind.

They looked at one another in incomprehension, two minds driving opposite ways up a narrow street and waiting for the other man to reverse first.

If you don't turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else's story.