Guards! Guards! quotes page 1
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‘ “The good mother makes bean soup for the errant boy,” ’ said the voice behind the door.
There was a pause, broken only by the sound of the rain. Then the visitor said, ‘What?’
‘ “The good mother makes bean soup for the errant boy.” ’
There was another, longer pause. Then the damp figure said, ‘Are you sure the ill-built tower doesn’t tremble mightily at a butterfly’s passage?’
‘Nope. Bean soup it is. I’m sorry.’
The rain hissed down relentlessly in the embarrassed silence.
‘What about the cagčd whale?’ said the soaking visitor, trying to squeeze into what little shelter the dread portal offered.
‘What about it?’
‘It should know nothing of the mighty deeps, if you must know.’
‘Oh, the cagčd whale. You want the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night. Three doors down.’
‘Who’re you, then?’
‘We’re the Illuminated and Ancient Brethren of Ee.’
‘I thought you met over in Treacle Street,’ said the damp man, after a while.
‘Yeah, well. You know how it is. The fretwork club have the room Tuesdays. There was a bit of a mix-up.’



There was the sound of bolts sliding back. Then the voice said, ‘Would you mind giving it a push? The Door of Knowledge Through Which the Untutored May Not Pass sticks something wicked in the damp.’



‘Is the triple circle well and truly traced? Art all here who Art Here? And it be well for an knowlessman that he should not be here, for he would be taken from this place and his gaskin slit, his moules shown to the four winds, his welchet torn asunder with many hooks and his figgin placed upon a spike yes what is it?’
‘Sorry, did you say the Elucidated Brethren?’



‘And the people next door oppress me all night long. I tell them, I work all day, a man’s got to have some time to learn to play the tuba.’



‘There used to be some old prophecy or something,’ said Brother Plasterer. ‘My grandad told me.’ His eyes glazed with the effort of dramatic recall. ‘ “Yea, the king will come bringing Law and Justice, and know nothing but the Truth, and Protect and Serve the people with his Sword.” ’

[Sound like anyone we know?]



‘They were myths and they were real,’ he said loudly. ‘Both a wave and a particle.’

[It sounds like the Supreme Grand Master has been studying some Roundworld physics – light is famous for its dual nature, able to act both as a wave and a particle.]



And we will overthrow the cold tyrant and we will usher in a new age of enlightenment and fraternity and humanism and Ankh-Morpork will become a Utopia and people like Brother Plasterer will be roasted over slow fires if I have any say in the matter, which I will.



It’s a terrible thing to be nearly sixteen and the wrong species.



Besides, as far as he [Carrot] was aware, being found toddling in the woods was the normal method of childbirth.



‘You could chop his legs off,’ said Varneshi.
‘It’s not his legs that’s going to be the problem,’ said the king darkly.
‘Ah. Yes. Well, in that case you could -’
‘No.’
‘No,’ agreed Varneshi, thoughtfully.



All dwarfs are by nature dutiful, serious, literate, obedient and thoughtful people whose only minor failing is a tendency, after one drink, to rush at enemies screaming ‘Arrrrrrgh!’ and axing their legs off at the knee.



His sister had been sent down to the village to ask Mistress Garlick the witch how you stopped spelling recommendation.

[This is almost certainly Magrat.]



‘Quite the most unmagical sword she’d ever seen, she said. They normally have a bit, see. On account of it’s like magnetism, I suppose.’

[In Lords and Ladies there is a great rigmarole on how unusual and unnoticed it is to have rocks with the ‘Love of Iron’, yet Carrot’s father mentions magnetism quite casually here. Still, I suppose a dwarf king learns a thing or two about iron. There are three other mentions for magnets that I can find: the ‘sexual magnetism’ references when Colon and Nobby visit Ossie's boarding house in j (which seems to be part of the joke, because it leads to the exchange: 'You can't see any... magnets?' 'What're they?' 'Dunno.'); back in Pyramids, when Teppic remarks to himself that if he'd used the normal magnet to sweep the floor during his test, he would have missed the clay caltraps; and one in Moving Pictures, when the wizards are looking at Ginger's picture: "'He means sexual magnetism,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, happily. 'The lure of wanton soft bosoms [...]'".]



‘Codpiece like in fish?’ said Carrot, mystified.
‘No. It’s for the fighting, mumbled Varneshi. ‘You should wear it all the time. Protects your vitals, like.’
Carrot tried it on.
‘It’s a bit small, Mr Varneshi.’
‘That’s because you don’t wear it on your head, you see.’
Varneshi explained some more, to Carrot’s mounting bewilderment and, subsequently, horror. ‘My great-grandad used to say,’ Varneshi finished, ‘that but for this I wouldn’t be here today.’
‘What did he mean by that?’
Varneshi’s mouth opened and shut a few times. ‘I’ve no idea’, he said, spinelessly.

[This, together with the “Besides, as far as he [Carrot] was aware, being found toddling in the woods was the normal method of childbirth.” comment earlier, seems to contradict the statement in maa, after Carrot’s been making the bed glink with Angua, that “he’d always been aware of what might be called the mechanics.” Not that I’m picky or anything.]



‘Don’t know any mystic prunes, Grand Master. Not to what you might call chant…’
‘Hum!’



He said, anyone wanting to join the guard needed their head examined.
Mr Varneshi did not mention this. Perhaps it is done for reasons of Hygiene.



You walk along the Streets at Night, shouting, It’s Twelve O’clock and All’s Well. I said, What if it is not all well, and he said, You bloody well find another street.

[Carrot can write 'bloody' here with no qualms, but will only go as far as 'd*mn' in foc.]



The Patrician was not a man you shook a finger at unless you wanted to end up being able to count only to nine.



Yes, they’d both started in the gutter. But Wonse had worked his way up whereas, as he himself would be the first to admit, Vimes had merely worked his way along.



‘He wanted to join. And you said it must be a joke, and I said we ought to try and get more ethnic minorities into the Watch.’

[Something that’s being taken even more seriously in maa.]



Over the door a motto in the ancient tongue of the city was now almost eroded by time and grime and lichen, but could just be made out:
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC



The only reason you couldn’t say that Nobby was close to the animal kingdom was that the animal kingdom would get up and walk away.



‘Don’t you ever do anything like that to me again,’ he fumed. ‘You’re in the City Watch! Don’t give me any more of this law business!’



Nobby was endeavouring to pretend that he was totally alone and had no connection whatsoever with anyone who might be standing next to him and coincidentally wearing an identical uniform.



‘…thirteen offences of Assault with a Deadly Weapon, six cases of Malicious Lingering, and – and – Corporal Nobby hasn’t even shown me one rope yet -’



The Watch jail was just about big enough for six very small people, which were usually the only sort to be put in it.

[This comment hasn't been forgotten by the time of j, when Vimes mentally remarks to himself that “We've only got six cells back at the Yard, and we keep coal in one of them.”]



But the Patrician apparently spent his evenings studying reports and, on special occasions, if he could stand the excitement, playing chess.



The Librarian’s face rose into view like an early-morning coconut.



‘He had wings on him like, like, like great big wings!’

[This echoes the later: “Its eyes were the size of very large eyes.”]



He couldn’t help remembering how much he’d wanted a puppy when he was a little boy. Mind you, they’d been starving – anything with meat on it would have done.



What he couldn’t do with fifty thousand dollars…
Vimes thought about this for a while and then thought of the things he could do with fifty thousand dollars. There were so many more of them, for a start.



‘Thank you. It’s a pleasure to meet a citizen who regards it as their duty to assist the Watch.’
The Librarian gave him a banana.
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Guards! Guards! quotes page 1