Пятый элефант

– Ну, ты ведь знаешь, как называют мужчин, которые носят просторные платья и парики?
– Так точно, госпожа.
– Правда?
– Конечно, госпожа. Законниками, госпожа.
– А, ну да, – медленно произнесла Ангва. – А еще как?
– Э… актерами?

Никаких тебе благородных кровей, но благородство было у него в крови.

Послышалось упругое «тан-н-нг» тетивы. Стрела не столько набирала скорость, сколько выписывала бешеные кульбиты и улетела бы вбок, не врежься она в противоположную стену.

– Послушайте! – выкрикнул Ваймс, повышая голос, но сам стараясь держаться как можно ниже. Если подобный стрелок и мог в кого-то попасть, то разве что по чистой случайности. – Здесь Стража. Откройте дверь. Или ее откроет Детрит. А когда он открывает дверь, она остается открытой. Понимаете, о чем я?

Королевские гены похожи на рояль - вы можете накрыть их сверху покрывалом, но форма всё равно очевидна.

Ты делаешь что-то, потому что так делали всегда, и объясняли это тем, что так всегда было. Разве миллион мертвецов может ошибаться?

Золото и грязь добываются из одного рудника.

Detritus's silicon-based brain was, as with most trolls, highly sensitive to changes in temperature. When the thermometer was very low he could be dangerously intellectual.

As a member of dead community Reg Shoe naturally thought of himself as an ethnic majority.

This will become, in time, the axe of someone's grandfather', said the King. 'And no doubt over the years it will need a new handle or a new blade and over the centuries the shape will change in line with fashion, but it will always be, in every detail and respect, the axe I give you today. And because it'll change with times it'll always be sharp. There's a grain of truth in that, see.

There were a lot of things he could say. 'Son of a bitch!' would have been a good one. Or he could say 'Welcome to civilization!' He could have said, 'Laugh this one off!' He might have said, 'Fetch!'
But he didn't, because if he had said any of those things then he'd have known that what he had just done was murder.

Vimes's head was full of werewolves and his automatic husbandly circuitry cut in ready to respond with 'Yes, dear', or 'Choose any colour you like', or 'I'll get someone to sort it out'. Fortunately his brain itself had its own sense of self-preservation and, not wishing to be inside a skull that was stowed in by a bedside lamp, rewrote Sybil's words in white-hot fire across his inner eyeball and then went and hid.

Vimes had learned early on his career that the graveyards were full of people who'd read the Marquis of Fantailler. The whole idea of fighting was to stop the other bloke hitting you as soon as possible. It wasn't to earn marks.

The long-term coppers, like even Nobby when he was on a good day, glanced once at a street and that was enough, because they'd seen everything.
Maybe there were... country eyes. Forest eyes. Vimes saw trees, mounds, snow and not much else.

Just one shot, he remembered. But it was one people didn't know you had... On the other hand, the Tooth Fairy probably wasn't responsible for putting it in the pillow, unless she'd been having to face some particularly difficult children lately.

`She said this morning she really thinks this place would be better for some decent carpet, and no stopping her when she's in a tape-measure mood.`

`Cheery has volunteered to be my lady's maid for now.`
Cheery saluted.
`Why not?` said Vimes. After a day like this, a lady's maid with a long flowing beard seemed perfectly normal.

`Shut up, sergeant. You're a free troll. That's an order`.

He always suspected the poetic description of Time like an ever-rolling stream. Time, in his experience, moved more like rocks... sliding pressing, building up force underground and then, with one jerk that shakes the crockery, a whole field of turnips mysteriously slips sideways by six feet.

Он отдавал Страже каждый день своей жизни, и теперь настало время, чтобы она отдала ему неделю своей. Или две. В крайнем случае три.

Главное - понять, что у человека может быть лишь ограниченное число дат рождения и что люди, как правило, думают одинаково. И разгадать любой шифр будет совсем не сложно.