I Dream in Squares

“She was quiet and shy until you saw the firelight reflected in her eyes, and sometimes the flames were there in the absence of any fire to reflect.”

source:
from Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett (via pithia)

(via venivicivetinari)

“He never forgot. He just put the memories away, like old silverware you didn’t want to tarnish. And every year they came back, sharp and sparkling, and stabbed him in the heart.”

source:
from Night Watch by Terry Pratchett (via pithia)

(via venivicivetinari)

“

And he distrusted the kind of person who’d take one look at another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion, ‘Ah, my dear sir, I can tell you nothing except that he is a left-handed stonemason who has spent some years in the merchant navy and has recently fallen on hard times,’ and the unroll a lot of supercilious commentary and calluses and stance and the state of a man’s boots, when exact the same comments could apply to a man who was wearing his old clothes because he’d been doing a spot of home bricklaying for a new barbecue pit, and had been tattooed once when he was drunk and seventeen* and in fact got seasick on a wet pavement. What arrogance! What an insult to the rich and chaotic variety of the human experience!

It was the same with more static evidence. The footprints in the flowerbed were probably in the real world left by the window-cleaner. The scream in the night was quite likely a man getting out of bed and stepping sharply on an upturned hairbrush.

The real world was far too real to leave neat little hints. It was full of too many things. It wasn’t by eliminating the impossible that you got at the truth, however improbable; it was by the much harder process of eliminating the possibilities. You worked away, patiently asking questions and looking hard at things. You walked and talked, and in your heart you just hoped like hell that some bugger’s nerve’d crack and he’d give himself up.

source:
Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett

I am enjoying Sherlock immensely, particularly the Deducing Bits, but I can’t help but think of this bit in Feet of Clay the entire time.  I don’t think Vimes and Sherlock would get along very well at all. (via venivicivetinari)

“Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck.”

source:
Nanny Ogg has her priorities straight. (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)

(Source: reverse-mermaid, via venivicivetinari)

“What did I tell you about Mister Safety Catch?” Vimes said weakly.
“When Mister Safety Catch Is Not On, Mister Crossbow Is Not Your Friend,” recited Detritus, saluting. “Sorry, sir, but we all a bit tense at dis time.”

source:
Night Watch - Terry Pratchett (via venivicivetinari)