Quotes About Vetinari

#1. Best way to get something done is to give it to someone who is busy, said Vetinari.

Terry Pratchett

#2. Not natural, in my view, sah. Not in favor of unnatural things.'
Vetinari looked perplexed. 'You mean, you eat your meat raw and sleep in a tree?

Terry Pratchett

#3. Vetinari drummed his fingers on the table. "What would you do if I asked you an outright question, Vimes?" "I'd tell you a downright lie, sir." "Then I will not do so," said Vetinari, smiling faintly.

Terry Pratchett

#4. Lord Vetinari in a meeting: what people said was what they wanted him to hear. He paid a lot of attention to the spaces outside the words, though. That's where the things were that they hoped he didn't know and didn't want him to find out.

Terry Pratchett

#5. I believe he collects different types of stationery,' said Vetinari. 'I have sometimes speculated that he might change his life for the better should he meet a young lady willing to dress up as a manila envelope.

Terry Pratchett

#6. Mr. Lipwig, this morning you had no experience at all of being dead, and yet but for my intervention you would nevertheless have turned out to be extremely good at it," said Lord Vetinari sharply. "It just goes to show: you never know until you try.

Terry Pratchett

#7. It's bad enough barging into Guild property, but we'll get into really serious trouble if we shoot anyone. Lord Vetinari won't stop at sarcasm. He might use' - Colon swallowed - 'irony.

Terry Pratchett

#8. William: "I'm sure we can all pull together, sir."
Vetinari: "Oh, I do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.

Terry Pratchett

#9. No practical definition of freedom would be completely without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.
-Lord Havelock Vetinari-

Terry Pratchett

#10. Apparently," Vetinari remarked to Drumknott, "the pounding of the railway wagons will lead to immorality.

Terry Pratchett

#11. You're not suggesting that Vetinari tucks into a nice rat every day?" said Angua.
"I've heard he uses rats as spies, so I don't think he'd use them as elevenses," said Carrot.

Terry Pratchett

#12. Vetinari gave him a look that did not actually employ a raised eyebrow but which implied that one might be forthcoming if the recipient of the look pushed his luck.

Terry Pratchett

#13. I must confess the activities of the UK governments for the past couple of years have been watched with frank admiration and amazement by Lord Vetinari. Outright theft as a policy had never occurred to him.

Terry Pratchett

#14. Lord Vetinari lifted an eyebrow with the care of one who, having found a piece of caterpillar in his salad, raises the rest of the lettuce.

Terry Pratchett

#15. Peace?' said Vetinari. 'Ah, yes, defined as period of time to allow for preparation for the next war.

Terry Pratchett

#16. As they stepped out into the silent street he wondered if Lord Vetinari had been right about the press. There was something ... compelling about it. It was like a dog that stared at you until you fed it. A slightly dangerous dog. Dog bites man, he thought. But that's not news. That's olds.

Terry Pratchett

#17. A man can learn all of an opponent's weaknesses on that board,' said Gilt.
'Really?' said Vetinari, raising his eyebrows. 'Should not he be trying to learn his own?

Terry Pratchett

#18. I was merely endeavoring to indicate that if we do not grab events by the collar they will have us by the throat.
-Lord Vetinari

Terry Pratchett

#19. Your excellency, if you persist in this attitude a complaint will go to your Lord Vetinari!"
"He does so look forward to them.

Terry Pratchett

#20. The female mind is certainly a devious one, my lord."
Vetinari looked at his secretary in surprise. "Well, of course it is. It has to deal with the male one.

Terry Pratchett

#21. Everybody present laughed nervously, except Lord Vetinari, who just laughed.

Terry Pratchett

#22. The Ankh-Morpork Trespassers' Society was originally the Explorers' Society until Lord Vetinari forcibly insisted that most of the places 'discovered' by the society's members already had people in them, who were already trying to sell snakes to the newcomers.

Terry Pratchett

#23. You have made quite a splash," said Vetinari, smiling, "as the fish said to the man with the lead weight tied to his feet.

Terry Pratchett

#24. And these are your reasons, my lord?"
"Do you think I have others?" said Lord Vetinari. "My motives, as ever, are entirely transparent."
Hughnon reflected that 'entirely transparent' meant either that you could see right through them or that you couldn't see them at all.

Terry Pratchett

#25. I have to ask, sir ... Why does it have to be done like this?"
Vetinari smiled. "Can you keep a secret, Mister Lipwig?"
"Oh, yes, sir. I've kept lots."
"Capital. And the point is, so can I. You do not need to know.

Terry Pratchett

#26. I think it is just a matter of getting into the mind of the writer," Vetinari went on, looking at a letter covered with grubby fingerprints and what looked like the remains of someone's breakfast. He added: "In some cases, I imagine, there is a lot of room.

Terry Pratchett

#27. One of my predecessors used to have people torn to death by wild tortoises. It was not a quick death.

Terry Pratchett

#28. Mister Lipwig, the world lives between those who say it cannot be done and those who say that it can. And in my experience, those who say that it can be done are usually telling the truth. It's just a matter of thinking creatively.

Terry Pratchett

#29. We can't just drop everything, sir!"
"Mister Lipwig. Is there something in the word 'tyrant' you do not understand?

Terry Pratchett

#30. Men marched away, Vimes. And men marched back. How glorious the battles would have been that they never had to fight!

Terry Pratchett

#31. I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.

Terry Pratchett

#32. He didn't administer a reign of terror, just the occasional light shower.

Terry Pratchett

#33. We play and are played and the best we can hope for is to do it with style.

Terry Pratchett

#34. If per capita was a problem, decapita could be arranged

Terry Pratchett