- Moist Von Lipwig: Moist von Lipwig.
- Adora Belle Dearheart: Hmm. That's quite a name. Were your parents stupid or just plain cruel?
- Moist Von Lipwig: Doting... if a little unwise.
- Moist Von Lipwig: [about the almost kiss with Adora Belle Dearheart] It was the most wonderful kiss I never had.
- Ridcully: Read my lips: Words do not kill! People kill. Wild animals kill. But words... words have a totally different power. They enter in through our eyes and ears and work their way into our souls.
- Lord Vetinari: Mr. Lipwig, you have had a most strenuous day, have you not?
- Moist Von Lipwig: Can't be as strenuous as signing death warrants.
- [Moist laughs and Lord Vetinari gives him a long stare]
- Moist Von Lipwig: [stops laughing] Joke.
- Lord Vetinari: Oh, I'm sorry. I hadn't realized.
- [Lord Vetinari chuckles briefly]
- Lord Vetinari: Do tell me if you feel obliged to make another.
- Moist Von Lipwig: I'm just a con man!
- Mr. Pump: You have killed 22.8 people.
- Moist Von Lipwig: I've never so much as drawn a sword.
- Mr. Pump: You have stolen, embezzled, and swindled. You have ruined businesses and destroyed lives. When banks fail, it's not bankers who starve. In a thousand small ways, you have hastened the deaths of many. You did not know them. You did not see them bleed. But you snatched bread from their mouths. There will be no running.
- Ridcully: You the type to burn a book, Lipwig?
- Moist Von Lipwig: No.
- Ridcully: Why?
- Moist Von Lipwig: Because you just don't *do* that sort of thing!
- Ridcully: Correct. Books must be treated with respect, we feel that in our bones, because words have power. Bring enough words together they can bend space and time.
- Moist Von Lipwig: When you look at me like that, I wish I was a better man.
- Adora Belle Dearheart: You're a man with vision. Maybe that counts better.
- Moist Von Lipwig: The only problem with having a bright tomorrow is you have to get through the night before.
- Lord Vetinari: Well, you've made quite a splash. As the fish said to the man with the lead weight tied to his feet.
- Moist Von Lipwig: Adora, those things I said on the gallows, when I was staring death in the face, about the gentlest touch of all... you do know I meant every word?
- Adora Belle Dearheart: Yes. It's amazing the rubbish some people spout when they're trying to save their lives.
- Mad Al: I'm Mad Al, he's Sane Alex, and that's Adrian. He - He says he's not mad. But you can't prove it, can you?
- Moist Von Lipwig: [reading ravaged sign on Post Office] "No glom of nit can stay these mes engers abot their duty." What the hell does that mean?
- [Adora treads heavily on Moist's foot with her boot]
- Adora Belle Dearheart: What's sticking into your foot is a steel-tipped four-inch stiletto heel, the most dangerous footwear in the world. Now I know what you're thinking. Could she push it all the way through to the floor?
- Moist Von Lipwig: [groaning] No...
- Adora Belle Dearheart: To tell you the truth, I'm not sure about that myself. But I'm going to give it a damn good try.
- [grinds harder]
- Stanley Howler: [reading regulations while trapped in burning post office] If trapped, await "A", rescue, or "B", death. Straightforward enough.
- [begins idle whistling; Moist bursts in]
- Stanley Howler: "A" it is, then.
- Reacher Gilt: You see, the Clacks system works at the cutting edge of technology and in the white heat of progress, there are sometimes complications, but I can assure you, these are now all resolved.
- Miss Cripslock: Some people are saying...
- Reacher Gilt: [interrupting her] And we will be providing refunds for any messages that have lost. All you have to do is fill in the claim form. But I do urge your readers not to do anything as rash as writing a letter and sending it by post.
- Miss Cripslock: Wouldn't you...
- Reacher Gilt: You might as well tear it up and scatter it to the four winds!
- Miss Cripslock: Mr Gilt, this claims form is 50 pages long.
- [It is clear from the expression on Gilt's face that he was hoping nobody would realize this]
- Drumknott: [Lipwig is about to be hung] I bring an edict from Lord Vetinari, patrician of Ankh-Morpork.
- Moist Von Lipwig: A reprieve!
- Drumknott: He says to get on with it.
- Reacher Gilt: [after being accused of sending an assassin to take care of Von Lipwig] You're such a fraud.
- Moist Von Lipwig: And you're such a murderer!
- [the crowd gasps]
- Reacher Gilt: That is slander.
- [Addressing the crowd]
- Reacher Gilt: This is a declaration of war!
- Miss Cripslock: Can I quote you on that?
- Moist Von Lipwig: If you want a quote, Miss Cripslock, try this - "Neither rain nor fire will stop the post!"
- Miss Cripslock: Very stirring. But his quote had 'war' in it.
- Ridcully: [entering Lord Vetinari's office] This had better be important. I'm in the middle of an experiment.
- Lord Vetinari: Involving a knife and fork, no doubt.
- Ridcully: [sighing] I don't expect a layman to understand the pressures of university life.
- Lord Vetinari: Incredible though it may seem, we've found a practical use for one of your magical devices.
- Ridcully: Have you?
- Lord Vetinari: The object in question is, um...
- [Lord Vetinari looks at Drumknott]
- Drumknott: An omniscope, my lord.
- Lord Vetinari: Enabling us to see things at a distance, I believe.
- Ridcully: The omniscope is a highly complex, very unstable piece of equipment.
- Lord Vetinari: You mean it doesn't work?
- Ridcully: Well...
- [stammering]
- Ridcully: Relatively speaking, it works.
- Lord Vetinari: Excellent. Kindly have it up and running by dawn tomorrow.
- Ridcully: Now listen, magic is not some kind of workman's tool that you can hire out by the hour.
- Lord Vetinari: Just as well, because I wasn't intending to pay you.
- [Drumknott smirks]
- Moist Von Lipwig: I wasn't actually expecting to die.
- Trooper: Very good! We haven't heard that one before.
- Ridcully: How many words are here? A million? Two million? What about in the whole building? There must be billions!
- Moist Von Lipwig: Only an academic could state the obvious and pass it off as wisdom.
- Mad Al: Bats. Yeah, we're trying to breed homing bats.
- Moist Von Lipwig: Bats don't have a homing instinct.
- Sane Alex: Yes. Tragic, isn't it?
- Ridcully: Now, listen, magic is not some workman's tool that you can hire out by the hour.
- Lord Vetinari: Just as well, because I wasn't intending to pay you.
- Adora Belle Dearheart: Oh, I see. I suppose you all think the sun shines out of Lipwig's backside.
- [Golems raise their hands in a unanimous vote 'yes']
- Stanley Howler: Why not write to your old granny?
- Mr. Gryle: I ate my granny.
- Stanley Howler: Oh... An aunt, then?
- Adora Belle Dearheart: [taking Moist's letter] Is it an apology?
- Moist Von Lipwig: It's worse than that.
- Moist Von Lipwig: [under his 'trance'] The Praying Man! It is here! The Praying Man, under the Praying Tree...
- Miss Cripslock: [looking extremely doubtful] It looks like an elephant to me...
- [Everyone glares at her and there are cries of "Heretic!"]
- Miss Cripslock: Well, um, now you mention it, I can definitely see a praying man...
- Miss Cripslock: Mr Gilt, today's increase in the price of clacks' messages is the fifth this year. Surely that is extortion.