#extended quote

"This is disgusting, this whole business," said Constable Visit. "It's the worship of idols--"

"It's a genuine Burleigh and Stronginthearm double-action triple-cantilever crossbow with a polished stock and engraved silver facings!"

"--a crass commercialization of a date which is purely of astronomical significance," said Visit, who seldom paid attention when he was in mid-denounce. "If it is to be celebrated at all, then--"

"I saw this in Bows and Ammo! It got Editor's Choice in the 'What to Buy When Rich Uncle Sidney Dies' category! They had to break both the reviewer's arms to get him to let go of it!"

"--ought to be commemorated in a small service of--"

"It must cost more'n a year's salary! They only make 'em to order! You have to wait ages!"

"--religious significance." It dawned on Constable Visit that something behind him was amiss.

"Aren't we going to arrest this imposter, corporal?" he said.

Corporal Nobbs looked blearily at him through the mists of possessive pride.

"You're foreign, Washpot," he said. "I can't expect you to know the real meaning of Hogswatch."

Her First Thoughts were: I've just had a blazing row with Mistress Weatherwax! They say that if you cut her with a knife, she wouldn't bleed until she wanted to! They say that when some vampires bit her, they all started to crave sweet tea and biscuits. She can do anything, be anywhere! And I called her an old woman!

Her Second Thoughts were: Well, she is.

Her Third Thoughts were: Yes, she is Mistress Weatherwax. And she's keeping you angry. If you're full of anger, there's no room left for fear.

"You hold that anger," Mistress Weatherwax said, as if reading all of her mind. "Cup it in your heart, remember where it came from, remember the shape of it, save it until you need it. But now the wolf is out there somewhere in the woods, and you need to see to the flock."

It's the voice, Tiffany thought. She really does talk to people like Granny Aching talked to sheep, except she hardly cusses at all. But I feel...better.

"Thank you," she said.

"Nobby Nobbs, Hogfather," said Nobby. [...]

AND HAVE YOU BEEN A GOOD BO...A GOOD DWA...A GOOD GNO...A GOOD INDIVIDUAL?

And suddenly Nobby found that he had no control at all of his tongue. Of its own accord, gripped by a terrible compulsion, it said: " 's."

He struggled for self-possession as the great voice went on: SO I EXPECT YOU'LL WANT A PRESENT FOR A GOOD MON...A GOOD HUM...A GOOD MALE?

Aha, got you bang to rights, you'll be coming along with me, my old chummy, I bet you don't remember the cellar at the back of the shoelace maker's in Old Cobblers, eh, all those Hogswatch mornings with a little hole in my world, eh?

The words rose in Nobby's throat but were overridden by something ancient before they reached his voice, and to his amazement were translated into: " 's."

SOMETHING NICE?

" 's."

There was hardly anything left of Nobby's conscious will now. The world consisted of nothing but his naked soul and the Hogfather, who filled the universe.

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little--"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"That's not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SEIVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET -- Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE WORLD BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point--"

MY POINT EXACTLY.

Vimes stared at the door until his eyebrows ached. And then, just as random patterns in cloud suddenly, without changing in any way, become a horse's head or a sailing ship, he saw what he'd been looking at all along.

A sense of terrifying admiration overcame him.

He wondered what it was like in the Patrician's mind. All cold and shiny, he thought, all blued steel and icicles and little wheels clicking along like a huge clock. The kind of mind that would carefully consider its own downfall and turn it to advantage.

It was a perfectly normal dungeon door, but it all depended on your sense of perspective.

In this dungeon the Patrician could hold off the world.

All that was on the outside was the lock.

All the bolts and bars were on the inside.

WHO IS HE, THEN?

"Windle Poons."

I CAN SEE WHERE THAT MUST HAVE COME AS A SHOCK.

"Well, yes."

ALL THOSE YEARS AND YOU NEVER SUSPECTED.

Windle Poons did know exactly what irony meant, and he could spot sarcasm too. "It's all very well for you," he mumbled.

PERHAPS.

Windle looked down at the river again.

"It's been great," he said, "After all this time. Being needed is important."

YES. BUT WHY?

Windle looked surprised. "I don't know. How should I know? Because we're all in this together, I suppose. Because we don't leave our people in there. Because you're a long time dead. Because anything is better than being alone. Because humans are human."

AND SIXPENCE IS SIXPENCE. BUT CORN IS NOT JUST CORN.

"It isn't?"

NO.

"Let me give you some advice, Captain," he said.

"Yes, sir?"

"It may help you make some sense of the world."

"Sir."

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

He waved his thin hand toward the city and walked over to the window.

"A great rolling sea of evil," he said, almost proprietarily. "Shallower in some places, of course, but deeper, oh, so much deeper in others. But people like you put together little rafts of rules and vaguely good intentions and say, this is the opposite, this will triumph in the end. Amazing!" He slapped Vimes good-naturedly on the back.

"Down there," he said, "are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathesomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace or originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don't say no. I'm sorry if this offends you," he added, patting the captain's shoulder.