DON’T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.

It was sad music. But it waved its sadness like a battle flag. It said the universe had done all it could, but you were still alive.

Granny was an old-fashioned witch. She didn’t do good for people, she did right by them.

The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle. He reasoned like this: you can’t have more than one king, and tradition demands that there...

Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; a key to the understanding of all religion is that a god’s idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders...

Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things.

Escapism isn’t good or bad of itself. What is important is what you are escaping from and where you are escaping to. I write from experience, since in my case I escaped to the idea...

There are some laws that are coded into the very nature of the universe, and one is: There Is Never Enough Shelf Space.

Now, there is a tendency at a point like this to look over one’s shoulder at the cover artist and start going on at length about leather, tightboots and naked blades.Words like ‘full’, ‘round’ and...

… a man needs no camel to ride to hell, yea, nor horse, nor mule; a man may ride into hell on his tongue…

It’s an unfair world, Child. Be glad you have friends.

(About a cookbook…)- What about this one? Maids of Honor?- Weeelll, they starts OUT as Maids of Honor…but they ends up Tarts.

You know what?’ said Vimes aloud. ‘This is going to be the world’s first democratically killed dragon. One man, one stab.’Then you’ve got to stop them. You can’t let them kill it!’ said Lady Ramkin.Vimes...

I think it’s called being human, or something.

Sybil’s female forebears had valiantly backed up their husbands as distant embassies were besieged, had given birth on a camel or in the shade of a stricken elephant, had handed around the little gold chocolates...

Positive thinking,’ he would say, ‘is also very important.

One day it’s the ringing of the bells and the casting down of the evil tyrant, and the next it’s everyone sitting around complaining that ever since the tyrant was overthrown no one’s been taking...

There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be.

As the message drained away Vimes stared at the opposite wall, in which the door now opened, after a cursory knock, to reveal the steward bearing that which is guaranteed to frighten away all nightmares,...

Vimes shook some lather off the blade. “Hah! I bet they have. Tell me, Willikins, did you fight much when you were a kid? Were you in a gang or anything?””I was privileged to belong...

Vimes was already lost. Oh, there was the sun, but that was just a direction. He could feel it on the side of his face. And the camel rocked from side to side. There was...

His Greatness the King Pteppicymon XXVIII, Lord of the Heavens, Charioteer of the Wagon of the Sun, Steersman of the Barque of the Sun, Guardian of the Secret Knowledge, Lord of the Horizon, Keeper of...

‘Questions don’t have to make sense,’ Vincent, said Miss Susan. ‘But answers do.’

It wasn’t that dwarfs weren’t interested in sex. They saw the vital need for fresh dwarfs to leave their goods to and continue the mining work after they had gone. It was simply that they...

Where do you think they’ve gone?’ he said.’Where what?’ said Lady Ramkin, temporarily halted.’The dragons. You know. Errol and his wi – female.”Oh, somewhere isolated and rocky, I should imagine,’ said Lady Ramkin. ‘Favourite country...

But ye gotta know where ye’re just going to rush in. Ye canne just rush in anywhere. It looks bad, havin’ to rush oout again straight awa’.

It wasn’t blood in general he couldn’t stand the sight of, it was just his blood in particular that was so upsetting.

We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything.

There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then...

IT’S A SWORD, said the Hogfather. THEY’RE NOT /MEANT/ TO BE SAFE.

Colon thought Carrot was simple. Carrot often struck people as simple. And he was.Where people went wrong was thinking that simple meant the same thing as stupid.

Be careful what you wish for. You never know who will be listening.

Are we entirely ready, sir?” said Lieutenant Hornett, with the special inflection that means “We are not entirely ready, sir.””We had better be. Glory awaits, gentlemen. In the words of General Tacticus, ‘let us take...

The Empire’s got something worse than whips all right. It’s got obedience. Whips in the soul. They obey anyone who tells them what to do. Freedom just means being told what to do by someone...

Were you proposing to shoot these people in cold blood, sergeant?””Nossir. Just a warning shot inna head, sir.

The anthropologists got it wrong when they named our species Homo sapiens (‘wise man’). In any case it’s an arrogant and bigheaded thing to say, wisdom being one of our least evident features. In reality,...

You did what you were told or you didn’t get paid, and if things went wrong it wasn’t your problem. It was the fault of whatever idiot has accepted this message for sending in the...

What is magic?There is the wizard’s explanation… wizards talk about candles, circles, planets, stars, bananas, chants, runes and the importance of having at least four good meals every day.

Existují takové věci jako jedlé… ne, delikátní pirohy v polévce, hrášky dokonale uvařené, rajská omáčka pikantní ve své chuťové plnosti a masová náplň z oněchčástí zvířat, které by se daly většinou i pojmenovat. Jsou platonické...

She had heard it said that, before you could understand anybody, you needed to walk a mile in their shoes, which did not make a whole lot of sense, because probably AFTER you had walked...

She even tried the one which every romantic nerve in her body insisted should work, which consisted of theatrically giving up, sitting down, and letting her glance fall naturally on a patch of earth which,...

And if I vas to point at a castle on a towering crag and say ‘Yonder is…zer castle’ a volf would be bound to howl mournfully. In zer old country, zer scenery is psychotropic and...

Witches were a bit like cats. They didn’t much like one another’s company but they did like to know where all the other witches were, just in case they needed them. And what you might...

… drink levels all mankind. It is the ultimate democrat

But God also helped those who helped themselves, and presumably expected the chosen to bring warm clothing, water purification tablets, basic medication, a weapon such as the bronze knives that were selling these days, possibly...

They are all good lads, said Carrot softly. I’m sure if the two of you call on each and every one of them and explain the situation, they will see where their duty lies. Tell...

The barricade was taking some while to dismantle. Chair legs and planks and bedsteads and doors and baulks of timber had settled into a tangled mass. Since every piece belonged to someone, and Ankh-Morpork people...

And visitors say: how does such a big city exist? What keeps it going? Since it’s got a river you can chew, where does the drinking water come from? What is, in fact, the basis...

Yes, sir, but the Librarian likes bananas, sir.””Very nourishin’ fruit, Mr Stibbons.””Yes, sir. Although, funnily enough it’s not actually a fruit, sir.””Really?””Yes, sir. Botanically, it’s a type of fish, sir. According to my theory it’s...

This is a lovely party,” said the Bursar to a chair, “I wish I was here.