Supposing an emperor was persuaded to wear a new suit of clothes whose material was so fine that, to the common eye, the clothes weren’t there. And suppose a little boy pointed out this fact...

Dogs are not like cats, who amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw. Men made dogs, they took wolves and gave them human...

Afterward, there was that long, crowded pause in which everyone decides that although they are very shaken, and possibly upside down, they are, to their surprise, still alive.

How hard can writing be? After all, most of the words are going to be ‘and,’ ‘the,’ and ‘I,’ and ‘it,’ and so on, and there’s a huge number to choose from, so a lot...

The thing about football – the important thing about football – is that it is not just about football.

That was a dhlang!” he said. “An evil spirit! The peasants down in the valleys hang up charms against them! But I thought they were just a superstition!””No, they’re a substition,” said Susan. “I mean...

Inspirations sleet through the universe continuously. Their destination, as if they cared, is the right mind in the right place at the right time. They hit the right neuron, there’s a chain reaction, and a...

Everyone’s thinking these days. I think there’s a good deal too much of this thinking, that’s what I think. We never thought about thinking when I was a lad. We’d never get anything done if...

Insanity is catching.

Thou shalt not submit thy god to market forces.

But not for long,” said Nanny wistfully.

The Quantum Weather Butterfly ( Papilio Tempestae ) is an undistinguished yellow color, its outstanding feature is its ability to create weather. This presumably began as a survival trait, since even an extremely hungry bird...

The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and bloody-mindedness.

Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.

WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN?The Death of Rats looked up from the feast of the potato. SQUEAK, he said.Death waved a hand dismissively. WELL, YES, OBVIOUSLY ME, he said. I...

YOU’RE ONLY PUTTING OFF THE INEVITABLE, he said.That’s what being alive is all about.

[Science fiction is] out in the mainstream now. You can tell by the way mainstream literary authors pillage SF while denying they’re writing it!

And so Mort came at last to the river Ankh, greatest of rivers. Even before it entered the city, it was slow and heavy with the silt of the plains, and by the time it...

This is Art holding a Mirror up to Life. That’s why everything is exactly the wrong way around.

Big fat hairy monkey, hands a couple of octaves wide?

“Surely you have considered terrorist activity?”There was another pause. Then the spokesman said, in the quiet tones of someone who has had enough and who is going to quit after this and raise chickens somewhere,...

The universe, they say, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty, and bloody-mindedness.

but only if you wave them about on the floor with a scrubbing brush.

Destiny was funny stuff, he knew. You couldn’t trust it. Often you couldn’t even see it. Just when you knew you had it cornered, it turned out to be something else—coincidence, maybe, or providence. You...

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.

Once we were blobs in the sea, and then fishes, and then lizards and rats and then monkeys, and hundreds of things in between. This hand was once a fin, this hand once had claws!...

He said it was better to belong where you don’t belong than not to belong where you used to belong, remembering when you used to belong there.

I reckon responsible behavior is something to get when you grow older. Like varicose veins.

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 then unroll...

Always face what you fear. Have just enough money, never too much, and some string. Even if it’s not your fault, it’s your responsibility. Witches deal with things. Never stand between two mirrors. Never cackle....

I’m sure the Bursar would not agree with those figures,” said the Senior Wrangler sourly.”That is so,’ said Ponder, “but I’m afraid that is because he regards the decimal point as a nuisance.

Her books on alchemy were marvellous objects, every page a work of the engraver’s art, but they nowhere contained instructions like “Be sure to open a window”. They did have instructions like “Adde Aqua Quirmis...

The Librarian swung on. It was slow progress, because there were things he wasn’t keen on meeting. Creatures evolved to fill every niche in the environment, and some of those in the dusty immensity of...

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...

He only drinks when he gets depressed,’ said Carrot. ‘Why does he get depressed?’ ‘Sometimes it’s because he hasn’t had a drink.

I dinna want to disappoint ye, but we’s in a cellar right here, and it’s full o’ tatties.’After a while a voice said: ‘So where izzit?”Maybe it’s got the day off?”What’s a demon need a...

‘Luck is my middle name,’ said Rincewind, indistinctly. ‘Mind you, my first name is Bad.’

Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

How can you protect yourself by carrying a sword if you don’t know how to use it?’Not me, sir. Other people. They see the sword and don’t attack me,’ said Maladict patiently.Yes, but if they...

Wisdom is one of the few things that looks bigger the further away it is.

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.

What have I always believed?That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it...

The intelligence of that creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it.

How many books are there?” said Masklin.”Hundreds! Thousands!””Do you know what they’re all about?”Gurder looked at him blankly. “Do you know what you’re saying?” he said.”No. But I want to find out.””They’re about everything! You’d...

And that’s when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself,...

Unseen University had never admitted women, muttering something about problems with the plumbing, but the real reason was an unspoken dread that if women were allowed to mess around with magic they would probably be...

To animals they were just the weather, just part of everything. But humans arose and gave them names, just as people filled the starry sky with heroes and monsters, because this turned them into stories....

Noble dragons don’t have friends. The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still alive.

Where’s the pleasure in bein’ the winner if the loser ain’t alive to know they’ve lost?