"A stink. A stench. A foulness in her mind, dreadful and unforgiving. A compost of horrible ideas and rotted thoughts that made her want to take our her brain and wash it."

"I never said nothing..."I know you never! I could hear you not saying anything! You've got the loudest silences I ever did hear from anyone who wasn't dead!"

"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, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior."

"Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things."

"Furnishing was not a priority in the Citadel. Shelves, stools, tables... There was a rumor among the novices that priests towards the top of the hierarchy had golden furniture, but there was no sign of it here. The room was as severe as anything in the novices' quarters although it had, perhaps, a more opulent severity; it wasn't the forced bareness of poverty, but the starkness of intent."

"People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around."

"We ain't going to curse anyone, said Granny firmly. "It hardly ever works if they don't know you've done it."

"Ricewind had always relied on running away. But somerimes, perhaps, you had to stand and fight, if only because there was nowhere left to run."

"Down, boy! Couchant! I said couchant! No! Not rampant!"

"Do you know how wizards like to be buried?"Yes!"Well, how?"Granny Weatherwax paused at the bottom of the stairs."Reluctantly."

"One day I'll work out what it is you are saying, my lad, and then you'll be in trouble."

"Your wife is a big hippo! My face is melting! My face is meltinnnnggg!"

"He was red with anger, except where he was white with rage. When he spoke, his words seared through the air like so many knives, clipped as topiary, crisp as biscuits."

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

"Heroes get kingdoms and princesses, and they take regular exercise, and when they smile the light glints off their teeth, ting."

"The invisible people knew that happiness is not the natural state of mankind, and is never achieved from the outside in."

"He was certain he was anorectic, because every time he looked in a mirror he saw a fat man. It was the Archchancellor, standing behind him and shouting at him."

"The first question they ask is: "Why was he eternally surprised?"And they were told: "Wen considered the nature of time and understood the universe is, instant by instant, re-created anew. Therefore, he understood, there is, in truth, no Past, only a memory of the Past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it."

"You trust him?" he said. "No," said Hastur. "Right," said Ligur. It's be a funny old world, he reflected, if demons went round trusting one another."

"Granny Weatherwax had a primal snore. It had never been tamed. No one had ever had to sleep next to it, to curb its wilder excesses by means of a kick, a prod in the small of the back, or a pillow used as a bludgeon. It had had years in a lonely bedroom to perfect the knark, the graaah, and the gnoc, gnoc, gnoc unimpeded by the nudges, jabs, and occasional attempts at murder that usually moderate the snore impulse over time."

"And now the birds were singing overhead, and there was a soft rustling in the undergrowth, and all the sounds of the forest that showed that life was still being lived blended with the souls of the dead in a woodland requiem. The whole forest now sang for Granny Weatherwax."

"There are all kinds of darkness, and all kinds of things can be found in them, imprisoned, banished, lost or hidden. Sometimes they escape. Sometimes they simply fall out. Sometimes they just can't take it any more."

"The purr is very important. It's the purr that does it every time. It's the purr that makes up for the Things Under the Bed, the occasional pungency, the 4 a.m. yowl. Other creatures went in for big teeth, long legs or over-active brains, while cats just settled for a noise that tells the world they're feeling happy."

"Night poured over the desert. It came suddenly, in purple. In the clear air, the stars drilled down out of the sky, reminding any thoughtful watcher that it is in the deserts and high places that religions are generated. When men see nothing but bottomless infinity over their heads they have always had a driving and desperate urge to find someone to put in the way."

"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."

"In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of thecat, although in this case there were three determinate states the catcould be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious."

"They didn't know why these things were funny. Sometimes you laugh because you've got no more room for crying. Sometimes you laugh because table manners on a beach are funny. And sometimes you laugh because you're alive, when you really shouldn't be."

"The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it's as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues."

"If they look as though they're worried, we'll move in.''And do what exactly?' said Polly.'Threaten to shoot them,' said Maladict firmly.'And if they don't believ."

"She waited with Billy Slick while Carrot went on the errand, and for something to say, she said, 'Billy Slick doesn't sound much like a goblin name?' Billy made a face. 'Too right! Granny calls me Of the Wind Regretfully Blown. What kind of name is that, I ask you? Who's going to take you seriously with a name like that? This is modern times, right?' He looked at her defiantly, and she thought: and so one at a time we all become human " human werewolves, human dwarfs, human trolls... the melting pot melts in one direction only, and so we make progress."

"You see a wile, you thwart. Am I right?"

"I DON'T HOLD WITH CRUELTY TO CATS."

"It is always useful to face an enemy who is prepared to die for his country," he read. "This means that both you and he have exactly the same aim in mind."

"Quite amazing, isn't it, Mister Lipwig?' he said cheerfully through the smoke. 'Though isn't it a pity that they can only run on rails? I can't imagine what the world would be like if everyone had their own steam locomotive. Abominable."

"In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this."

"Humans had built a world inside the world, which reflected it in pretty much the same way as a drop of water reflected the landscape. And yet ... and y."

"You know, you're rather amusingly wrong."

"Never trust a species that grins all the time. It's up to something."

"It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works."

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

"One of the hardest lessons in young Sam's life had been finding out that the people in charge weren't in charge. It had been finding out that governments were not, on the whole, staffed by people who had a grip, and that plans were what people made instead of thinking."

"We're dealing here," said Vimes, "With a twisted mind."Oh, no! You think so?"Yes."But... no... you can't be right. Because Nobby was with us all the time."Not Nobby," said Vimes testily. "Whatever he might do to a dragon, I doubt if he'd make it explode. There's stranger people in this world than Corporal Nobbs, my lad."Carrot's expression slid into a rictus of intrigued horror."Gosh," he said."

"Silence fell like a hammer made of feathers. It left holes in the shape of the sound of the sea."

"Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving."

"Juliet's version of cleanliness was next to godliness, which was to say it was erratic, past all understanding and was seldom seen."

"To Tiffany's surprise, Nanny Ogg was weeping gently. Nanny took another swig from her flagon and wiped her eyes. 'Cryin' helps sometimes,' she said. 'No shame in tears for them as you've loved. Sometimes I remember one of my husbands and shed a tear or two. The memories're there to be treasured, and it's no good to get morbid-like about it."

"The last thing she wanted was to see her friend getting ideas in her head. There was such a lot of room in there for them to bounce around and do damage."

"You say that you people don't burn folk and sacrifice people anymore, but that's what true faith would mean, y'see? Sacrificin' your own life, one day at a time, to the flame, declarin' the truth of it, workin' for it, breathin' the soul of it. That's religion. Anything else is just . . . is just bein' nice. And a way of keepin' in touch with the neighbors."

"WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN'T SAVED HIM?"Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?"NO"Oh, come on. You can't expect me to believe that. It's an astronomical fact."THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN...."Really? Then what would have happened, pray?"A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD."

"He'd heard that writers spent all day in their dressing gowns drinking champagne. This is, of course, absolutely true."