"Rincewind stared at the badge. He’d never had one before. Well, that was technically a lie...he’d had one that said ‘Hello, I Am 5 Today!’, which was just about the worst possible present to get when you are six. (p. 69)"

"“Oh, Mighty One,” he began, always a safe beginning and the religious equivalent of “To Whom It May Concern.” (p. 68)"

"They were...sort of gods, he supposed. They had names like Olk-Kalath the Soul Sucker, but, frankly, the overlap between demons and gods was a bit uncertain at the best of times. (p. 68)"

"“This is all very well, but the form of things is important!” snapped a priest. “We can’t all pray at once! You know the gods don’t like ecumenicalism! And what form of words will we use, pray?” “I would have felt that a short non-controversial—” Hughnon Ridcully paused. In front of him were priests forbidden by holy edict from eating broccoli, priests who required unmarried girls to cover their ears lest they inflame the passions of other men, and priests who worshipped a small shortbread-and-raisin biscuit. Nothing was non-controversial. (p. 63)"

"The wizards were good at wind, weather being a matter not of force but of lepidoptery. As Archchancellor Ridcully said, you just had to know where the damn butterflies were. (p. 50)"

"“I don’t think I’ve become old,” said Boy Willie. “Not your actual old. Just more aware of where the next lavatory is.” (p. 46)"

"Intelligent robbers would have started to count up the incongruities here. These, however, were the other kind, the kind for whom evolution was invented. (p. 41)"

"More of the ambassadors from other countries had arrived at the university, and more heads of the Guilds were pouring in, and every single one of them wanted to be involved in the decision-making process without necessarily going through the intelligence-using process first. (p. 38)"

"This man was so absent-mindedly clever that he could paint pictures that didn’t just follow you around the room but went home with you and did the washing-up. (p. 37)"

"I have no use for people who have learned the limits of the possible. (p. 31)"

"“Amazin’, what songs do for the ladies,” said Caleb. “About...flowers and that. Romance.” “Well, when I was a lad,” said Truckle, “if you wanted to get a girl’s int’rest, you had to cut off your worst enemy’s wossname and present it to her.” “Whut” “I SAID YOU HAD TO CUT OFF YOUR WORST ENEMY’S WOSSNAME AND PRESENT IT TO HER!” “Aye, romance is a wonderful thing,” said Mad Hamish. “What’d you do if you didn’t have a worst enemy?” said Boy Willie. “You try and cut off anyone’s wossname,” said Truckle, “and you’ve soon got a worst enemy.” (p. 26)"

"Their eyes said that wherever it was, they had been there. Whatever it was, they had done it, sometimes more than once. But they would never, ever, buy the T-shirt. And they did know the meaning of the word ‘fear’. It was something that happened to other people. (p. 25)"

"Susan was very strict about eating in class and took the view that, if there were rules, then they applied to everyone, even her. Otherwise they were merely tyranny. But rules were there to make you think before you broke them. (p. 355)"

"If you told humans what the future held, it wouldn’t. (p. 355)"

"Everyone has a conditional clause in their life, some little unspoken addition to the rules like, “Except when I really need to,” or “Unless no one is looking,” or, indeed, “Unless the first one was nougat.” (p. 339)"

"There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime. (p. 337)"

"“What will you do?” said Susan. “Lie,” said Lu-Tze happily. “It’s amazing how often that works.” (p. 335)"

"“So he’s saving the world and destroying it, all at once?” “Family trait,” said Wen. “It is what Time does at every instant.” (p. 323)"

"“It makes you wonder if there is anything to astrology after all.” “Oh, there is,” said Susan. “Delusion, wishful thinking, and gullibility.” (p. 321)"

"Fear, anger, envy...emotions bring you to life, which is a brief period just before you die. (p. 312)"

"“What chocolate do we have left?” “We’re down to the nougat now,” said Unity. “And I believe nougat is a terrible thing to cover with chocolate, where it can ambush the unsuspecting.” (p. 310)"

"He reached into his pack for the battered copy of the Way, and opened it at random. Koan ninety-seven: “Do unto otters as you would have them do unto you.” Hmm. No real help there. Besides, he’d occasionally been unsure that he’d written that one down properly, although it certain had worked. He’d always left aquatic mammals well alone, and they had done the same to him. He tried again. Koan one hundred and twenty-four: “It’s amazing what you see if you keep your eyes open.” (p. 287)"

"“One of life’s little certainties,” said Susan, standing on the edge of the museum’s parapet, “is that there is generally a last chocolate hidden in all those empty wrappers.” (p. 284)"

"Susan was sensible. It was, she knew, a major character flaw. It did not make you popular, or cheerful, and—this seemed to her to be the most unfair bit—it didn’t even make you right. But it did make you definite, and she was definite that what was happening around her was not, in any accepted sense, real. (p. 281)"

"“You’re giving me a stern look, miss.” “Well, yes. It was rather a chilly decision, wasn’t it?” “Someone has to make ’em,” said Mrs. Ogg sharply. “Besides, I’ve been around for some time and I’ve noticed that them as has it in them to shine will shine through six layers of muck, whereas those who ain’t shiny won’t shine however much you buff ’em. You may think otherwise, but it was me standing there.” (p. 279)"

"“Let’s all keep our parts to ourselves,” and suddenly she gave Susan a wink, “as the High Priest said to the actress.” (p. 274)"

"Seeing things a human shouldn’t have to see makes us human. (p. 274)"

"It was a lie. But he wasn’t ready for the truth. By the look of his face, he wasn’t even ready for the lie. (p. 273)"

"“We don’t use people as furniture,” said Susan. “But surely they will not be aware of it,” said her ladyship. “We will,” said Lobsang. “That’s the point, really.” (p. 273)"

"“I was one of them,” said Lady LeJean. “Now I rather think I’m one of me.” (p. 271)"

"“You, er, you appreciate art?” Lobsang ventured. “I know what I like,” said Susan, still staring at the busy gray figures. “And right now I’d like quite a lot of weaponry.” (p. 264)"

"Lu-Tze had long considered that everything happens for a reason, except possibly football. (p. 253)"

"Lu-Tze was eight hundred years old, and that was why he was having a rest. A hero would have leaped up and rushed out into the silent city and then— And there you had it. Then a hero would have had to wonder what to do next. Eight hundred years had taught Lu-Tze that what happens, stays happened. It might stay happened in a different set of dimensions, if you wanted to get technical, but you couldn’t make it unhappen. (p. 253)"

"“What did you say?” ”I said it’s uncertain death.” ”Is that worse than certain death?” ”Much. Watch.” Susan picked up a hammer that was lying on the floor and poked it gently toward the clock. It vibrated in her hand when she brought it closer, and she swore under her breath as it was dragged from her fingers and vanished. Just before it did, there was a brief, contracting ring around the clock that might have been something like a hammer would be if you rolled it very flat and bent it into a circle. ”Have you any idea why that happened?” she said. ”No.” ”Nor have I. Now imagine that you were the hammer. Uncertain death, see?” (p. 239)"

"Emergent behavior again. Complications always crept in. Everything changed. (p. 227)"

"Death was nonplussed. It was like asking a brick wall what it thought of dentistry. As a question, it made no sense. (p. 226)"

"The Auditors had tried to understand religion, because so much that made no sense whatsoever was done in its name. But it could also excuse practically any kind of eccentricity. Genocide, for example. (pp. 221-222)"

"Look, that’s why there’s rules, understand? So that you think before you break ‘em. (p. 205)"

"“A loophole,” said Susan. ”Well, why can’t you find one, too?” (p. 182)"

"Around her, historians climbed library ladders, fumbled books onto their lecterns, and generally rebuilt the image of the past to suit the eyesight of today. (p. 176)"

"You had to hand it to human beings. They had one of the strangest powers in the universe. Even her grandfather had remarked upon it. No other species anywhere in the world had invented boredom. Perhaps it was boredom, not intelligence, that had propelled them up to the evolutionary ladder. Trolls and dwarfs had it, too, that strange ability to look at the universe and think “oh, the same as yesterday, how dull. I wonder what happens if I bang this rock on that head?” (pp. 174-175)"

"Different generations went round through the whole stupid disaster again and again, shouting “Remember Koon Valley!” as they did so.†"

"In the Second Scroll of Wen the Eternally Surprised, a story is written concerning one day when the apprentice Clodpool, in a rebellious mood, approached Wen and spake thusly: ”Master, what is the difference between a humanistic, monastic system of belief in which wisdom is sought by means of an apparently nonsensical system of questions and answers, and a lot of mystic gibberish made up on the spur of the moment?” Wen considered this for some time, and at last said: “A fish!” And Clodpool went away, satisfied. (p. 170)"

"“Well, I just...I thought...well, I just thought you’d be teaching me more, that’s all.” ”I’m teaching you things all the time,” said Lu-Tze. “You might not be learning them, of course.” (p. 170)"

"They were learning fast, or at least collecting data, which they considered to be the same as learning. (p. 161)"

"They built a woman. It was a logical choice. After all, while men wielded more obvious power than women, they often did so at the expense of personal danger, and no Auditor liked the prospect of personal danger. Beautiful women often achieved great things, on the other hand, merely by smiling at powerful men. (p. 161)"

"The Auditors avoided death by never going so far as to get a life. They strove to be as indistinguishable as hydrogen atoms, and with none of the latter’s joie de vivre. (p. 161)"

"Sometimes thinking is like talking to another person, but that person is also you. (p. 160)"

"It is essential for humans to use the personal pronoun. It divides the universe into two parts. The darkness behind the eyes, where the little voice is, and everything else. (pp. 159-160)"

"“Lemme see...okay...think of the smallest amount of time that you can. Really small. So tiny that a second would be like a billion years. Got that? Well, the cosmic quantum tick...that’s what the abbot calls it...the cosmic quantum tick is much smaller than that. It’s the time it takes to go from now to then. The time it takes an atom to think of wobbling. It’s—” “It’s the time it takes for the smallest thing that’s possible to happen to happen?” said Lobsang. “Exactly. Well done,” said Lu-Tze. (p. 152)"