"“Mistress Weatherwax, you are a natural disputant.” “No I ain’t!” “You’d certainly enjoy yourself at the Synod, anyway. They’ve been known to argue for days about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.” He could almost feel Granny’s mind working. At last she said, “What size pin?” “I don’t know that, I’m afraid.” “Well, if it’s an ordinary household pin, then there’ll be sixteen.” “Sixteen angels?” “That’s right.” “Why?” “I don’t know. Perhaps they like dancing.” The mule picked its way down a bank. The mist was getting thicker here. “You’ve counted sixteen?” said Oats eventually. “No, but it’s as good an answer as any you’ll get.” (p. 277)"

"It’s most unfair. Once people find out you’re a vampire they act as if you’re some kind of monster. (p. 274)"

"Verence was technically an absolute ruler and would continue to be so provided he didn’t make the mistake of repeatedly asking Lancrastrians to do anything they didn’t want to do. (p. 271)"

"“And us?” “Oh, we’re always all right. You remember that. We happen to other people. (p. 270)"

"Prayer’s all very well. I can see where it can help you get your mind right. But an ax is an ax no matter what you believes. (p. 255)"

"he said. “Is there any advice you could be givin’ me?” said Granny. (p. 243)"

"Granny had listened to people who’d nearly died but had come back, possibly because of a deft thump in the right place or the dislodging of some wayward mouthful that’d gone down the wrong way. Sometimes they talked about seeing a light— That’s where she ought to go, a thought told her. But...was the light the way in, or the way out? (p. 242)"

"Granny tried to line up her thoughts. Which light and which dark? She hadn’t been prepared for this. This didn’t feel right. This wasn’t the fight she had expected. Whose light? Whose mind was this? Silly question. She was always her. Never lose your grip on that... So...light behind her, darkness in front... She’d always said witches stood between the light and the dark. ”Am I dyin’?”"

"This was a test. Everything was a test. Everything was a competition. Life put them in front of you every day. You watched yourself all the time. You had to make choices. You never got told which ones were right. Oh, some of the priests said you got given marks afterward, but what was the point of that? (p. 241)"

"Provided they didn’t touch his birds, Hodgesaargh didn’t much mind who ran the castle. For hundreds of years the falconers had simply got on with the important things, like falconry, which needed a lot of training, and left the kinging to amateurs. (p. 224)"

"He’d found knowledge, and knowledge hadn’t helped. Had not Jotto caused the Leviathan of Terror to throw itself onto the land and the seas to turn red with blood? Had not Orda, strong in his faith, caused a sudden famine thoughout the land of Smale? They certainly had. He believed it utterly. But a part of him also couldn’t forget reading about the tiny little creatures that caused the rare red tides off the coast of Urt and the effect this apparently had on local sea life, and about the odd wind cycle that sometimes kept rainclouds away from Smale for years at a time. This had been...worrying. It was because he was so very good at old languages that he’d been allowed to study in the new libraries that were springing up around the Citadel, and this had been fresh ground for worry, because the seeker after truth had found truths instead. The Third Journey of the Prophet Cena, for example, seemed remarkably like a retranslation of the Testament of Sand in the Laotan Book of the Whole. On one shelf alone he found forty-three remarkably similar accounts of a great flood, and in every single one of them a man very much like Bishop Horn had saved the elect of mankind by building a magical boat. Details varied of course. Sometimes the boat was made of wood, sometimes of banana leaves. Sometimes the news of the emerging dry land was brought by a swan, sometimes by an iguana. Of course these stories in the chronicles of other religions were mere folktales and myth, while the voyage detailed in the Book of Cena was holy truth. But nevertheless... (pp. 203-204)"

"After four years of theological college he wasn’t at all certain of what he believed, and this was partly because the Church had schismed so often that occasionally the entire curriculum would alter in the space of one afternoon. But also— They had been warned about it. Don’t expect it, they’d said. It doesn’t happen to anyone except the prophets. Om doesn’t work like that. Om works from inside. —but he’d hoped that, just once, that Om would make himself known in some obvious and unequivocal way thatcouldn’t be mistaken for wind or a guilty conscience. Just once, he’d like the clouds to part for the space of ten seconds and a voice to cry out, “YES, MIGHTILY-PRAISEWORTHY-ARE-YE-WHO-EXALTETH-OM OATS! IT’S ALL COMPLETELY TRUE! INCIDENTALLY, THAT WAS A VERY THOUGHTFUL PAPER YOU WROTE ON THE CRISIS OF RELIGION IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY!” It wasn’t that he lacked faith. But faith wasn’t enough. He’d wanted knowledge. (pp. 202-203)"

"“Why’d she do that?” “So we develop insights and pull together and learn valuable lessons,” said Magrat. Nanny paused with her pipe halfway to her lips. “No,” she said, “I don’t reckon Granny’d be thinking like that, because that’s soppy garbage.” (p. 187)"

"“Granny was certainly not telling the truth,” said Agnes. “Of course she wasn’t, she never does,” said Magrat. “She expects you to work it out for yourself.” (p. 175)"

"In the moment of silence Agnes fancied she could hear the stalactites grow. (p. 173)"

"“I can go where I like,” said Granny. “Yes, but you ought—” Agnes began. She wished she could bite the word back, but it was too late. “Oh, ought, is it? Where does it say ought? I don’t remember it saying ought anywhere. Anyone going to tell me where it says ought? There’s lots of things that ought, I dare say. But they ain’t. (p. 173)"

"The result would have been called primitive even by people who were too primitive to have a word yet for “primitive.” (p. 161)"

"She was not, herself, hugely in favor of motherhood in general. Obviously it was necessary, but it wasn’t exactly difficult. Even cats managed it. But women acted as if they’d been given a medal that entitled them to boss people around. It was as if, just because they’d got the label which said “mother,” everyone else got a tiny part of the label that said “child”... (pp. 153-154)"

"There are many rhymes about magpies, but none of them is very reliable because they are not the one the magpies know themselves. (p. 151)"

"Things were not what they seemed. But then, as Granny always said, they never were. (p. 133)"

"If her cottage had been any more organic it would have had a pulse. (p. 104)"

"Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple-corer. (p. 103)"

"Nanny could find an innuendo in “Good morning.” (p. 102)"

"“That’s something everyone knows about vampires...” In fact there are many things everyone knows about vampires, without really taking into account that perhaps the vampires know them by now, too. (p. 71)"

"She’d never, ever asked for anything in return. And the trouble with not asking for anything in return was that sometimes you didn’t get it. (p. 60)"

"What had she ever earned? The reward for toil had been more toil. If you dug the best ditches, they gave you a bigger shovel. (p. 60)"

"The smug mask of virtue triumphant could be almost as horrible as the face of wickedness revealed. (p. 59)"

"“It’s all right...as witches we believe in religious toleration...” “That’s right,” said Nanny Ogg. “But only for the right religions, so you watch your step.” (p. 56)"

"I mean, it’s one thing saying you’ve got the best god, but sayin’ it’s the only real one is a bit of a cheek, in my opinion. I know where I can find at least two any day of the week. And they say everyone starts out bad and only gets good by believin’ in Om, which is frankly damn nonsense. (p. 46)"

"They thought that you could see life through books but you couldn’t, the reason being that the words got in the way. (p. 21)"

"And she sees everything in black and white. That’s always a trap for the powerful. Oh yes. (p. 17)"

"He also regarded laws as useful things and he obeyed them when it was convenient. (p. 15)"

"In Ghat they believe in vampire watermelons, although folklore is silent about what they believe about vampire watermelons. Possibly they suck back. (p. 4)"

"Only those with their feet on rock can build castles in the air. (p. 3)"

"It wasn’t that they didn’t take an interest in the world around them. On the contrary, they had a deep, personal and passionate involvement in it, but instead of asking “why are we here?” they asked “is it going to rain before the harvest?” A philosopher might have deplored this lack of mental ambition, but only if he was really certain about where his next meal was coming from. (p. 3)"

"That was the thing about fire. If you saw one, everyone went to put it out. Fire spread like wildfire. (p. 377)"

"“When it’s time to stop living, I will certainly make Death my number one choice!” (p. 373)"

"The ability to ask questions like “Where am I and who is the ‘I’ that is asking?” is one of the things that distinguishes mankind from, say, cuttlefish.† The wizards from Unseen University, being perhaps the intellectual cream or certainly the cerebral yogurt of their generation, passed through this stage in minutes."

"As loudly as a thunderstorm under the bed but as softly as two soufflés colliding, past and present ran into one another. (p. 367)"

"Contrary to the usual procedures it began to grow lighter, although the proliferation of luminous fungi or iridescent crystals in deep caves where the torchlessly improvident hero needs to see is one of the most obvious intrusions of narrative causality into the physical universe. (pp. 362-363)"

"Rincewind stared into the depths of the cave. The light from the staffs only made them worse. It cast shadows. Darkness was just darkness, but anything could be hiding in shadows. (p. 360)"

"Can I have another beer? It’s amazing, it doesn’t feem to have any essect on me, no matter how much I dnirk. Helps me think clearerer. (p. 355)"

"Rincewind had never studied meteorology, although he had been an end-user all his life. (p. 354)"

"“Why did he have to go to prison?” “We put all our politicians in prison as soon as they’re elected. Don’t you?” “Why?” “It saves time.” (p. 334)"

"Of course, more time was spent setting it up than was ever saved by using it, but this is the case in many similar fields and is a sign of Progress. (p. 327)"

"It dawned on the Senior Wrangler that the sky was a different color on his personal planet. (p. 323)"

"Ponder wasn’t sure how old he’d been, but he’d definitely thought he could hear a blade being sharpened. It was one thing to know you were on a journey, and quite, quite another to see your destination on the horizon. (p. 320)"

"“You don’t look like a country boy, I must say.” “Me? I get nervous when I see a blade of grass, miss.” (p. 303)"

"One of the most basic rules for survival on any planet is never to upset someone wearing black leather.†"

"Rincewind paused. He had always been the foremost exponent of the from rather than the to of running. (p. 301)"