"A man could be dogmatic, and that was all right, or he could be stupid, and no harm done, but stupid and dogmatic at the same time was too much, especially fluxed with body odor. (p. 226)"

"A lot hinges on the fact that, in most circumstances, people are not allowed to hit you with a mallet. They put up all kinds of visible and invisible signs that say “Do not do this” in the hope that it’ll work, but if it doesn’t, then they shrug, because there is, really, no real mallet at all. (p. 225)"

"The thing about best laid plans is that they don't often go wrong. They sometimes go wrong, but not often, because of having been, as aforesaid, the best laid. The kind of plans made by wizards, who barge in, shout a lot, try to sort it all out by lunchtime and hope for the best, on the other hand...well, they go wrong almost instantly."

"“It’s positively an offense against morality.” “How? Where? Only in your heads, I feel.” (p. 189)"

"Tradition is the scourge of endeavor. (p. 206)"

"There is a kind of narrativium on Roundworld, if you really look."

"“I’m sorry we seem to have loaded you down a bit. I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate.” “I’m sure it wasn’t, too, sir. Very little around here is.” Ponder sighed. “I’m afraid that unthinking delegation and prevarication and procrastination are standard practice here.” (pp. 209-210)"

"The wizards paid no further attention and settled down to the passing of cups, the handing round of the sugar bowl, the inspection of the quality of the chocolate biscuits with a view to taking more than one’s entitlement and all the other little diversions without which a committee would be a clever device for making worthwhile decisions quickly. (pp. 129-130)"

"In theory, something should fit, but all she ever found was facts, which are so unbecoming. (p. 149)"

"Glenda enjoyed her job. She didn’t have a career; they were for people who could not hold down jobs. (p. 124)"

"“It’s the real stuff. Champagne.” “What? I thought only nobby people drank that!” “No, just people with money, love. Sometimes it’s the same thing.” (p. 160)"

"Ridcully was simple-minded. This doesn't mean stupid. It just means that he could only think properly about things if he cut away all the complicated bits around the edges. (p. 297)"

"His voice shook with rage."

"Weapons got you killed, often because you were holding one. (p. 180)"

"It is always useful for a university to have a Very Big Thing. It occupies the younger members, to the relief of their elders (especially if the VBT is based at some distance from the seat of learning itself) and it uses up a lot of money which would otherwise only lie around causing trouble or be spent by the sociology department or, probably, both. It also helps to push back boundaries, and it doesn't much matter what boundaries these are, since as any researcher will tell you it's the pushing that matters, not the boundary."

"It would have been nice to have a bit of cosmic explanation at this point, but the universe never gave you explanations, it just gave you more questions. (p. 122)"

"It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows."

""It can't be intelligent, can it?" said the Bursar."

"William Spigot was the one that sang when he worked, breaking into that long nasal whine which meant that folk song was about to be perpetrated. (p. 203)"

"“You two have a history, I think,” said Nutt. “You are a sharp one, aren’t you? Quiet and sharp. Like a knife. Yeah, I suppose it was a history. I wanted it to be more of a geography, but she kept slappin’ my hand.” (p. 88)"

"It has been said that crowds are stupid, but mostly they are simply confused, since as an eyewitness the average person is as reliable as a meringue lifejacket. (p. 103)"

"The senior wizards know that the proper purpose of magic is to form a social pyramid with the wizards on top of it, eating big dinners. (p. 189)"

"That was the bloody trouble, every time. Whenever someone was trying to do a bit of sensible thinking, there was always some pointless distraction. (p. 212)"

""Huh! Priests!" said Mr. Shoe. "They're all the same. Always telling you that you're going to live again after you're dead, but you just try it and see the look on their faces!" (p. 131)"

"Bill Door made the mistake millions of people had tried before with small children in slightly similar circumstances. He resorted to reason. (p. 159)"

""But how can a city be alive? It's only made up of dead parts!" said Ludmilla."

"“But here I am. You asked why I am strong? When I lived in the dark of the forge, I used to lift weights. The tongs at first, and then the little hammer and then the biggest hammer, and then one day I could lift the anvil. That was a good day. It was a little freedom.” “Why was it so important to lift the anvil?” “I was chained to the anvil.” (p. 87)"

"She hated people like him, who lived for the exercise of third-hand authority and loved every little bit of power they could grab. (p. 104)"

"He said that there was death and taxes, and taxes was worse, because at least death didn't happen to you every year. (p. 182)"

""Seems to me...seems to me...look, death must be going on, right? Death has to happen. That's what bein' alive is all about. You're alive, and then you're dead. It can't just stop happening." (p. 43)"

"Everything that exists, yearns to live. That's what the cycle of life is all about. That's the engine that drives the great biological pumps of evolution. Everything tries to inch its way up the tree, clawing or tentacling or sliming its way up to the next niche until it gets to the very top—which, on the whole, never seems to have been worth all that effort. (p. 81)"

"“When you live there, it’s safer that way. Anyway, you have to support your own.” “But is it not a game, like spillikins or halma or Thud?” “No! It’s more like war, but without the kindness and consideration!” (p. 63)"

"“Apes had it worked out. No ape would philosophize, “The mountain is, and is not.” They would think, “The banana is. I will eat the banana. There is no banana. I want another banana.” (pp. 72-73)"

"Oh. Hallo, Modo."

"I suppose there's not some kind of magic you don't know about?"

"But Nutt had a point. It was hard to argue with a man who insisted that he was not dead. (p. 114)"

"Intellectually, Ridcully maintained his position for two reasons. One was that he never, ever, changed his mind about anything. The other was that it took him several minutes to understand any new idea put to him, and this is a very valuable trait in a leader, because anything anyone is still trying to explain to you after two minutes is probably important and anything they give up after a mere minute or so is almost certainly something they shouldn't have been bothering you with in the first place. (p. 38)"

"Then there was a silence. It was the particularly wary silence of something making no noise. (p. 124)"

"The Dean himself didn't know when he'd been happier. For sixty years he'd been obeying all the self-regulating rules of wizardry, and suddenly he was having the time of his life. He'd never realized that, deep down inside, what he really wanted to do was make things go splat. (p. 242)"

"The Librarian was not very familiar with love, which had always struck him as a bit ethereal and soppy, but kindness, on the other hand, was practical. You knew where you were with kindness, especially if you were holding a pie it had just given you. (p. 74)"

"Something wonderful, if you took the long view, was about to happen."

"In the hall of the house of Death is a clock with a pendulum like a blade but with no hands, because in the house of Death there is no time but the present. (There was, of course, a present before the present now, but that was also the present. It was just an older one.) (p. 14)"

"Wizards don't believe in gods in the same way that most people don't find it necessary to believe in, say, tables. They know they're there, they know they're there for a purpose, they'd probably agree that they have a place in a well-organized universe, but they wouldn't see the point of believing, of going around saying, "O great table, without whom we are as naught." Anyway, either the gods are there whether you believe or not, or exist only as a function of the belief, so either way you might as well ignore the whole business and, as it were, eat off your knees. (p. 28)"

"It’s a short walk from the palace to Unseen University; positions of power like to keep an eye on one another. (p. 54)"

"“’Ow do I know I can trust you?” said the urchin. “I don’t know,” said Ridcully. “The subtle workings of the brain are a mystery to me, too. But I’m glad that is your belief.” (p. 56)"

"Every day took an age to go by, which was odd, because days plural went past like a stampede. (p. 13)"

"The Archchancellor was the first one to recover."

"Each man thought: one of the others is bound to say something soon, some protest, and then I'll murmur agreement, not actually say anything, I'm not as stupid as that, but definitely murmur very firmly, so that the others will be in no doubt that I thoroughly disapprove, because at a time like this it behooves all decent men to nearly stand up and be almost heard… But no one said anything. The cowards, each man thought."

"One said, That is the point. The word is him. Becoming a personality is inefficient. We don't want it to spread. Supposing gravity developed a personality? Supposing it decided to like people?"