"Rincewind reappeared above the lawn, and rolled expertly when he hit the ground. Other wizards, nothing like so experienced at dealing with the vicissitudes of the world, lay about groaning or staggered around uncertainly."

"AFTERTHOUGHT"

"This mission had created a difficult decision for Rincewind, when he'd been presented with the task of preventing Charles Darwin being stung to death by wasps. Right from the start it was obvious that Darwin would see him, and if Rincewind was invisible the wasps wouldn't see him. He'd therefore undertaken the mission carrying two buckets of warm jam and wearing a pink tutu, an acid-green wig, and a red nose, reasoning that (a) Darwin wouldn't believe that he had seen him and in any case (b) wouldn't dare tell anyone..."

"+++ I am sorry. It is hard to convey five-dimensional ideas in a language evolved to scream defiance at the monkeys in the next tree. +++"

"[...]In that world as we left it, the first humans walked on the Moon in less than seventy years after they flew at all.'"

"'Collecting was enormous popular among the English of this century. Bones, shells, butterflies, birds, other people's countries...'"

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

"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."

"There are quite a lot of reasons why that course of action might not, with ease, be rescued in any coherent way from the category of the insanely unwise, Dean."

"Elf Queen: You have forgotten that there is no narrativium in this world. It does not know how stories should go. Here the third son of a king is probably just a useless weak prince. Here, there are no heroes, only degrees of villainy. An old lady gathering wood in the forest is just an old lady and not, as in your world, almost certainly a witch. Oh, there's a belief in witches. But a witch here is merely a method of ridding society of burdensome old ladies and an inexpensive way of keeping the fire going all night. Here, gentlemen, good does not ultimately triumph at the expense of a few bruises and a non-threatening shoulder wound. Here, evil is generally defeated by a more organized kind of evil. My world, gentlemen. Not yours. Good day to you."

"Discworld is real. It's the way worlds should work. Admittedly, it is flat and goes through space on the back of four elephants which stand on the shell of a giant turtle, but consider the alternatives."

"'That would be unethical, Dean,' said Ridcully."

"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."

"Ponder was working the Rules again. Now they read:"

"'I think it looks more like a Hogswatchnight ornament,' said the Senior Wrangler later, as the wizards took a pre-dinner drink and stared into the omniscope at the glittering white world. 'Quite pretty, really.'"

"'Well, what is it achieving? I mean, really? Y'know, I thought, all you had to do is get a world working, and before you could say "creation" there'd be some creature who'd stand up, getting a grip on its surroundings, gaze with a certain amount of intelligence and awe at the infinite sky and say - '"

"'My hypothesis, for what it's worth,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, 'is that since it was all started off by the Dean, a certain Dean-like tendency may have imparted itself to the ensuing...er...developments.'"

"'I would just like to point out, Dean, that it was not a very funny joke to begin with. It was a pathetic attempt, Dean, at dragging a sad laugh out of a simple figure of speech. Only four-year-olds and people with a serious humour deficiency keep on and on about it. I just wanted to bring this out in the open, Dean, calmly and in the spirit of reconciliation, for your own good, in the hope that you may be made well. We are all here for you, although I can't imagine what you are here for.'"

"'Did you see the weather report for this world?' said Rincewind, waving his hands in the air. 'Two miles of ice, followed by a light shower of rocks, with outbreaks of choking fog for the next thousand years? There will be widespread vulcanism as half a continent's worth of magma lets go, followed by a period of mountain building? And that's normal."

"As humans, we have invented lots of useful kinds of lie. As well as lies-to-children ('as much as they can understand') there are lies-to-bosses ('as much as they need to know') lies-to-patients ('they won't worry about what they don't know') and, for all sorts of reasons, lies-to-ourselves. Lies-to-children is simply a prevalent and neccesary kind of lie. Universities are very familiar with bright, qualified school-leavers who arrive and then go into shock on finding that biology or physics isn't quite what they've been taught so far. 'Yes, but you needed to understand that,' they are told, 'so that now we can tell you why it isn't exactly true.' Discworld teachers know this, and use it to demonstrate why universities are truly storehouses of knowledge: students arrive from school confident that they know very nearly everything, and they leave years later certain that they know practically nothing. Where did the knowledge go in the meantime? Into the university, of course, where it is carefully dried and stored."

"As yet unmeasured, but believed to be faster than light owing to its ability to move so quickly out of light's way."

"'We've got about ten seconds to the next discharge, sir,' said Ponder. 'Only...now that the balls have gone it will simply earth itself...'"

"'And the Dean stirred it up,' the Senior Wrangler went on."

""I somehow feel I need to ask, Mister Stibbons...what chance is there of this just blowin' up and destroyin' the entire university?'"

"Eden and Camelot, the wonderous garden-worlds of myth and legend, are here now. This is about as good as it ever gets. Mostly, it's a lot worse. And it won't stay like this for very long."

"On Roundworld, things happen because the things want to happen.†"

"Magicians and scientists are, on the face of it, poles apart. Certainly, a group of people who often dress strangely, live in a world of their own, speak a specialized language and frequently make statements that appear to be in flagrant breach of common sense have nothing in common with a group of people who often dress strangely, speak a specialized language, live in ... er ..."

"Sometimes, the best answer is a more interesting question."

"If the Swan be nesting high, then floods are expected; if only the head of the Swan may be seen, they have arrived abruptly."

"With magic, you can turn a frog into a prince. With science, you can turn a frog into a Ph.D and you still have the frog you started with."

"This was turning out to be the longest winter in living memory, so long, in fact, that living memory itself was being shortened as some of the older citizens succumbed."

"We take in all sorts as it is," said the Dean. "Does he mean people who are not traditionally good at magic?" said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. "Ridiculous!" said the Dean. "Forty per cent duffers?" "Exactly!" said the Archchancellor. "That means we'd have to find enough clever people to make up over half the student intake! We'd never manage it. If they were clever already, they wouldn't need to go to university! No, we'll stick to an intake of one hundred per cent young fools, thank you. Bring 'em in stupid, send them away clever, that's the UU way!" "Some of them arrive thinking they're clever, of course," said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. "Yes, but we soon disabuse them of that," said the Dean happily. "What is a university for if it isn't to tell you that everything you think you know is wrong?" "Well put, that man!" said Ridcully. "Ignorance is the key! That's how the Dean got where he is today!" "Thank you, Archchancellor," said the Dean. "I shall take that as a compliment. Carefully directed ignorance is the key to all knowledge." "I think the inspector means people who by accident of birth, upbringing, background, or early education would not meet the usual entrance requirements," said Ponder quickly. "Really? Good idea," said Ridcully. "And are we to take it that for his part he intends to make a point of hiring clerks who aren't very good at sums and file everything under 'S' for 'stuff'?" "He doesn't appear to say so—" "How strange. But, you see, we're a university, Mr. Stibbons, not a bandage. We can't just wave a magic wand and make everything better!" "Actually, sir— "Ridcully waved a hand irritably. "Yes, yes, all right, I know. We can just wave a magic wand and make everything better. Except, of course, that making everything better by magic only makes things much, much worse!"

"“And what was it about?” said the Dean. “Oh, I don’t think it was for reading. It was for having written,” said the Archchancellor."

"Put it on the agenda for this time next year, Mr. Stibbons. No, perhaps the year after next. You can't hurry urgency, I've always said so."

"'Where did you get the idea for this, Mister Stibbons?' said Ridcully."

"There are no inconsistencies in the Discworld books, merely alternative pasts."

"Rincewind: 'This world is an anvil. Everything here is between a rock and a hard place. Every single thing on it is the descendant of creatures that have survived everything the world could throw at them. I just hope they never get angry.... '"

"And a witch used what was to hand, too. All that fiddlin’ with coloured candles and crystal balls and whatnot, that was fine for them as needed it, but at a pinch you use what you could reach. In this case she reached down and lifted the heavy wooden lid of the well and looked down into the dark waters. There was nothing there. But there was never anything in a crystal, either. There was simply emptiness, which said: fill me up."

"So she’d been good. She was good at justice. She was good at medicine, particularly that type of medicine which started in the head. She was good at winning. She was good, though she said it herself, at most of the things she set her mind at. But not nice. She had to admit it. And it seemed that people preferred nice to good."

"According to the trollish philosopher Plateau, “if you wants to understan’ an enemy, you gotta walk a mile in his shoes. Den, if he’s still your enemy, at least you’re a mile away and he’s got no shoes.”"

"But she’d never set out to be nice. When you went up against some of the opponents she’d met, nice people would finish last, or not even finish."

"Knowing how bad you could be is a great encouragement to be good."

"“May I continue?” said Death."

"“I did start out in witchcraft to get boys, to tell you the truth.” “Think I don’t know that?” “What did you start out to get, Esme?” Granny stopped, and looked up at the frosty sky and then down at the ground. “Dunno,” she said at last. “Even, I suppose.”"

"Unlike the magic of wizards, the magic of witches did not usually involve the application of much raw power. The difference is that between hammers and levers. Witches generally tried to find the small point where a little change made a lot of result. To make an avalanche you can either shake the mountain, or maybe you can just find exactly the right place to drop a snowflake."

"She’d taken them to his farm and showed them where to dig, and he’d thrown himself down and asked her for mercy, because he said he’d been drunk and it’d all been done in alcohol. Her words came back to her. She’d said, in sobriety: end it in hemp."

"The villagers had said justice had been done, and she’d lost patience and told them to go home, then, and pray to whoever gods they believed in that it was never done to them. Because the smug face of virtue triumphant could be almost as horrible as wickedness revealed."