"These dull gray blocks looked threatening. He could understand why they worried people. Put us together in the right way, they seemed to say, and we can be anything you want. We could even be something you don’t want. We can spell anything. We can certainly spell trouble. The ban on movable type wasn’t exactly a law. But he knew the engravers didn’t like it, because they had the world operating just as they wanted it, thank you very much. And Lord Vetinari was said not to like it, because too many words only upset people. And the wizards and the priests didn’t like it because words were important. An engraved page was an engraved page, complete and unique. But if you took the leaden letters that had previously been used to set the words of a god, and then used them to set a cookery book, what did that do to the holy wisdom? For that matter, what would it do to the pie? As for printing a book of spells, and then using the same type for a book of navigation—well, the voyage might go anywhere. (pp. 37-38)"
January 1, 1970