It wasn't that Nanny Ogg sang badly. It was just that she could hit notes which, when amplified by a tin bath half full of water, ceased to be sound and became some sort of invasive presence.

Even if it's not your fault, it's your responsibility.

Stop stealing the funeral meats right now, you wee scuggers!" She shouted. The Feegles stopped and stared at her. Then Rob Anybody said: "Socks wi'oot feets?

Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.

Everything starts somewhere, though many physicists disagree. But people have always been dimly aware of the problem with the start of things. They wonder how the snowplough driver gets to work, or how the makers of dictionaries look up the spelling of words.

He moved in a way that suggested he was attempting the world speed record for the nonchalant walk.

There are no medium-sized trees in the deep forest. There are only the towering ones, whose canopy spreads across the sky. Below, in the gloom, there's light for nothing but mosses and ferns. But when a giant falls, leaving a little space ... then there's a race - between the trees on either side, who want to spread out, and the seedlings below, who race to grow up. Sometimes, you can make your own space.