I think when people mean that Discworld books have become darker they really mean the series is growing up. In 'The Colour of Magic' most of the city is set alight. It's a joke, in much the same way that the Earth is destroyed almost at the start of Douglas Adams's 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.'

The price of being the best is having to be the best.

You're not allowed to call them dinosaurs any more," said Yo-less. "It's speciesist. You have to call them pre-petroleum persons.

And all the stories had, somewhere, the witch. The wicked old witch. And Tiffany had thought: Where's the evidence?

There has been a lot of bad fantasy in the past - I'm by no means saying that all classic fantasy out there is bad - but there has been a lot of bad fantasy written by people who read a lot of fantasy and so all they keep doing is recycling it.

Granny knew all about bad fortune-telling. It was harder than the real thing. You needed a good imagination.

The power of prayer and faith can heal and bring happiness. The real tragedy is that the people that are helped by this don't realize that this power is really coming from within.