Shadwell hated all southerners and, by inference, was standing at the North Pole.

I certainly don't sit down and plan a book out before I write it. There's a phrase I use called "The Valley Full of Clouds." Writing a novel is as if you are going off on a journey across a valley. The valley is full of mist, but you can see the top of a tree here and the top of another tree over there. And with any luck you can see the other side of the valley. But you cannot see down into the mist. Nevertheless, you head for the first tree.

I was just a kid then. But I won't forget. Nor will others. There's lots of people with reason to hate the Church.

No! Please! I'll tell you whatever you want to know!" the man yelled. "Really?" said Vimes. "What's the orbital velocity of the moon?" "What?" "Oh, you'd like something simpler?

Happiness is not the natural state of mankind, and is never achieved from the outside in.

Look, he said to his imagination, if this is how you're going to behave, I shan't bring you again.

Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.