The librarians were mysterious. It was said they could tell what book you needed just by looking at you, and they could take your voice away with a word.

Oh, well...up until now it had been a good day, in a horrible kind of way.

Perhaps the magic would last, perhaps it wouldn't. But then again, what does?

And these are your reasons, my lord?" "Do you think I have others?" said Lord Vetinari. "My motives, as ever, are entirely transparent." Hughnon reflected that 'entirely transparent' meant either that you could see right through them or that you couldn't see them at all.

A weapon you held and didn't know how to use belonged to your enemy.

Mr Lipwig, there's a lady in the hall to see you and we've thanked her for not smoking three times and she's still doing it!

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.