Creatures which, lacking mankind's superior brain power, did not concern themselves with finding someone to blame, and instead tried to find someone to eat.

I was merely endeavoring to indicate that if we do not grab events by the collar they will have us by the throat. -Lord Vetinari

And at the other end of the bar the world is full of the other type of person, who has a broken glass, or a glass that has been carelessly knocked over (usually by one of the people calling for a larger glass) or who had no glass at all, because he was at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the barman's eye.

Everything makes sense a bit at a time. But when you try to think of it all at once, it comes out wrong.

When I was a kid, I read the science-fiction shelves, and I read the fantasy shelves.

Death was standing behind a lectern, poring over a map. He looked at Mort as if he wasn’t entirely there. You haven't heard of the bayof mante, have you? He said. “No, sir,” said Mort. Famous shipwreck there. “Was there?” there will be, said Death, if I can find the damn place.

Around it are those countries which, according to History, constitute the civilised world ie, a world that can support historians