All the higher life forms scythed away, just like that. [ . . . ] Nothing but dust and fundamentalists.

Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possible go wrong and every avenue has been covered, then is the time to buy a house on the next continent.

And what do you really do? asked Tiffany. The thin witch hesitatied for a moment, and then: We look to ... the edges, said Mistress Weatherwax. There's a lot of edges, more than people know. Between life and death, this world and the next, night and day, right and wrong ... an' they need watchin'. We watch 'em, we guard the sum of things. And we never ask for any reward. That's important.

Be careful what you wish for. You never know who will be listening.

The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it's as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.

It was said that life was cheap in Ankh-Morpork. This was of course, completely wrong. Life was often very expensive; you could get death for free.

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