Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a hero.

People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.

It had a very long pendulum, and the pendulum swung with a slow tick-tock that set his teeth on edge, because it was the the kind of delibrate, annoying ticking that wanted to make it abundantly clear that every tick and every tock was stripping another second off your life.

The sun rose slowly, as if it wasn't sure it was worth all the effort.

That's the Ankh-Morpork instinct, Vimes thought. Run away, and then stop and see if anything interesting is going to happen to other people.

And our lady friend, she thinks life works like a fairy tale.' Well, that’s harmless, isn’t it?' Yeah, but in fairy tales, when someone dies... it’s just a word.

Truly, he thought, the way of enlightenment is like unto half a mile of broken glass.