...it is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done.

Did I do anything last night that suggested I was sane?

I must confess the activities of the UK governments for the past couple of years have been watched with frank admiration and amazement by Lord Vetinari. Outright theft as a policy had never occurred to him.

Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.

He found that he had this sudden desperate longing for the fuming, smoky streets of Ankh-Morpork, which was always at its best in the spring, when the gummy sheen on the turbid waters of the Ankh River had a special iridescence and the eaves were full of birdsong, or at least birds coughing rhythmically

It was quite impossible to describe. Here is what it looked like. It looked like a piano sounds shortly after being dropped down a well. It tasted yellow, and it felt Paisley. It smelled like the total eclipse of the moon.

An author writes a book, and that's the book at that point. And if the author writes the book again, then somehow something has gone wrong, if you see what I mean.