They suffered from the terrible delusion that something could be done. They seemed prepared to make the world the way they wanted it or die in the attempt, and the trouble with dying in the attempt was that you died in the attempt.

The trouble is you can shut your eyes but you can’t shut your mind.

I've lost both parents in the last two years, so you pick up on that stuff. That's the most terrible thing about being an author - standing there at your mother's funeral, but you don't switch the author off. So your own innermost thoughts are grist for the mill.

Never cross a woman with a star on a stick, young lady. They've got a mean streak.

Ridcully was to management what King Herod was to the Bethlehem Playgroup Association.

...no-one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away... The span of someone's life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence.

Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often students, for heaven's sake.