"Multiple exclamation marks," he went on, shaking his head, "are a sure sign of a diseased mind."

The rising sun managed to peek around the vast column of smoke that forever rose from Ankh-Morpork, City of Cities, illustrating almost up to the edge of space that smoke means progress or, at least, people setting fire to things.

It's going to look pretty good, then, isn't it," said War testily, "the One Horseman and Three Pedestrians of the Apocalypse.

Balance. It was all about balance. That had been one of the first things that she had learned: the centre of the seesaw has neither up nor down, but upness and downness flow through it while it remains unmoved. You had to be the centre of the seesaw so the pain flowed through you, not into you. It was very hard. But she could do it!

Here's what I suggest," he said. "You pretend that rats can think, and I'll promise to pretend that humans can think, too.

Writing, for me, is a little like wood carving. You find the lump of tree (the big central theme that gets you started), and you start cutting the shape that you think you want it to be. But you find, if you do it right, that the wood has a grain of its own (characters develop and present new insights, concentrated thinking about the story opens new avenues). If you're sensible, you work with the grain and, if you come across a knot hole, you incorporate that into the design. This is not the same as 'making it up as you go along'; it's a very careful process of control.

If you had enough money, you could hardly commit crimes at all. You just perpetrated amusing little peccadilloes.