What's the good of having mastery over cosmic balance and knowing the secrets of fate if you can't blow something up?

Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out.

Little crimes breed big crimes. You smile at little crimes and then big crimes blow your head off.

And that's what I don't like about magic, Captain. 'cos it's *magic*. You can't ask questions, it's magic. It doesn't explain anything, it's magic. You don't know where it comes from, it's magic! That's what I don't like about magic, it does everything by magic!

...the proliferation of luminous fungi or iridescent crystals in deep caves where the torchlessly improvident hero needs to see is one of the most obvious intrusions of narrative causality into the physical universe.

The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and bloody-mindedness.

I dinna trust him," said Slightly Mad Angus. "He reads books an' such.