Learnin’ how not to do things is as hard as learning how to do them.

Apes had it worked out. No ape would philosophize, "The mountain is, and is not." They would think, "The banana is. I will eat the banana. There is no banana. I want another banana.

I would like permission to fetch a note from my mother, sir' Ridcully sighed. 'Rincewind, you once informed me, to my everlasting puzzlement, that you never knew your mother because she ran away before you were born. Distinctly remember writing it down in my diary. Would you like another try?' 'Permission to go and find my mother?'

Once you gave a thing a name, you gave it life.

You've got a lot of time for abstract thought when you've got your hand stuck up a dead badger.

I think I would like to go into modelling. Of course, I don't know how to do it, and wouldn't be any good at it if I did, so I'm going to employ someone to walk the catwalks on my behalf. It would still be me, of course.

I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another when the best fruit is.