Sister Mary was a nurse and nurses, whatever their creed, are primarily nurses, which had a lot to do with wearing your watch upside down, keeping calm in emergencies, and dying for a cup of tea.

I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.

I must have read every issue of 'Punch' published in the 20th century, and I think in the process I picked up the true voice of English humour - that amiable, fairly liberal, laconic voice which you find in something like 'Three Men in a Boat.'

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

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

Anyway, it's like with bikes,' said the first speaker authoritatively. 'I thought I was going to get this bike with seven gears and one of them razorblade saddles and purple paint and everything, and they gave me this light blue one. With a basket. A girl's bike.' 'Well. You're a girl,' said one of the others. 'That's sexism, that is. Going around giving people girly presents just because they're a girl.

Vimes had got around to a Clean Desk policy. It was a Clean Floor strategy that eluded him at the moment.