A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.

He'd been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower.

At least I know I'm bewildered about the really fundamental and important facts of the universe.

They can tak' oour lives but they canna tak' oour troousers!

I never said nothing..." "I know you never! I could hear you not saying anything! You've got the loudest silences I ever did hear from anyone who wasn't dead!

The best thing I ever did with my life was stand up and say I've got Alzheimer's.

Dwarfs were not a naturally religious species, but in a world where pit props could crack without warning and pockets of fire damp could suddenly explode they'd seen the need for gods as the sort of supernatural equivalent of a hard hat. Besides, when you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it's nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, "Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!" or "Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!