Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother.

We have been so successful in the past century at the art of living longer and staying alive that we have forgotten how to die. Too often we learn the hard way. As soon as the baby boomers pass pensionable age, their lesson will be harsher still.

Of course, like all the informal inhabitants of the University the roaches were a little unusual, but there was something particularly unpleasant about the sound of billions of very small feet hitting the stones in perfect time. Rincewind stepped gingerly over the marching column. The Librarian jumped it. The Luggage, of course, followed them with a noise like someone tapdancing over a bag of crisps.

Granny Weatherwax was not a good loser. From her point of view, losing was something that happened to other people.

Coffee is a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your older self.

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

Mr. Tulip lived his life on that thin line most people occupy just before they haul off and hit someone repeatedly with a wrench.