He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at.

Hat = wizard, wizard = hat. Everything else is frippery.

Just because something is a metaphor doesn't mean it can't be real.

It was written in some holy book, apparently, so that made it okay, and probably compulsory.

Witches aren’t like that. We live in harmony with the great cycles of Nature, and do no harm to anyone, and it’s wicked of them to say we don’t. We ought to fill their bones with hot lead.

She was a beefy young woman and, whatever piece of music she was playing, it was definitely losing.

Who knew what evil lurked in the hearts of men? A copper, that's who. (...)You saw how close men lived to the beast. You realized that people like Carcer were not mad. They were incredibily sane. They were simply men without a shield. They'd looked at the world and realized that all the rules didn't have to apply to them, not if they didn't want them to. They weren't fooled by all the little stories. They shook hands with the beast.