If I had been Terry Pratchett the farmer, or Terry Pratchett the dentist, nobody would have paid any attention if I had announced I had Alzheimer's. But there is something fascinating about an author losing the power over words.

The sun is simple. A sword is simple. A storm is simple. Behind everything simple is a huge tail of complicated.

Thinking. This book contains some. Whether you try it at home is up to you.

And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head.

Most modern fantasy just rearranges the furniture in Tolkien's attic.

In the first book of my Discworld series, published more than 26 years ago, I introduced Death as a character; there was nothing particularly new about this - death has featured in art and literature since medieval times, and for centuries we have had a fascination with the Grim Reaper.

There is a soak-the-rich attitude in the air, a feeling that if you have a lot of money you must have got it by some ghastly means. I can quite happily say there was never any family money. All the money we got was mine, just from writing books.