“As large as worlds. As old as Time. As patient as a brick.”

“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”

“The Tezuman priests have a sophisticated calendar and an advanced horology," quoted Rincewind."Ah," said Eric, "Good.""No," said Rincewind patiently. "It means time measurement.""Oh.”

“Time was something that largely happened to other people; he viewed it in the same way that people on the shore viewed the sea. It was big and it was out there, and sometimes it was an invigorating thing to dip a toe into, but you couldn't live in it all the time. Besides, it always made his skin wrinkle.”

“Moist was sure doctors keep skeletons around to cow patients. Nyer, nyer, we know what you look underneath ...”

“They were small, brightly coloured, happy little creatures who secreted some of the nastiest toxins in the world, which is why the job of looking after the large vivarium where they happily passed their days was given to first-year students, on the basis that if they got things wrong there wouldn't be too much education wasted.”

“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.”