“Funny, reely," he said. "You spend your whole life goin' to school and learnin' stuff, and they never tell you about stuff like the Bermuda Triangle and UFOs and all these Old Masters running around the inside of the Earth. Why do we have to learn boring stuff when there's all this brilliant stuff we could be learnin', that's what I want to know.”

“I heard this story once," she said, "where this bloke got locked up for years and years and he learned amazin' stuff about the universe and everythin' from another prisoner who was incredibly clever, and then he escaped and got his revenge.""What incredibly clever stuff do you know about the universe, Gytha Ogg?" said Granny."Bugger all," said Nanny cheerfully."Then we'd better bloody well escape right now.”

“Learnin’ how not to do things is as hard as learning how to do them.”

“All he knew was that you couldn't hope to try for the big stuff, like world peace and happiness, but you might just about be able to achieve some tiny deed that'd make the world, in a small way, a better place. Like shooting someone.”

“But the point about that kind of stuff was that you needed someone around to be proudly independent and self-reliant. People who didn’t need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn’t need people.”

“Is that all, sir? Only we've got stuff to finish before our knocking-off time, you see, and if we stay late we have to make more money to pay our overtime, and if the lads is a bit tired we ends up earning the money faster'n we can make it, which leads to a bit of what I can only call a conundrum—""You mean that if you do overtime you have to do more overtime to pay for it?" said Moist, still pondering how illogical logical thinking can be if a big enough committee is doing it."That's right, sir," said Shady. "And down that road madness lies.""It's a very short road," said Moist, nodding.”

“And what do they talk about beyond the barricade, my little lad?”“Um…well, Justice an' Truth an' Freedom and stuff,” said Nobby.“Aha. Rebel talk!” said Carcer, straightening up.“Is it?” said the major.“Take it from me, major,” said Carcer. “When you get a bunch of people using words like that, they're up to no good.”