“If you thought hard enough, he’d always considered, you could work out everything. The wind, for example. It had always puzzled him until the day he’d realized that it was caused by all the trees waving about.”

“If you had enough money, you could hardly commit crimes at all. You just perpetrated amusing little peccadilloes.”

“Victor eyed the glistening tubes in the tray around Dibbler's neck. They smelled appetizing. They always did. And then you bit into them, and learned once again that Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler could find a use for bits of an animal that the animal didn't know it had got. Dibbler had worked out that with enough fried onions and mustard people would eat anything.”

“For example, the dwarfs found out how to turn lead into gold by doing it the hard way. The difference between that and the easy way is that the hard way works.”

“Find the story, Granny Weatherwax always said. She believed that the world was full of story shapes. If you let them, they controlled you. But if you studied them, if you found out about them... you could use them, you could change them.”

“Commander, I always used to consider that you had a definite anti-authoritarian streak in you.”“Sir?”“It seems that you have managed to retain this even though you are authority.”“Sir?”“That’s practically zen.”

“It was sad music. But it waved its sadness like a battle flag. It said the universe had done all it could, but you were still alive.”