“Whole new theories of money were growing here like mushrooms: in the dark and based on bullshit.”

“The year is round! The wheel of the world must spin! That is why up here they dance the Dark Morris, to balance it. They welcome the winter because of the new summer deep inside it!”

“There was no safety. There was no pride. All there was, was money. Everything became money, and money became everything. Money treated us as if we were things, and we died.”

“Currently, it was leading him through a neighborhood that was on the downside of whatever curve you hoped you'd bought your property on the upside of. Graffiti and garbage were everywhere here. They were everywhere in the city, if it came to that, but elsewhere the garbage was better quality, and the graffiti was close to being correctly spelled. The whole area was waiting for something to happen, like a really bad fire.”

“Magrat wondered what it was like, spending your whole life doing something you didn’t want to do. Like being dead, she considered, only worse, the reason being, you were alive to suffer it.”

“It will certainly show what our ancestors would be thinking if they were alive today. People have often speculated about this. Would they approve of modern society, they ask, would they marvel at present-day achievements? And of course this misses a fundamental point. What our ancestors would really be thinking, if they were alive today, is: "Why is it so dark in here?”

“Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.”