Terry Pratchett

You wanted magic, watch". She put her hand into the struggling mass of insects and made a shrill faint piping noise in the back of her throat. There was a movement in the mass, and a large bee lander and flatter then the others crawled onto her hand. A few workers followed it stroking it and generally ministering to it."How did you do that" said Esk."Ahhh," said Granny, "wouldn't you like to know"."Yes I would that's why I asked Granny," said Esk severely."Do you think I used magic", Esk looked down at the queen bee, then up at the witch."No, I think you just know a lot about bees".Granny grinned, "Exactly correct, that's one form of magic of course"."What just knowing things"."Knowing things that other people don't know," said Granny

He was stupid, yes, in the particular way that very clever people can be stupid.

His granny taught him to read, see. I reckon it overheated his mind.

I know that I am a small, weak man, but I have amassed a large library; I dream of dangerous places.

A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.

The universe danced towards life. Life was a remarkably common commodity. Anything sufficiently complicated seemed to get cut in for some, in the same way that anything massive enough got a generous helping of gravity. The universe had a definite tendency towards awareness. This suggested a certain subtle cruelty woven into the very fabric of space-time.

His eyeless skull took in the line of costumes, the waxy debris of the makeup table. His empty nostrils snuffed up the mixed smells of mothballs, grease, and sweat. There was something here, he thought, that nearly belonged to the gods. Humans had built a world inside the world, which reflected it in pretty much the same way as a drop of water reflects the landscape. And yet... and yet... Inside this little world they had taken pains to put all the things you might think they would want to escape from - hatred, fear, tyranny, and so forth. Death was intrigued. They thought they wanted to be taken out of themselves, and every art humans dreamt up took them further in.

As far as he could see, the drawings were simply alive. They might be colored earth on rock, but they were as alive as the kangaroo that'd just hopped away.

Humans had built a world inside the world, which reflected it in pretty much the same way as a drop of water reflected the landscape. And yet ... and y

This is Art holding a Mirror up to Life. That__ why everything is exactly the wrong way around.

But is all this true?" said Brutha.Didactylos shrugged. "Could be. Could be. We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork.""You mean you don't KNOW it's true?" said Brutha."I THINK it might be," said Didactylos. "I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.

We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork.

I__ not superstitious. I__ a witch. Witches aren__ superstitious. We are what people are superstitious of.

An Assassin, a real Assassin, had to look like one - black clothes, hood, boots, and all. If they could wear any clothes, any disguise, then what could anyone do but spend all day in a small room with a loaded crossbow pointed at the door?

The trouble is that things never get better, they just stay the same, only more so.

I commend my soul to any god that can find it.

That's old Twoflower, Rincewind thought. It__ not that he doesn__ appreciate beauty, he just appreciates it in his own way. I mean, if a poet sees a daffodil he stares at it and writes a long poem about it, but Twoflower wanders off to find a book on botany. He just looks at things, but nothing he looks at is ever the same again. Including me, I suspect.

Bursar?""Yes, Archchancellor?""You ain't a member of some secret society or somethin', are you?""Me? No, Archchancellor.""Then it'd be a damn good idea to take your underpants off your head.