Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad

He'd noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery: It fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination - but

She'd stopped reading the kind of women's magazine that talked about romance and knitting and started reading the kind of women's magazine that talked about orgasms, but apart from making a mental note to have one if ever the occasion presented itsel

A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon or three normal-sized billiard balls

Why does everyone run toward a blood curdling scream? mumbled the Senior Wrangler. It is contrary to all sense

The point is that descriptive writing is very rarely entirely accurate and during the reign of Olaf Quimby II as Patrician of Ankh-Morpork some legislation was passed in a determined attempt to “put a stop to this sort of thing and introduce some honesty to reporting Thus, if a legend told of a notable hero that “all men spoke of his prowess any bard who valued his life would hastily add except for a couple of people in his home village who thought he was a loony, and quite a lot of other people who had never really heard of him.Poetic simile was strictly limited to statements like His mighty steed was fast as the wind, on a fairly calm day, say about Force Three, any loose talk about a beloved having a face that could launch a thousand ships would have to be backed by evidence that the object of desire did indeed own a very large seaport. Patrician Olaf II was eventually killed during an experiment conducted in the palace grounds to prove the disputed accuracy of the proverb The Pen is mightier than the Sword In his memory it was decided that the proverb would from now on include the phrase: only if the Sword is very small and the Pen very sharp.

Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up

Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong

Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages

Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended. And this is all very natural and organic and in tune with mysterious cycles of the cosmos, which believes that there’s nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fiber and, in some cases, backbone