Interesting Times (Discworld, #17; Rincewind, #5)

by Terry Pratchett

Lord Hong had long ago ceased pursuing perfection because he already had it nailed up in a dungeon somewhere.

He’d always felt he had a right to exist as a wizard in the same way that you couldn’t do proper maths without the number 0, which wasn’t a number at all but, if it went away, would leave a lot of larger numbers looking bloody stupid.

There was, he thought, probably something in the idea that there were only a few people in the world. There were lots of bodies, but only a few people. That’s why you kept running into the same ones.

Besides, the Emperor wasn’t simply at Death’s door but well inside the hallway, admiring the carpet and commenting on the hatstand.