The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)

by Terry Pratchett

If it were funny, clowns wouldn’t be doing it.

It is in the nature of the universe that the person who always keeps you waiting ten minutes will, on the day you are ten minutes tardy, have been ready ten minutes early and will make a point of not mentioning this.

You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was “but we’ve always done it this way.” A million dead people can’t have been wrong, can they?

The news that they have nothing to fear is guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of innocents everywhere.