The Last Continent (Discworld, #22; Rincewind, #6)

by Terry Pratchett

Wasn’t it a basic principle never to let your employer know what it is you actually do all day?

Knowledge is dangerous, which is why governments often clamp down on people who can think thoughts above a certain caliber.

Unseen University was much bigger on the inside.

Rincewind had always been happy to think of himself as a racist. The One Hundred Meters, the Mile, the Marathon—he’d run them all. Later, when he’d learned with some surprise what the word actually meant, he’d been equally certain he wasn’t one.

Creators aren’t gods. They make places, which is quite hard. It’s men that make gods. This explains a lot.

“Senior Wrangler, we are elderly, wise and experienced wizards,” said Ridcully. “Students are prankers.” “Pranksters, possibly,” mumbled Ponder Stibbons. “Whatever. We do not indulge in pranks.” “With us it’s a fully fledged gold-embossed cock-up or nothing,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

“I’m glad I’m not religious,” he said. “It must be very complicated.”

“You’re thinking: what kind of bird stops flyin’ around for a quick smoke?” “A puffin,” said the Bursar.

Roads went somewhere. Sooner or later they went everywhere. And when you got there, you generally found walls, buildings, harbors . . . boats. And incidentally a shortage of talking kangaroos. That was practically one of the hallmarks of civilization.

Discworld constellations changed frequently as the world moved through the void, which meant that astrology was cutting-edge research rather than, as elsewhere, a clever way of avoiding a proper job.