The Shepherd's Crown (Discworld, #41)

by Terry Pratchett

fact, Nanny Ogg had done a great deal of everything, and was commonly held to be so broad-minded that you could pull her mind out through her ears and tie a hat on with it.

Granny Weatherwax’s garden was cheek by jowl with the woodland beyond,

There was music, and over it all, Agnes’s heavenly voice. She sang the ‘Columbine Lament’, and as its soft tune wafted over the roof and into the forest beyond, Nanny said to Tiffany, ‘That voice could make the trees cry.’

‘That’s what humans are. Right up to our kings and queens, our barons and lords. Our rulers rule by consent, which means that we like having them as rulers, if they do what we want them to do. There were a lot of battles long ago, but there again everyone finally realized that it was better to work peacefully with everyone else. For one person alone cannot survive. We humans definitely need other people to keep us human.’