Equal Rites (Discworld, #3; Witches, #1)

by Terry Pratchett

“If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly,”

Perhaps more importantly, the ants used all the sugar lumps they could steal to build a small sugar pyramid in one of the hollow walls, in which, with great ceremony, they entombed the mummified body of a dead queen. On the wall of one tiny hidden chamber they inscribed, in insect hieroglyphs, the true secret of longevity. They got it absolutely right and it would probably have important implications for the universe if it hadn’t, next time the University flooded, been completely washed away.