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

by Terry Pratchett

A world like that, which exists only because the gods enjoy a joke, must be a place where magic can survive. And sex too, of course.

“Exactly correct. That’s one form of magic, of course.” “What, just knowing things?” “Knowing things that other people don’t know

“They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.”

“The Powers That Be have many strange qualities, and puzzling and varied are the ways in which they make their desires known in this circle of firelight we call the physical world,”

but a hint was to Esk what a mosquito bite was to the average rhino because she was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don’t apply to you.