Well...that was a bit of an underwhelming end to the series!

I guess this had to be done, so was done.

"Many people are aware of the Weak and Strong Anthropic Principles. The Weak One says, basically, that it was jolly amazing of the universe to be constructed in such a way that humans could evolve to a point where they make a living in, for example, universities, while the Strong One says that, on the contrary, the whole point of the universe was that humans should not only work in universities but also write for huge sums books with words like “Cosmic” and “Chaos” in the titles."


“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need...fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"Imprisoned in the priceless inquiring amber of Leonard's massive mind, underneath all that bright investigative genius, was a kind of wilful innocence that might in a lesser man be called stupidity. It was the seat and soul of that force which down the millennia had caused mankind to stick it's finger in the electric light socket of the universe and play with the switch to see what happens. And then be very surprised when it did."

"If you would seek peace, prepare for war!"

"Night poured over the desert. It came suddenly, in purple. In the clear air, the stars drilled down out of the sky, reminding any thoughtful watcher that it is in the deserts and high places that religions are generated. When men see nothing but bottomless infinity over their heads they have always had a driving and desperate urge to find someone to put in the way."

"What better work for one who loves freedom than the job of watchman. Law is the servant of freedom. Freedom without limits is just a word."

'Atheism is also a religious position,' Dorfl rumbled.
'No it's not!' Said constable Visit.
'Atheism is a denial of a god.' 'Therefore it is a religious position,' said Dorfl. 'Indeed, a true atheist thinks of the gods constantly, albeit in terms of denial. Therefore, atheism is a form of belief. If the atheist truly did not believe, he or she would not bother to deny.'
'Did you read those pamphlets i gave you?' Said Visit suspiciously.
'Yes. Many of them did not make sense. But i should like to read some more...There is much in them that i would like to discuss. If you know some priests, I would enjoy disputation.'

"The Ankh-Morpork view of crime and punishment was that the penalty for the first offence should prevent the possibility of a second offence."

"Only crimes could take place in darkness. Punishment had to be done in the light"

"People kept on talking about the true king of Ankh-Morpork, but history taught a cruel lesson. It said - often in words of blood - that the true king was the one who got crowned."

"Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate . . ."

"People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly
fashionable chaos and complexity."

"All tribal myths are true for a given value of true."

"It is a general test of the omnipotence of a God that they can see the fall of a tiny bird but only one God makes notes and a few adjustments so that the next time it can fall faster and further. We may find out why, we may find out why mankind is here although that is more complicated and begs the question 'where else would we be'? It would be terrible to think that some impatient deity might part the cloud and say, "Damn! Are you lot still here? I thought you discovered slood then thousand years ago. I have got ten trillions of ice arriving on Monday" ".

"There is such a thing as an edible, nay, delicious meat pie floater, its mushy peas of just the right consistency, its tomato sauce piquant in its cheekiness, its pie filling tending even towards named parts of the animal. There are platonic burgers made of beef instead of cow lips and hooves. There are fish 'n' chips where the batter is more than just a white goo lurking at the bottom of a batter casing and you can't use the chips to shave with. There are hot dog fillings that have more in common with meat than mere pinkness, whose lucky consumers don't apply mustard because that would spoil the taste. It's just that people can be trained to prefer the other sort, and seek it out. It's as if Machiavelli had written a cookery book.

Even so, there is no excuse for putting pineapple on pizza."


“Why did he have to go to prison?”
“We put all our politicians in prison as soon as they’re elected. Don’t you?”
“Why?”
“It saves time.”


'Well, have you got something like Maxwell's Impressive Separator?' said Ridcully. 'What's that do?' said Archchancellor Rincewind. 'Unmixes two things, like . . . sugar and sand, for example. Uses nanny's demons.'
'Nano-demons, possibly,' murmured Ponder wearily.

The germination point of the book was Launch Pad, a previously NASA-funded workshop the goal of which was to get together media influencers and make sure they understand the science, if they were going to use it in any of their works.

Paraphrased from the Acknowledgements.

Quite an interesting tidbit.