Going Postal: A Novel of Discworld (Terry Pratchett)

There is a saying, “You can’t fool an honest man,” which is much quoted by people who make a profitable living by fooling honest men. Moist never tried it, knowingly anyway. If you did fool an honest man, he tended to complain to the local Watch, and these days they were harder to buy off. Fooling dishonest men was a lot safer and, somehow, more sporting. And, of course, there were so many more of them. You hardly had to aim.

Being an absolute ruler today was not as simple as people thought. At least, it was not simple if your ambitions included being an absolute ruler tomorrow.

Haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘Man’s not dead while his name is still spoken’?”

Gilt patted him on the shoulder. “Calm yourself, Crispin. Nothing is going to go wrong. You think about money in the old-fashioned way. Money is not a thing, it is not even a process. It is a kind of shared dream. We dream that a small disc of common metal is worth the price of a substantial meal. Once you wake up from that dream, you can swim in a sea of money.”

the Post Office had its Regulations, and so the chief postal inspector was brought before Postmaster Cowerby and asked why he had decided to risk destroying the whole universe in one go. According to Post Office legend, Mr. Rumbelow had replied: “Firstly, sir, I reasoned that if I destroyed the universe all in one go, no one would know; secondly, when I walloped the thing the first time, the wizards ran away, so I surmised that unless they has another universe to run to they weren’t really certain; and lastly, sir, the bloody thing was getting on my nerves. Never could stand machinery, sir.”

“Let’s get busy. We’re going to need more staff, Postal Inspector Groat. A lot more staff. Smarten up, man. The Post Office is back!” “Yessir!” said Groat, drunk on enthusiasm. “We’ll . . . we’ll do things that are quite new, in interestin’ ways!”

“What? What?” said Moist, staring into the mirror. “Look, have I got spinach between my teeth?” “Have You Eaten Spinach Today, Sir?” said Mr. Pump. “I haven’t eaten spinach since I was old enough to spit,”

But what was happening now . . . this was magical. Ordinary men had dreamed it up and put it together, building towers on rafts in swamps and across the frozen spines of mountains. They’d cursed and, worse, used logarithms. They’d waded through rivers and dabbled in trigonometry.

But, in my experience, the best way to get something done is to give it to someone who is busy,” said Vetinari.