Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement.

It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed 'Wisdom.' And then I know exactly what is going to follow: 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'

I sit astride life like a bad rider on a horse. I only owe it to the horse's good nature that I am not thrown off at this very moment.

Humor is not a mood but a way of looking at the world. So if it is correct to say that humor was stamped out in Nazi Germany, that does not mean that people were not in good spirits, or anything of that sort, but something much deeper and more important.

Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.

That's the most terrible thing about being an author - standing there at your mother's funeral, but you don't switch the author off. So your own innermost thoughts are grist for the mill. Who was it said - one of the famous lady novelists - 'unhappy is the family that contains an author'?

Freedom without limits is just a word.

The baby boomers are getting older, and will stay older for longer. And they will run right into the dementia firing range. How will a society cope? Especially a society that can't so readily rely on those stable family relationships that traditionally provided the backbone of care?

My experience in Amsterdam is that cyclists ride where the hell they like and aim in a state of rage at all pedestrians while ringing their bell loudly, the concept of avoiding people being foreign to them.

There is a soak-the-rich attitude in the air, a feeling that if you have a lot of money you must have got it by some ghastly means. I can quite happily say there was never any family money. All the money we got was mine, just from writing books.

The ideal death, I think, is what was the ideal Victorian death, you know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil... prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon.

It's not morbid to talk about death. Most people don't worry about death, they worry about a bad death.

I believe everyone should have a good death. You know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. Because after all, tears are appropriate on a death bed. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

Previous generations understood about death, and undoubtedly would have seen a reasonable amount of death. Once you get into the Victorian era, you might well have seen the funerals of many of your siblings before you were very old.

In the first book of my Discworld series, published more than 26 years ago, I introduced Death as a character; there was nothing particularly new about this - death has featured in art and literature since medieval times, and for centuries we have had a fascination with the Grim Reaper.

Fantasy is uni-age. You can start it in the creche, and it follows you to death.

I got into science fiction by being interested in astronomy first.

The most watched programme on the BBC, after the news, is probably 'Doctor Who.' What has happened is that science fiction has been subsumed into modern literature. There are grandparents out there who speak Klingon, who are quite capable of holding down a job. No one would think twice now about a parallel universe.

It cannot be said often enough that science fiction as a genre is incredibly educational - and I'm speaking the written science fiction, not 'Star Trek.' Science fiction writers tend to fill their books if they're clever with little bits of interesting stuff and real stuff.

I was a very keen reader of science fiction.

I am a great fan of science, but I cannot do a quadratic equation.

I was a very keen reader of science fiction, and during the time I was going to libraries, it was good, written by people who knew their science.

Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.

I got quite annoyed after the Haiti earthquake. A baby was taken from the wreckage and people said it was a miracle. It would have been a miracle had God stopped the earthquake. More wonderful was that a load of evolved monkeys got together to save the life of a child that wasn't theirs.

The intelligence of the creature known as a crowd, is the square root of the number of people in it.

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

Never trust any complicated cocktail that remains perfectly clear until the last ingredient goes in, and then immediately clouds.

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

By the time you've reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.

It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer's you are an old fart. That's how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone.

It seems sensible to me that we should look to the medical profession, that over the centuries has helped us to live longer and healthier lives, to help us die peacefully among our loved ones in our own home without a long stay in God's waiting room.

I believe it should be possible for someone stricken with a serious and ultimately fatal illness to choose to die peacefully with medical help, rather than suffer.

Anger is wonderful. It keeps you going. I'm angry about bankers. About the government.

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

I didn't go to university. Didn't even finish A-levels. But I have sympathy for those who did.

I've always felt that what I have going for me is not my imagination, because everyone has an imagination. What I have is a relentlessly controlled imagination. What looks like wild invention is actually quite carefully calculated.

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living.

In my heart, I'm just a kid from the council houses. I can remember the old cottage and my dad coming round with the tin bath. I'm not a rich man.

In Sevens, fitness is crucial, and it's going to come down to how quickly my body gets in shape.

I reckon you have to put a presence in front of your opponent - a bit of confidence and attitude - and then you can change what their next move may be.

You never say never. There's always a chance to do things in the future.

Most people travel outside of Australia. They don't realise what we've got.

The hair on this melon, there's nothing special going on there - trust me - other than a bit of Head and Shoulders, of course. It's a 100 percent bog-standard do.

I'm not cool enough to hang out with any rock stars. Jay-Z doesn't come over to my house. I don't hang out with Ted Nugent.

The American free market system is the greatest engine for prosperity and opportunity that the world has ever seen. Freedom works.

The single biggest surprise about arriving to the Senate is the defeatist attitude here.

I am blessed to receive a word from God every day in receiving the scriptures and reading the scriptures. And God speaks through the Bible.

The Obama administration came into Utah and said, 'We're not going to listen to what the U.S. Supreme Court said. 'We, the federal government, are going to recognize marriages in the state of Utah and Utah state law explicitly does not recognize as marriage,' and that was really, in my view, an abuse of power.

This election presents a stark choice - we can continue down the road of the Obama Democrats, more and more spending, debt and government control of the economy, or we can return to the founding principles of our nation - free markets, fiscal responsibility and individual liberty.