"Its not old Windle. Old Windle was a lot older!"
Reaper Man is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett. Published in 1991, it is the 11th Discworld novel and the second to focus on Death. The title is a reference to Alex Cox's movie Repo Man.
"In a general sort of way everyone knew they were going to die, even the common people. No one knew where you were before you were born, but when you were born, it wasnt long before you found youd arrived with your return ticket already punched. (pp. 11-12)"
"In the hall of the house of Death is a clock with a pendulum like a blade but with no hands, because in the house of Death there is no time but the present. (There was, of course, a present before the present now, but that was also the present. It was just an older one.) (p. 14)"
"Everything that exists, yearns to live. Thats what the cycle of life is all about. Thats the engine that drives the great biological pumps of evolution. Everything tries to inch its way up the tree, clawing or tentacling or sliming its way up to the next niche until it gets to the very top—which, on the whole, never seems to have been worth all that effort. (p. 81)"
"Ridcully was simple-minded. This doesnt mean stupid. It just means that he could only think properly about things if he cut away all the complicated bits around the edges. (p. 297)"
"Wizards dont believe in gods in the same way that most people dont find it necessary to believe in, say, tables. They know theyre there, they know theyre there for a purpose, theyd probably agree that they have a place in a well-organized universe, but they wouldnt see the point of believing, of going around saying, "O great table, without whom we are as naught." Anyway, either the gods are there whether you believe or not, or exist only as a function of the belief, so either way you might as well ignore the whole business and, as it were, eat off your knees. (p. 28)"
"Intellectually, Ridcully maintained his position for two reasons. One was that he never, ever, changed his mind about anything. The other was that it took him several minutes to understand any new idea put to him, and this is a very valuable trait in a leader, because anything anyone is still trying to explain to you after two minutes is probably important and anything they give up after a mere minute or so is almost certainly something they shouldnt have been bothering you with in the first place. (p. 38)"