DarkEol

“All of this should have added up to something pretty impressive. It didn’t. Partly it was because there was just too much of everything, but mostly it was because of Mrs Earwig. She had a long sharp face and looked very much as though she was about to complain about the cat from next door widdling on her lawn.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“What does a research witch do?’ Tiffany asked.
‘Oh, it’s a very ancient craft. She tries to find new spells by learning how old ones were really done. You know all that stuff about “ear of bat and toe of frog”? They never work, but Miss Level thinks it’s because we don’t know exactly what kind of frog, or which toe—’
‘I’m sorry, but I’m not going to help anyone chop up innocent frogs and bats,’ said Tiffany firmly.
‘Oh, no, she never kills any!’ said Miss Tick hurriedly. ‘She only uses creatures that have died naturally or been run over or committed suicide. Frogs can get quite depressed at times.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Tiffany took a deep breath. This was about words, and she knew about words. ‘Here is a story to believe,’ she said. ‘Once we were blobs in the sea, and then fishes, and then lizards and rats and then monkeys, and hundreds of things in between. This hand was once a fin, this hand once had claws! In my human mouth I have the pointy teeth of a wolf and the chisel teeth of a rabbit and the grinding teeth of a cow! Our blood is as salty as the sea we used to live in! When we’re frightened the hair on our skins stands up, just like it did when we had fur. We are history! Everything we’ve ever been on the way to becoming us, we still are. Would you like the rest of the story?’
'Tell us', said the hiver.
‘I’m made up of the memories of my parents and grandparents, all my ancestors. They’re in the way I look, in the colour of my hair. And I’m made up of everyone I’ve ever met who’s changed the way I think. So who is “me”?”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“He talked a lot about the little grey cells of the brain, and of their functions. His own, he says, are of the first quality.'
'He would say so,' I remarked bitterly. 'Modesty is certainly not his middle name.”
― Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd