Mort: A Discworld Novel

I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU, he said, BUT I COULD MURDER A CURRY.

He’d been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower.

“It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever,” he said. “Have you thought of going into teaching?”

(That was a cinematic trick adapted for print. Death wasn’t talking to the princess. He was actually in his study, talking to Mort. But it was quite effective, wasn’t it? It’s probably called a fast dissolve, or a crosscut/zoom. Or something. An industry where a senior technician is called a Best Boy might call it anything.)

“How do you get all those coins?” asked Mort. IN PAIRS.

People don’t alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it.

“Are you going to send me home?” he said. Death reached down and swung him up behind the saddle. BECAUSE YOU SHOWED COMPASSION? NO. I MIGHT HAVE DONE IF YOU HAD SHOWN PLEASURE. BUT YOU MUST LEARN THE COMPASSION PROPER TO YOUR TRADE. “What’s that?” A SHARP EDGE.