The Colour Of Magic: The first book in Terry Pratchett’s bestselling Discworld series

sometimes I get the feeling that the Luggage knows exactly what it’s doing.’

The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and bloody-mindedness. Thus it was that the sun and moon orbited the Disc because they were persuaded not to fall down, but didn’t actually fly away because of uncertainty. Charm allowed trees to grow and bloody-

“What in the name of zarking fardwarks is the old fool doing?” exploded Ford.