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You were being persecuted,' said Teppic. 'That's why you fled into the desert.'

'Oh, yes. You're right. Damn right. I was being persecuted for my beliefs.'

'That's terrible,' said Teppic.

Khuft spat. 'Damn right. I believed people wouldn't notice I'd sold them camels with plaster teeth until I was well out of town.'

It took a little while for this to sink in, but it managed it with all the aplomb of a concrete block in a quicksand.

'You're a criminal?' said Teppic.

'Well, criminal's a dirty word, know what I mean?' said the little ancestor. 'I'd prefer entrepreneur. I was ahead of my time, that's my trouble.'

'And you were running away?' said Teppic weakly.

'It wouldn't,' said Khuft, 'have been a good idea to hang about.'

— Pyramids by Terry Pratchett, Alfred Enoch (Narrator)

“What’s Ephebe like?” said Ptraci.

“I’ve never been there. Apparently it’s ruled by a Tyrant.”

“I hope we don’t meet him, then”

Teppic shook his head. “It’s not like that,” he said. “They have a new Tyrant every five years and they do something to him first.” He hesitated. “I think they ee-lect him.”

“Is that something like they do to tomcats and bulls and things?”

“Er.”

“You know. To make them stop fighting and be more peaceful.”

Teppic winced. “To be honest, I’m not sure,” he said. “But I don’t think so. They’ve got something they do it with, I think it’s called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man, one—” He paused. The political history lesson seemed a very long while ago, and had introduced concepts never heard of in Djelibeybi or in Ankh-Morpork, for that matter. He had a stab at it anyway. “One man, one vet.”

“That’s for the eelecting, then?”

He shrugged. It might be, for all he knew. “The point is, though, that everyone can do it. They’re very proud of it. Everyone has—” he hesitated again, certain now that things were amiss—“the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extractions. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lost of other people. But everyone apart from them. It’s a very enlightened civilization.”

— Pyramids by Terry Pratchett, Alfred Enoch (Narrator)

“Fastest animal on the face of the Disc, your common tortoise,” said Xeno, but he had the grace to look shifty. “Logically, that is,” he added.

— Pyramids by Terry Pratchett, Alfred Enoch (Narrator)

Priests were metal-reinforced overshoes. They saved your soles. This is an Assassin joke.

— Pyramids by Terry Pratchett, Alfred Enoch (Narrator)