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

ALL THINGS THAT ARE, ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION. AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOMEDAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS.

Death took a step backwards.

It was impossible to read expression in Azrael's features.

Death glanced sideways at the servants.

LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?

OH, THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING IN THE STOCKING THAT MAKES A NOISE, said Death. OTHERWISE, WHAT IS 4:30 A.M. FOR?

It had a very long pendulum, and the pendulum swung with a slow tick-tock that set his teeth on edge, because it was the kind of deliberate annoying ticking that wanted to make it abundantly clear that every tick and every tock was stripping another second off your life. It was the kind of sound that suggested very pointedly that in some hypothetical hourglass somewhere, another few grains of sand had dropped out form under you.

He said that there was death and taxes, and taxes was worse, because at least death didn’t happen to you every year.

Death paused, his hand on the spine of the book. And why do you think I directed you to the stables? think carefully, now.

Mort hesitated, he has been thinking carefully, in between counting wheelbarrows. He'd wondered if it had been to coordinate his hand and eye, or to teach him the habit of obedience, or bring home the human scale, of small tasks, or make him realize that even great men must start at the bottom.
None of these explanations seemed exactly right.
I think ... he began.
YES?
Well. I think it was because you were up to your knees in horseshit, to tell you the truth.

Death looked at him for a very long time.Mort shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.
ABSOLUTELY CORRECT, snapped Death.Clarity of thought. Realistic approach. Very important in a job like ours.