Ah! Five hundred years I have toiled to entice this creature, despairing, doubting, brooding by night, yet never abandoning hope that my calculations were accurate and my great talisman cogent. Then, when finally it appears, you fall upon it for no other reason than to sate your repulsive gluttony!

Chapter 4, "The Sorcerer Pharesm" - Quotations and text from the Dying Earth novels - The Eyes of the Overworld (1966)