Twoflower comments on his disappointment with magic. He had thought that wizards needed only to "say the magic word", than waste time memorizing spells.
Rincewind explains:
He tried to explain that magic had indeed once been wild and lawless, but had been tamed back in the mists of time by the Olden Ones, who had bound it to obey among other things the Law of Conservation of Reality: this demanded that the effort needed to achieve a goal should be the same regardless of the means used. In practical terms this meant that, say, creating the illusion of of a glass of wine was relatively easy, since it involved merely the subtle shifting of light patterns. On the other hand, lifting a genuine wineglass a few feet in the air by sheer mental energy requiredseveral hours of systemic preparation if the wizard wished to prevent the simple principle of leverage flicking his brain out through his ears.
He went on to add that some of the ancient magic could still be found in its raw state, recognizable - to the initiated - by the eightfold shape it made in the crystalline structure of space time. There was the metal octiron, for excamplee, and the gas octogen."
Although this principle of magic holds true in this first book, in subsequent books featuring the Wizards of Unseen University, they are able to wield their power easily. Perhaps that's what differentiates failed wizards from wizards...
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