How Many Spells Does a Wizard Need?

[Hand of Evil]

Well, it depends on the campaign setting and how the GM describes magic and its reaction with the world. The 10-pound spell book is just to impress the hicks and uneducated and is forced on Mages by academia and the Wizard Guild and is just used to rank a mage and to put a value on his contribution of the subject.

 

[Milieu]

I keep wanting to make a joke along the lines of Tolstoy's "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" But I can't think of the spell equivalent of "Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed."