Background Image

...

Belief Sloshes Around In The Firmament Like Lumps Of Clay Spiralling Into A Potter's Wheel. That's How Gods Get Created, For Example. They Clearly Must Be Created By Their Own Believers, Because A Brief Resume Of The Lives Of Most Gods Suggests That Their Origins Certainly Couldn't Be Divine. They Tend To Do Exactly The Things People Would Do If Only They Could, Especially When It Comes To Nymphs, Golden Showers, And The Smiting Of Your Enemies.

-Terry Pratchett

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Belief Sloshes Around In

Terry Pratchett

...

Belief Sloshes Around In The Firmament Like Lumps Of Clay Spiralling Into A Potter's Wheel. That's How Gods Get Created, For Example. They Clearly Must Be Created By Their Own Believers, Because A Brief Resume Of The Lives Of Most Gods Suggests That Their Origins Certainly Couldn't Be Divine. They Tend To Do Exactly The Things People Would Do If Only They Could, Especially When It Comes To Nymphs, Golden Showers, And The Smiting Of Your Enemies.

Views: 9

Topic

More From Terry Pratchett

People Were Stupid, Sometimes. They Thought The Library Was A Dangerous Place Because Of All The Magical Books, Which Was True Enough, But What Made It Really One Of The Most Dangerous Places There Could Ever Be Was The Simple Fact That It Was A Library.

This Was The Definition Of Eternity; It Was The Space Of Time Devised By The Great God Om To Ensure That Everyone Got The Punishment That Was Due To Them.

But The Purpose Of The Book Is Not The Horror, It Is Horror's Defeat.

Ultimately, There Is The Freedom To Take The Consequences.

If I Knew That I Could Die, I Would Live. My Life, My Death, My Choice.

I'm Up To My Neck In The Real World, Every Day. Just You Try Doing Your Vat Return With A Head Full Of Goblins.

In An Instant He Became Aware That The Tourist Was About To Try His Own Peculiar Brand Of Linguistics, Which Meant That He Would Speak Loudly And Slowly In His Own Language.

Picturesque Meant - He Decided After Careful Observation Of The Scenerey That Inspired Twoflower To Use The Word - That The Landscape Was Horribly Precipitous. Quaint, When Used To Describe The Occasional Village Through Which They Passed, Meant Fever-ridden And Tumbledown. Twoflower Was A Tourist, The First Ever Seen On The Discworld. Tourist, Rincewind Had Decided, Mean 'idiot'.

Goodness Is About What You Do. Not Who You Pray To.

This Looks Like A Job For Inadvisably Applied Magic If Ever I Saw One.

Why Bother With A Cunning Plan When A Simple One Will Do?

You Will Have To Look A Long Way Before You Find A Bunch Of Scum-suckers More Greedy, Humourless And Deserving Of Death Than The Suits In The Music Business.

People's Whole Lives Do Pass In Front Of Their Eye Before They Die. The Process Is Called "living".

Botswana Is Also The Only Country In The World With A Colour In Its Flag Meant To Represent Rain (a Sort Of Blue-grey). Not Many People Know This.

Most Gods Throw Dice, But Fate Plays Chess, And You Don't Find Out Til Too Late That He's Been Playing With Two Queens All Along.

Gods Play Games With The Fates Of Men. But First They Have To Get All The Pieces On The Board And Look All Over The Place For The Dice.

Ninety Percent Of Most Magic Merely Consists Of Knowing One Extra Fact.

People Flock In, Nevertheless, In Search Of Answers To Those Questions Only Librarians Are Considered To Be Able To Answer, Such As "is This The Laundry?" "how Do You Spell Surreptitious?" And, On A Regular Basis, "do You Have A Book I Remember Reading Once? It Had A Red Cover And It Turned Out They Were Twins.

Picture A Tall, Dark Figure, Surrounded By Cornfields... No, You Can't Ride A Cat. Who Ever Heard Of The Death Of Rats Riding A Cat? The Death Of Rats Would Ride Some Kind Of Dog. Picture More Fields, A Great Horizon-spanning Network Of Fields, Rolling In Gentle Waves... Don't Ask Me I Don't Know. Some Kind Of Terrier, Maybe. ...fields Of Corn, Alive, Whispering In The Breeze... Right, And The Death Of Fleas Can Ride It Too. That Way You Kill Two Birds With One Stone. ...awaiting The Clockwork Of The Seasons. Metaphorically.

If Complete And Utter Chaos Was Lightning, Then He'd Be The Sort To Stand On A Hilltop In A Thunderstorm Wearing Wet Copper Armour And Shouting 'all Gods Are Bastards!

The Calendar Of The Theocracy Of Muntab Counts Down, Not Up. No-one Knows Why, But It Might Not Be A Good Idea To Hang Around And Find Out.

You Can't Make People Happy By Law. If You Said To A Bunch Of Average People Two Hundred Years Ago "would You Be Happy In A World Where Medical Care Is Widely Available, Houses Are Clean, The World's Music And Sights And Foods Can Be Brought Into Your Home At Small Cost, Traveling Even 100 Miles Is Easy, Childbirth Is Generally Not Fatal To Mother Or Child, You Don't Have To Die Of Dental Abscesses And You Don't Have To Do What The Squire Tells You" They'd Think You Were Talking About The New Jerusalem And Say "yes."

People Are Often So Busy Living That They Never Stop To Wonder Why.

The First Draft Is Just You Telling Yourself The Story.

If There Was Anything That Depressed Him More Than His Own Cynicism, It Was That Quite Often It Still Wasn't As Cynical As Real Life.

I Have A Suspicion - I Have To Be Careful What I Say - That You Might Actually Find The Best Comics Actually Written By People Who Are Comics Writers And Who Aren't Setting Out To Do Graphic Novels.

Sooner Or Later All Men Must Die. Everything Dies In The End. I Can Be Robbed But Never Denied, I Told Myself. Why Worry? “i Too Cannot Be Cheated,” Snapped Fate.

In Fact, The Mere Act Of Opening The Box Will Determine The State Of The Cat, Although In This Case There Were Three Determinate States The Cat Could Be In: These Being Alive, Dead, And Bloody Furious.

Lords And Ladies

The Assassin Moved Quietly From Roof To Roof Until He Was Well Away From The Excitement Around The Watch House. His Movements Could Be Called Cat-like, Except That He Did Not Stop To Spray Urine Up Against Things.

I've Lost Both Parents In The Last Two Years, So You Pick Up On That Stuff. That's The Most Terrible Thing About Being An Author - Standing There At Your Mother's Funeral, But You Don't Switch The Author Off. So Your Own Innermost Thoughts Are Grist For The Mill.

I've Always Felt That What I Have Going For Me Is Not My Imagination, Because Everyone Has An Imagination. What I Have Is A Relentlessly Controlled Imagination. What Looks Like Wild Invention Is Actually Quite Carefully Calculated.

Fantasy Is An Exercise Bicycle For The Mind. It Might Not Take You Anywhere, But It Tones Up The Muscles That Can.

Our Garden Was Debated Territory Between Five Local Cats, And We'd Heard That The Best Way To Keep Other Cats Out Of The Garden Was To Have One Yourself. A Moment's Rational Thought Here Will Spot The Slight Flaw In This Reasoning.

Students, Eh? Love 'em Or Hate 'em, You Can't Hit Them With A Shovel!

It's Very Rare That I Ever Go And Research A Particular Subject. Mostly I Do Serendipitous Research, I Read Stuff, Things Spinning Out Of The Page.

Little Crimes Breed Big Crimes. You Smile At Little Crimes And Then Big Crimes Blow Your Head Off.

You're Not Allowed To Call Them Dinosaurs Any More," Said Yo-less. "it's Speciesist. You Have To Call Them Pre-petroleum Persons.

Political Correctness

Things Like Crowns Had A Troublesome Effect On Clever Folk; It Was Best To Leave All The Reigning To The Kind Of People Whose Eyebrows Met In The Middle When They Tried To Think. In A Funny Sort Of Way, They Were Much Better At It.

My Name Is Immaterial,' She Said. That's A Pretty Name,' Said Rincewind.

The Elevator Shaft Was A Kind Of Heat Sink. Hot Food Was Cold By The Time It Arrived. Cold Food Got Colder. No One Knew What Would Happen To Ice Cream, But It Would Probably Involve Some Rewriting Of The Laws Of Thermodynamics.

It's Always Surprising To Be Reminded That While You're Watching And Thinking About People, All Knowing And Superior, They're Watching And Thinking About You, Right Back At You.

Thinking About You

It's A God-eat-god World.

People Wanted The World To Be A Story, Because Stories Had To Sound Right And They Had To Make Sense. People Wanted The World To Make Sense.

The Stories Never Said Why She Was Wicked. It Was Enough To Be An Old Woman, Enough To Be All Alone, Enough To Look Strange Because You Have No Teeth. It Was Enough To Be Called A Witch. If It Came To That, The Book Never Gave You The Evidence Of Anything. It Talked About "a Handsome Prince"... Was He Really, Or Was It Just Because He Was A Prince That People Called Handsome? As For "a Girl Who Was As Beautiful As The Day Was Long"... Well, Which Day? In Midwinter It Hardly Ever Got Light! The Stories Don't Want You To Think, They Just Wanted You To Believe What You Were Told.

Cake Is Not The Issue Here.

He Helped The Librarian Up. There Was A Red Glow In The Ape's Eyes. It Had Tried To Steal His Books. This Was Probably The Best Proof Any Wizard Could Require That The Trolleys Were Brainless.

Tv People In The Uk... I'm Getting On A Lot Better With Them.

There Is No Doubt That Being Human Is Incredibly Difficult And Cannot Be Mastered In One Lifetime.

That's What I Don't Like About Magic, It Does Everything By Magic!

Were You Proposing To Shoot These People In Cold Blood, Sergeant?" "nossir. Just A Warning Shot Inna Head, Sir.

No One Thinks That Young Adults Read Hooks For Young Adults, Books For Young Adults Are Read By Kids.

You Have To Have Really Wide Reading Habits And Pay Attention To The News And Just Everything That's Going On In The World: You Need To. If You Get This Right, Then The Writing Is A Piece Of Cake.

A Push-and-go Wooden Duck On Wheels Can Cause Quite A Lot Of Damage If Wielded With Enough Force.

One Thing That Writers Have In Common Is That They Are Readers First. They Have Read Lots And Lots Of Stuff, Because They're Just Infested With Lots Of Stuff.

I Don’t Think It's Weak To Admit You Made A Mistake. That Takes Strength, If You Ask Me.

Do You Think There’s Anything To Eat In This Forest?” “yes,” Said The Wizard Bitterly, “us.

Noble Dragons Don't Have Friends. The Nearest They Can Get To The Idea Is An Enemy Who Is Still Alive.

Stories Of Imagination Tend To Upset Those Without One.

Your Average Witch Is Not, By Nature, A Social Animal.... The Natural Size Of A Coven Is One. Witches Only Get Together When They Can't Avoid It.

Guilt Was The Grease In Which The Wheels Of The Authority Turned.

At Such Times The Universe Gets A Little Closer To Us. They Are Strange Times, Times Of Beginnings And Endings. Dangerous And Powerful. And We Feel It Even If We Don't Know What It Is. These Times Are Not Necessarily Good, And Not Necessarily Bad. In Fact, What They Are Depends On What *we* Are.

Nothing I Can Say Or Devise, And Nothing Anybody Else Can Say Or Devise, Is Going To Be Perfect.

Cats Will Amusingly Tolerate Humans Only Until Someone Comes Up With A Tin Opener That Can Be Operated With A Paw.

Letitia! What A Name. Halfway Between A Salad And A Sneeze.

You Can't Inspire People With Facts. They Need A Cause. They Need A Symbol.

Ye Know Full Well That The Meaning Of Life Is To Find Your Gift. To Find Your Gift Is Happiness. Never Tae Find It Is Misery.

Meaning Of Life

I Think You Should Be Proud Of Not Being Worse Than Just Deeply Introverted And Socially Maladjusted.

People Don't Alter History Any More Than Birds Alter The Sky, They Just Make Brief Patterns In It.

The Figures Looked More Or Less Human. And They Were Engaged In Religion. You Could Tell By The Knives (it's Not Murder If You Do It For A God).

Given Enough Coffee I Could Rule The World

When You Read, I'm Sure You Don't Realize That Your Eyes Are Going Backwards And Forwards And To This Place And That Place. Mine Don't Do That.

Sometimes Glass Glitters More Than Diamonds Because It Has More To Prove.

Words Are The Litmus Paper Of The Mind.

Granddad Was Superstitious About Books. He Thought That If You Had Enough Of Them Around, Education Leaked Out, Like Radioactivity.

It Is A Mistake Trying To Cheer Up Camels. You May As Well Drop Meringues Into A Black Hole.

Of Course, It Is Very Important To Be Sober When You Take An Exam. Many Worthwhile Careers In The Street-cleansing, Fruit-picking And Subway-guitar-playing Industries Have Been Founded On A Lack Of Understanding Of This Simple Fact.

Well, The Traveling Teachers Do Come Through Every Few Months," Said The Baron. "yes, Sir, I Know, Sir, And They're Useless, Sir. They Teach Facts, Not Understanding. It's Like Teaching People About Forests By Showing Them A Saw. I Want A Proper School, Sir, To Teach Reading And Writing, And Most Of All Thinking, Sir, So People Can Find What They're Good At, Because Someone Doing What They Really Like Is Always An Asset To Any Country, And Too Often People Never Find Out Until It's Too Late.

Well, Basically There Are Two Sorts Of Opera," Said Nanny, Who Also Had The True Witch's Ability To Be Confidently Expert On The Basis Of No Experience Whatsoever. "there's Your Heavy Opera, Where Basically People Sing Foreign And It Goes Like "oh Oh Oh, I Am Dyin', Oh I Am Dyin', Oh Oh Oh, That's What I'm Doin'", And There's Your Light Opera, Where They Sing In Foreign And It Basically Goes "beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I Like To Drink Lots Of Beer!", Although Sometimes They Drink Champagne Instead. That's Basically All Of Opera, Reely.

Racism Was Not A Problem On The Discworld, Because - What With Trolls And Dwarfs And So On - Speciesism Was More Interesting. Black And White Lived In Perfect Harmony And Ganged Up On Green.

Black And White

Privilege (to The Privileged) Means Having Private Laws.

The Dwarfs Can Turn Lead Into Gold... It Reached The Pointy Ears Of The Dwarfs. -can We? -damned If I Know. I Can't. -yeah, But If You Could, You Wouldn't Say. I Wouldn't Say, If I Could. -can You? -no! -ah-ha!

Once Upon A Time The Plural Of 'wizard' Was 'war'.

Once Upon A Time

Young Adults That Actually Read Are Reading Bodice Rippers And Best-sellers And Me. And Horror.

There Have Been Better Attempts At Marching, And They Have Been Made By Penguins.

In My Experience, What Every True Artist Wants, Really Wants, Is To Be Paid.

And Gears," Said Anathema. "my Bike Didn't Have Gears. I'm Sure My Bike Didn't Have Gears." Crowley Leaned Over To The Angel. "oh Lord, Heal This Bike," He Whispered Sarcastically. "i'm Sorry, I Just Got Carried Away," Hissed Aziraphale.

And What Do You Really Do? Asked Tiffany. The Thin Witch Hesitatied For A Moment, And Then: We Look To ... The Edges, Said Mistress Weatherwax. There's A Lot Of Edges, More Than People Know. Between Life And Death, This World And The Next, Night And Day, Right And Wrong ... An' They Need Watchin'. We Watch 'em, We Guard The Sum Of Things. And We Never Ask For Any Reward. That's Important.

I'd Rather Be A Rising Ape Than A Falling Angel.

It's An Interesting Fact That Fewer Than 17 % Of Real Cats End Their Lives With The Same Name They Started With. Much Family Effort Goes Into Selecting One At The Start ("she Looks Like A Winnifred To Me"), And The As The Years Roll By It Suddenly Finds Itself Being Called Meepo Or Ratbag.

Dwarfs Were Not A Naturally Religious Species, But In A World Where Pit Props Could Crack Without Warning And Pockets Of Fire Damp Could Suddenly Explode They'd Seen The Need For Gods As The Sort Of Supernatural Equivalent Of A Hard Hat. Besides, When You Hit Your Thumb With An Eight-pound Hammer It's Nice To Be Able To Blaspheme. It Takes A Very Special And Strong-minded Kind Of Atheist To Jump Up And Down With Their Hand Clasped Under Their Other Armpit And Shout, "oh, Random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!" Or "aaargh, Primitive-and-outmoded-concept On A Crutch!

I Could Be Wrong. Not Being Certain Is What Being A Philosopher Is All About.

There Are Plenty Of People Who Believe That Elvis Is Alive, Or That Aliens Occasionally Land Here To Do Highly Personal Things To People, Or That The Whole Idea Of Evolution Is A Conspiracy Of Godless Scientists. Almost All Of These People Can Vote And Some Of Them Have Got Guns.

Oh, There's Plenty Of Reasons. I Just Don't Know Which One.

Death: "there Are Better Things In The World Than Alcohol, Albert." Albert: "oh, Yes, Sir. But Alcohol Sort Of Compensates For Not Getting Them.

She Wore So Much Thick White Makeup In Order To Conceal Her Naturally Rosy Complexion That If She Turned Around Suddenly Her Face Would Probably End Up On The Back Of Her Head.

It's Not Lying When You Do It To Officers!

Things Have No Power That Humans Don't Put There.

We Live And Learn, Or, Perhaps More Importantly We Learn And Live.

I Think It's Impossible For Anyone Famous To Come From Here, Because Everyone Around Here Is Insane.

No More Words. We Know Them All, All The Words That Should Not Be Said. But You Have Made My World More Perfect.

Grinning Like A Necrophiliac In A Morgue.

I Would Like You To Teach [the Orcs] Civilised Behaviour," Said Ladyship Coldly. He Appeared To Consider This. "yes Of Course, I Think That Would Be Quite Possible," He Said. "and Who Would You Send To Teach The Humans?

First Draft: Let It Run. Turn All The Knobs Up To 11. Second Draft: Hell. Cut It Down And Cut It Into Shape. Third Draft: Comb Its Nose And Blow Its Hair. I Usually Find That Most Of The Book Will Have Handed Itself To Me On That First Draft.

I Never Said Nothing..." "i Know You Never! I Could Hear You Not Saying Anything! You've Got The Loudest Silences I Ever Did Hear From Anyone Who Wasn't Dead!

I Can't Be Talking To A Tree. If I Was Talking To A Tree I'd Be Mad, And I'm Not Mad, So Trees Can't Talk.

The Senior Wizard In A World Of Magic Had The Same Prospects Of Long-term Employment As A Pogo Stick Tester In A Minefield.

Not For The First Time In The History Of The Universe, Someone For Whom Communication Normally Came As Effortlessly As A Dream Was Stuck For Inspiration When Faced With A Few Lines On The Back Of A Card.

Anyway, Lots Of Warrior Tribes Think That When They Die, They Go To A Heavenly Land Somewhere," Said The Toad. "you Know, Where They Can Drink And Fight And Feast Forever? So Maybe This Is Theirs." "but This Is A Real Place!" "so? That's What They Believe. Besides, They're Only Small. Maybe The Universe Is A Bit Crowded And They Have To Put Heavens Anywhere There's Room? I'm A Toad, So You'll Appreciate That I'm Having To Guess A Lot Here.

He Moved On, In The Centre Of A Widening Circle. He Wasn't An Enemy, He Was A Nemesis.

You Had To Deal Every Day With People Who Were Foolish And Lazy And Untruthful And Downright Unpleasant, And You Could Certainly End Up Thinking That The World Would Be Considerably Improved If You Gave Them A Slap.

God Moves In Extremely Mysterious, Not To Say, Circuitous Ways. God Does Not Play Dice With The Universe; He Plays An Ineffable Game Of His Own Devising, Which Might Be Compared, From The Perspective Of Any Of The Other Players, Ie., Everybody, To Being Involved In An Obscure And Complex Version Of Poker In A Pitch-dark Room, With Blank Cards, For Infinite Stakes, With A Dealer Who Won't Tell You The Rules, And Who Smiles All The Time.

You Get A Wonderful View From The Point Of No Return.

He'd Noticed That Sex Bore Some Resemblance To Cookery: It Fascinated People, They Sometimes Bought Books Full Of Complicated Recipes And Interesting Pictures, And Sometimes When They Were Really Hungry They Created Vast Banquets In Their Imagination - But At The End Of The Day They'd Settle Quite Happily For Egg And Chips. If It Was Well Done And Maybe Had A Slice Of Tomato.

If There's One Thing That Really Annoys A God, It's Not Knowing Something.

He Found That He Had This Sudden Desperate Longing For The Fuming, Smoky Streets Of Ankh-morpork, Which Was Always At Its Best In The Spring, When The Gummy Sheen On The Turbid Waters Of The Ankh River Had A Special Iridescence And The Eaves Were Full Of Birdsong, Or At Least Birds Coughing Rhythmically

I Didn't Go To University. Didn't Even Finish A-levels. But I Have Sympathy For Those Who Did.

Over The Centuries, Mankind Has Tried Many Ways Of Combating The Forces Of Evil... Prayer, Fasting, Good Works And So On. Up Until Doom, No One Seemed To Have Thought About The Double-barrel Shotgun. Eat Leaden Death, Demon...

And The People Next Door Oppress Me All Night Long. I Tell Them, I Work All Day, A Man's Got To Have Some Time To Learn To Play The Tuba. That's Oppression, That Is. If I'm Not Under The Heel Of The Oppressor, I Don't Know Who Is.

She Was A Beefy Young Woman And, Whatever Piece Of Music She Was Playing, It Was Definitely Losing.

They Didn't Know Why These Things Were Funny. Sometimes You Laugh Because You've Got No More Room For Crying. Sometimes You Laugh Because Table Manners On A Beach Are Funny. And Sometimes You Laugh Because You're Alive, When You Really Shouldn't Be.

All Tapes Left In A Car For More Than About A Fortnight Metamorphose Into Best Of Queen Albums.

Credulous: Having Views About The World, The Universe And Humanity's Place In It That Are Shared Only By Very Unsophisticated People And The Most Intelligent And Advanced Mathematicians And Physicists.

I Know Loads Of Coppers And Dealt With Them A Lot When I Was A Journalist - Coppers Are Easy To Write For; They Tend To Run On Rails.

Escapism Isn't Good Or Bad In Itself. What Is Important Is What You Are Escaping From And Where You Are Escaping To.

History Has A Habit Of Changing The People Who Think They Are Changing It

We Live In A Science Fiction Universe. We Have Done For A Long Time.

Anyway, It's Like With Bikes,' Said The First Speaker Authoritatively. 'i Thought I Was Going To Get This Bike With Seven Gears And One Of Them Razorblade Saddles And Purple Paint And Everything, And They Gave Me This Light Blue One. With A Basket. A Girl's Bike.' 'well. You're A Girl,' Said One Of The Others. 'that's Sexism, That Is. Going Around Giving People Girly Presents Just Because They're A Girl.

In The Words Of The Philosopher Sceptum, The Founder Of My Profession: Am I Going To Get Paid For This?

Light Thinks It Travels Faster Than Anything But It Is Wrong. No Matter How Fast Light Travels, It Finds The Darkness Has Always Got There First, And Is Waiting For It.

Your Average Witch Is Not, By Nature, A Social Animal As Far As Other Witches Are Concerned. There's A Conflict Of Dominant Personalities. There's A Group Of Ringleaders Without A Ring. There's The Basic Unwritten Rule Of Witchcraft, Which Is 'don't Do What You Will, Do What I Say.' The Natural Size Of A Coven Is One. Witches Only Get Together When They Can't Avoid It.

Rumour Is Information Distilled So Finely That It Can Filter Through Anything. It Does Not Need Doors And Windows -- Sometimes It Does Not Need People. It Can Exist Free And Wild, Running From Ear To Ear Without Ever Touching Lips.

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 The Kind Of Delibrate, Annoying Ticking That Wanted To Make It Abundantly Clear That Every Tick And Every Tock Was Stripping Another Second Off Your Life.

On The Disc The Gods Dealt Severely With Atheists.

It Was Long After Midnight And The Stars Looked Damp And Chilly; The Air Was Full Of The Busy Silence Of The Night, Which Is Created By Hundreds Of Small Furry Things Treading Very Carefully In The Hope Of Finding Dinner While Avoiding Being The Main Course.

They Suffered From The Terrible Delusion That Something Could Be Done. They Seemed Prepared To Make The World The Way They Wanted It Or Die In The Attempt, And The Trouble With Dying In The Attempt Was That You Died In The Attempt.

Most Of The Great Triumphs And Tragedies Of History Are Caused Not By People Being Fundamentally Good Or Fundamentally Evil, But By People Being Fundamentally People.

Do Not Act Incautiously When Confronting A Little Bald Wrinkly Smiling Man!

I Grow As Many Of Our Vegetables As I Can, Because My Granddad Was A Professional Gardener, And It's In The Blood.

Go On, Prove Me Wrong. Destroy The Fabric Of The Universe. See If I Care.

All Property Is Theft, Except Mine.

Nanny's Philosophy Of Life Was To Do What Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time, And Do It As Hard As Possible. It Had Never Let Her Down.

There Were No Lies Here. All Fancies Fled Away. That's What Happened In All Deserts. It Was Just You, And What You Believed.

Who Knows What The Future Holds.

First Of All You Are A Writer, A Writer Is What You Are, So It Doesn't Actually Stop The Moment You Leave Your Desk, Your Computer, Your Keyboard, Whatever. Something Is Operating The Back Of Your Mind.

So Much Universe, And So Little Time.

Omens Are Everywhere In This World You Just Have To Find The One That Fits.

You See The Lighted Windows And What You Want To Think Is That There May Be Many Interesting Stories Behind Them, But What You Know Is That Really There Are Just Dull, Dull Souls, Mere Consumers Of Food, Who Think Their Instincts Are Emotions And Their Tiny Lives Of More Account Than A Whisper Of Wind.

Take It From Me, Whenever You See A Bunch Of Buggers Puttering Around Talking About Truth And Beauty And The Best Way Of Attacking Ethics, You Can Bet Your Sandals It's All Because Dozens Of Other Poor Buggers Are Doing All The Real Work Around The Place.

I Know It’s Not The Right Thing To Say To A Lady, Miss, But You Are Sweating Like A Pig!" "my Mother Always Said That Horses Sweat, Men Perspire, And Ladies Merely Glow…" "is That So? Well, Miss, You Are Glowing Like A Pig!

The Consensus Seemed To Be That If Really Large Numbers Of Men Were Sent To Storm The Mountain, Then Enough Might Survive The Rocks To Take The Citadel. This Is Essentially The Basis Of All Military Thinking.

Fear Is A Strange Soil. It Grows Obedience Like Corn, Which Grow In Straight Lines To Make Weeding Easier. But Sometimes It Grows The Potatoes Of Defiance, Which Flourish Underground.

Ye Ken, We've Been Robbin' And Running Aroound On All Kinds O' Worlds For A Lang Time, And I'll Tell Ye This: The Universe Is A Lot More Comp-li-cated Than It Looks From The Ooutside.

Everybody Thinks The Government Should Be Doing More About Everything But Just Think How Many Of The Bonuses Which Are Quite Rightly Being Dragged Off Certain People, Just Think To What Good Causes They Could Be Put - Wouldn't That Be A Lovely Thought'?

No One Is Actually Dead Until The Ripples They Cause In The World Die Away.

Now He Knew: They Were Real. Who’d Make Up A Thing Like This? Okay, One Of Them Was A Cheese That Rolled Around Of Its Own Accord, But Nobody Was Perfect.

Here's What I Suggest," He Said. "you Pretend That Rats Can Think, And I'll Promise To Pretend That Humans Can Think, Too.

Look, That's Why There's Rules, Understand? So That You Think Before You Break 'em.

I Would Advise Budding Writers Some Other Kind Of Job, Unless They Think They're Very, Very Lucky.

It Is Possibly Worth Mentioning At This Point That Mr. Young Thought That Paparazzi Was A Kind Of Italian Linoleum.

She Was Beautiful, But She Was Beautiful In The Way A Forest Fire Was Beautiful: Something To Be Admired From A Distance, Not Up Close.

By The Time You Write The Last Page You Have Done Half The Book. The Other Half Tends To Get Done In About Five Weeks; I Do Several Drafts, Very, Very Furiously Rewriting. I Literally Do More Or Less Nothing Else And I Stick With It And Go Through It And I Begin To Hate It.

Its Useful To Go Out Of This World And See It From The Perspective Of Another One.

Once You Gave A Thing A Name, You Gave It Life.

Night Poured Over The Desert. It Came Suddenly, In Purple. In The Clear Air, The Stars Drilled Down Out Of The Sky, Reminding Any Thoughtful Watcher That It Is In The Deserts And High Places That Religions Are Generated. When Men See Nothing But Bottomless Infinity Over Their Heads They Have Always Had A Driving And Desperate Urge To Find Someone To Put In The Way.

Truly, He Thought, The Way Of Enlightenment Is Like Unto Half A Mile Of Broken Glass.

The Whole Of Life Is Just Like Watching A Film. Only It's As Though You Always Get In Ten Minutes After The Big Picture Has Started, And No-one Will Tell You The Plot, So You Have To Work It Out All Yourself From The Clues.

Belief Was Never Mentioned At Home, But Right Actions Were Taught By Daily Example.

A European Says: I Can't Understand This, What's Wrong With Me? An American Says: I Can't Understand This, What's Wrong With Him? I Make No Suggestion That One Side Or Other Is Right, But Observation Over Many Years Leads Me To Believe It Is True.

And These Are Your Reasons, My Lord?" "do You Think I Have Others?" Said Lord Vetinari. "my Motives, As Ever, Are Entirely Transparent." Hughnon Reflected That 'entirely Transparent' Meant Either That You Could See Right Through Them Or That You Couldn't See Them At All.

My Idea Of A Good Novel Was One You Made Enough Money Out Of To Buy A Greenhouse.

People Needed To Believe In Gods, If Only Because It Was So Hard To Believe In People.

If There Were Such A Thing As An Inter-city Thieving Contest, Ankh-morpork Would Bring Home The Trophy And Probably Everyone’s Wallets.

There Are, Always And Only, The Bad People, But Some Of Them Are On Opposite Sides.

Funny Inspirational

Any True Wizard, Faced With A Sign Like 'do Not Open This Door. Really. We Mean It. We're Not Kidding. Opening This Door Will Mean The End Of The Universe,' Would Automatically Open The Door In Order To See What All The Fuss Is About. This Made Signs Rather A Waste Of Time, But At Least It Meant That When You Handed What Was Left Of The Wizard To His Grieving Relatives You Could Say, As They Grasped The Jar, 'we Told Him Not To."

Vimes Struggled To His Feet, Shook His Head And Set Off After It. No Thought Was Involved. It Is The Ancient Instinct Of Terriers And Policemen To Chase Anything That Runs Away.

This Is Space. It's Sometimes Called The Final Frontier. (except That Of Course You Can't Have A Final Frontier, Because There'd Be Nothing For It To Be A Frontier To, But As Frontiers Go, It's Pretty Penultimate . . .)

Contrary To Popular Belief And Hope, People Don't Usually Come Running When They Hear A Scream. That's Not How Humans Work. Humans Look At Other Humans And Say, 'did You Hear A Scream?' Because The First Scream Might Have Been You Screaming Inside Your Head, Or A Horse Backfiring.

And He Dreamed The Dream Of All Those Who Publish Books, Which Was To Have So Much Gold In Your Pockets That You Would Have To Employ Two People Just To Hold Your Trousers Up.

Insanity Is Catching.

Previous Generations Understood About Death, And Undoubtedly Would Have Seen A Reasonable Amount Of Death. Once You Get Into The Victorian Era, You Might Well Have Seen The Funerals Of Many Of Your Siblings Before You Were Very Old.

Do I Detect A Note Of Unseasonal Grumpiness? Said Death. No Sugar Piggywiggy For You, Albert.

All Holy Piety In Public, And All Peeled Grapes And Self-indulgence In Private.

All Was Black, Gloomy And Awful. There Was No Light At The End Of The Tunnel - Or If There Was, It Was An Oncoming Train.

There Can Be No Better Grounding For A Lifetime As An Author Than To See Humanity In All Its Various Guises Through The Lens Of The Reporter For The Town.

I Wrote Three Books, I Had Three Greenhouses. It Seemed To Me To Be Very Satisfactory.

The Characters Are The Plot. What They Do And Say And The Things That Happen To Them Are, In A Sense, What The Plot Is. You Can't Take Character And Plot Apart From Each Other, Really.

Perhaps The Magic Would Last, Perhaps It Wouldn't. But Then Again, What Does?

The Ideal Death, I Think, Is What Was The Ideal Victorian Death, You Know, With Your Grandchildren Around You, A Bit Of Sobbing. And You Say Goodbye To Your Loved Ones, Making Certain That One Of Them Has Been Left Behind To Look After The Shop.

Just Because You've Got A Mind Like A Hammer Doesn't Mean You Have To Treat Everyone Else Like A Nail

I'm Referred To, I See, As 'the Biggest Banker In Modern Publishing'. Now There's A Line That Needed The Celebrated Guardian Proof-reading.

He Moved In A Way That Suggested He Was Attempting The World Speed Record For The Nonchalant Walk.

I Believe It Should Be Possible For Someone Stricken With A Serious And Ultimately Fatal Illness To Choose To Die Peacefully With Medical Help, Rather Than Suffer.

Particles Of Raw Inspiration Sleet Through The Universe All The Time. Every Once In A While One Of Them Hits A Receptive Mind, Which Then Invents Dna Or The Flute Sonata Form Or A Way Of Making Light Bulbs Wear Out In Half The Time. But Most Of Them Miss. Most People Go Through Their Lives Without Being Hit By Even One.

I Don't Regret It, You Know. I Would Do It All Again. Children Are Our Hope For The Future." There Is No Hope For The Future, Said Death. "what Does It Contain, Then?" Me.

Needless To Say, They Refused To Submit To The Empire, Conducting Such A Persistent Guerrilla War That The Romans Gave Up Hope Of Conquering Scotland, And The Wee Free Men Remained Both Wee And Free.

Raise The Stakes! Always Push Your Luck Because No One Else Would Push It For You.

Unseen University Had Never Admitted Women, Muttering Something About Problems With The Plumbing, But The Real Reason Was An Unspoken Dread That If Women Were Allowed To Mess Around With Magic They Would Probably Be Embarrassingly Good At It.

Because Some Stories End, But Old Stories Go On, And You Gotta Dance To The Music If You Want To Stay Ahead

Probably The Last Man Who Knew How It Worked Had Been Tortured To Death Years Before. Or As Soon As It Was Installed. Killing The Creator Was A Traditional Method Of Patent-protection.

The Female Mind Is Certainly A Devious One, My Lord." Vetinari Looked At His Secretary In Surprise. "well, Of Course It Is. It Has To Deal With The Male One.

Trending Author

Murray Rothbard

Category