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Currently, It Was Leading Him Through A Neighborhood That Was On The Downside Of Whatever Curve You Hoped You'd Bought Your Property On The Upside Of. Graffiti And Garbage Were Everywhere Here. They Were Everywhere In The City, If It Came To That, But Elsewhere The Garbage Was Better Quality, And The Graffiti Was Close To Being Correctly Spelled. The Whole Area Was Waiting For Something To Happen, Like A Really Bad Fire.

-Terry Pratchett

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Currently, It Was Leading

Terry Pratchett

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Currently, It Was Leading Him Through A Neighborhood That Was On The Downside Of Whatever Curve You Hoped You'd Bought Your Property On The Upside Of. Graffiti And Garbage Were Everywhere Here. They Were Everywhere In The City, If It Came To That, But Elsewhere The Garbage Was Better Quality, And The Graffiti Was Close To Being Correctly Spelled. The Whole Area Was Waiting For Something To Happen, Like A Really Bad Fire.

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Knowledge Is Dangerous, Which Is Why Governments Often Clamp Down On People Who Can Think Thoughts Above A Certain Caliber.

They Felt, In Fact, Tremendously Bucked-up, Which Was How Lady Ramkin Would Almost Certainly Have Put It And Which Was Definitely Several Letters Of The Alphabet Away From How They Normally Felt.

The Trouble Was That He Was Talking In Philosophy But They Were Listening In Gibberish.

You Never Knew About People, Like You Never Knew How Deep A Pond Was Because All You Saw Was The Top.

Don't You Understand?" Snarled Rincewind. "we Are Going Over The Edge, Godsdammit!" "can't We Do Anything About It?" "no!" "then I Can't See The Sense In Panicking," Said Twoflower Calmly.

You Can Think And You Can Fight, But The World's Always Movin', And If You Wanna Stay Ahead You Gotta Dance.

Coming Back To Where You Started Is Not The Same As Never Leaving.

Times Are Changing

I Ushered Souls Into The Next World. I Was The Grave Of All Hope. I Was The Ultimate Reality. I Was The Assassin Against Whom No Lock Would Hold. - "yes, Point Taken, But Do You Have Any Particular Skills?"

It Must Be Hard For Humans, Forever Floundering Through Inconvenient Geography. Humans Are Always Lost. It's A Basic Characteristic. It Explains A Lot About Them.

His Mind Worked Fast, Flying In Emergency Supplies Of Common Sense, As Human Minds Do, To Construct A Huge Anchor In Sanity And Prove That What Happened Hadn't Really Happened And, If It Had Happened, Hadn't Happened Much.

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.

I'm Not Cruel, Sir, I Won't Shoot You In The Guts, But I Will Make You Realize How Much You Took Your Toes For Granted.

And Then There Were Cats, Thought Dog. He'd Surprised The Huge Ginger Cat From Next Door And Had Attempted To Reduce It To Cowering Jelly By Means Of The Usual Glowing Stare And Deep-throated Growl, Which Had Always Worked On The Damned In The Past. This Time They Had Earned Him A Whack On The Nose That Had Made His Eyes Water. Cats, Dog Considered, Were Clearly A Lot Tougher Than Lost Souls. He Was Looking Forward To A Further Cat Experiment, Which He Planned Would Consist Of Jumping Around And Yapping Excitedly At It. It Was A Long Shot, But It Just Might Work.

She Had Heard It Said That, Before You Could Understand Anybody, You Needed To Walk A Mile In Their Shoes, Which Did Not Make A Whole Lot Of Sense, Because Probably After You Had Walked A Mile In Their Shoes, You Would Understand That They Were Chasing You And Accusing You Of The Theft Of A Pair Of Shoes--although, Of Course, You Could Probably Outrun Them, Owing To Their Lack Of Footwear.

The Thief, As Will Become Apparent, Was A Special Type Of Thief. This Thief Was An Artist Of Theft. Other Thieves Merely Stole Everything That Was Not Nailed Down, But This Thief Stole The Nails As Well.

There Are Times When Phrases Such As 'totally Astonished' Just Don't Do The Job. I Am Of Course Delighted And Honoured And, Needless To Say, Flabbergasted.

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 [...] Vowed That Rather Than Let Alzheimer's Take Me, I Would Take It. I Would Live My Life As Ever To The Full And Die, before The Disease Mounted Its Last attack, In My Own Home, In A Chair On The Lawn, With A Brandy In My Hand To Wash Down Whatever Modern version Of The "brompton Cocktail" Some helpful Medic Could Supply. And With thomas Tallis On My Ipod, I Would Shake Hands With Death.

See A Pin And Pick It Up, And, All Day Long, You'll Have A Pin.

You're Not Going To Tell Me They Built Fifty-foot-high Killer Golems, Are You?" "only A Man Would Think Of That. It's Our Job," Said Moist. "if You Don't Think Of Fifty-foot-high Killer Golems First, Someone Else Will.

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

Cutangle: While I'm Still Confused And Uncertain, It's On A Much Higher Plane, D'you See, And At Least I Know I'm Bewildered About The Really Fundamental And Important Facts Of The Universe. Treatle: I Hadn't Looked At It Like That, But You're Absolutely Right. He's Really Pushed Back The Boundaries Of Ignorance. They Both Savoured The Strange Warm Glow Of Being Much More Ignorant Than Ordinary People, Who Were Only Ignorant Of Ordinary Things.

They Say That The Prospect Of Being Hanged In The Morning Concentrates A Man's Mind Wonderfully; Unfortunately, What The Mind Inevitably Concentrates On Is That, In The Morning, It Will Be In A Body That Is Going To Be Hanged.

Just Erotic. Nothing Kinky. It's The Difference Between Using A Feather And Using A Chicken.

His Sister Had Been Sent Down To The Village To Ask Mistress Garlick The Witch How You Stopped Spelling Recommendation.

Some People Believe That When You Die, You Cross The River Of Death And Have To Pay The Ferryman. People Don’t Seem To Worry About That These Days. Perhaps There’s A Bridge Now.

Despite Rumor, Death Isn't Cruel--merely Terribly, Terribly Good At His Job.

If Women Were As Good As Men They'd Be A Lot Better!

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.

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

Always Remember That The Crowd That Applauds Your Coronation Is The Same Crowd That Will Applaud Your Beheading. People Like A Show.

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.

In The World I Live In, 'not Worse' Is Nearly As Good As 'better'.

I Have To Write Because If I Don't Get Something Down Then After A While I Feel It's Going To Bang The Side Of My Head Off.

It Was Carrot Who'd Suggested To The Patrician That Hardened Criminals Should Be Given The Chance To 'serve The Community' By Redecorating The Homes Of The Elderly, Lending A New Terror To Old Age And, Given Ankh-morpork's Crime Rate, Leading To At Least One Old Lady Having Her Front Room Wallpapered So Many Times In Six Months That Now She Could Only Get In Sideways.

Ankh-morpork! Pearl Of Cities! This Is Not A Completely Accurate Description, Of Course — It Was Not Round And Shiny — But Even Its Worst Enemies Would Agree That If You Had To Liken Ankh-morpork To Anything, Then It Might As Well Be A Piece Of Rubbish Covered With The Diseased Secretions Of A Dying Mollusc.

Stupid Men Are Often Capable Of Things The Clever Would Not Dare To Contemplate.

We Are Here And It Is Now. The Way I See It Is, After That, Everything Tends Towards Guesswork.

Nanny Ogg Never Did Any Housework Herself, But She Was The Cause Of Housework In Other People.

Lords And Ladies

Polly Felt Questing Eyes Boring Into Her. She Was Embarrassed, Of Course. But Not For The Obvious Reason. It Was For The Other One, The Little Lesson That Life Sometimes Rams Home With A Stick: You Are Not The Only One Watching The World. Other People Are People; While You Watch Them They Watch You, And They Think About You While You Think About Them. The World Isn’t Just About You.

The Universe, They Said, Depended For Its Operation On The Balance Of Four Forces Which They Identified As Charm, Persuasion, Uncertainty And Bloody-mindedness.

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

Privilege (to The Privileged) Means Having Private Laws.

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!

A Duke Couldn't Have The Arse Hanging Out Of His Trousers When Meeting Foreign Diplomats. Actually Even Plain Old Sam Vimes Never Had The Arse Hanging Out Of His Trousers, Either, But No One Would Have Actually Started A War If He Had.

And All The Stories Had, Somewhere, The Witch. The Wicked Old Witch. And Tiffany Had Thought: Where's The Evidence?

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.

No, I Happen To Be One Of Those People Whose Memory Shuts Down Under Pressure. The Answers Would Come To Me In The Middle Of The Night In My Sleep! Besides, I Am A Millionaire.

Strength Enough To Build A Home, Time Enough To Hold A Child, Love Enough To Break A Heart

I've Never Really Liked The Yanks. ... You Can't Trust People Who Pick Up The Ball All The Time When They Play Football.

I’m A Witch. It’s What We Do. When It’s Nobody Else’s Business, It’s My Business.

"multiple Exclamation Marks," He Went On, Shaking His Head, "are A Sure Sign Of A Diseased Mind."

Exclamation Marks

Speak Softly And Employ A Huge Man With A Crowbar.

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

Humans! They Lived In A World Where The Grass Continued To Be Green And The Sun Rose Every Day And Flowers Regularly Turned Into Fruit, And What Impressed Them? Weeping Statues. And Wine Made Out Of Water! A Mere Quantum-mechanistic Tunnel Effect, That'd Happen Anyway If You Were Prepared To Wait Zillions Of Years. As If The Turning Of Sunlight Into Wine, By Means Of Vines And Grapes And Time And Enzymes, Wasn't A Thousand Times More Impressive And Happened All The Time.

Humans Need Fantasy To Be Human. To Be The Place Where The Falling Angel Meets The Rising Ape.

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

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

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.

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.

Getting An Education Was A Bit Like A Communicable Sexual Disease. It Made You Unsuitable For A Lot Of Jobs And Then You Had The Urge To Pass It On.

I Don't Hold With Paddlin' With The Occult," Said Granny Firmly. "once You Start Paddlin' With The Occult You Start Believing In Spirits, And When You Start Believing In Spirits You Start Believing In Demons, And Then Before You Know Where You Are You're Believing In Gods. And Then You're In Trouble." "but All Them Things Exist," Said Nanny Ogg. "that's No Call To Go Around Believing In Them. It Only Encourages 'em.

The Universe Clearly Operates For The Benefit Of Humanity. This Can Be Readily Seen From The Convenient Way The Sun Comes Up In The Morning, When People Are Ready To Start The Day.

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.

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

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

The Diplomatic Thing For Me To Say Is That If Publishers Are Dressing Up Other Authors As Terry Pratchett Clones Then They Are Doing A Disservice To Those Authors. If They Didn't Dress Them As Clones But Did Something Different, Then Those Authors Could Be Pioneering In A Different Sense.

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

One Day I'll Work Out What It Is You Are Saying, My Lad, And Then You'll Be In Trouble.

Tiffany Knew What The Problem Was Immediately. She'd Seen It Before, At Birthday Parties. Her Brother Was Suffering From Tragic Sweet Deprivation. Yes, He Was Surrounded By Sweets. But The Moment He Took Any Sweet At All, Said His Sugar-addled Brain, That Meant He Was Not Taking All The Rest. And There Were So Many Sweets He'd Never Be Able To Eat Them All. It Was Too Much To Cope With. The Only Solution Was To Burst Into Tears.

Most Species Do Their Own Evolving, Making It Up As They Go Along, Which Is The Way Nature Intended.

Evolution Of Man

Trial And Error

Granny Weatherwax Was Often Angry. She Considered It One Of Her Strong Points. Genuine Anger Was One Of The World's Greatest Creative Forces. But You Had To Learn How To Control It. That Didn't Mean You Let It Trickle Away. It Meant You Dammed It, Carefully, Let It Develop A Working Head, Let It Drown Whole Valleys Of The Mind And Then, Just When The Whole Structure Was About To Collapse, Opened A Tiny Pipeline At The Base And Let The Iron-hard Stream Of Wrath Power The Turbines Of Revenge.

As Far As Death Was Aware, The Sole Reason For Any Human Association With Pigs And Lambs Was As A Prelude To Chops And Sausages. Quite Why They Should Dress Up For Children’s Wallpaper As Well Was A Mystery. Hello, Little Folk, This Is What You’re Going To Eat… He Felt That If Only He Could Find The Key To It, He’d Know A Lot More About Human Beings.

Inside Every Sane Person There’s A Madman Struggling To Get Out.

On The Disc, The Gods Aren't So Much Worshipped, As They Are Blamed.

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.

I'd Like To Stand Up For The Rights Of People Who Put Everything On Their Burger - Chutney, Mustard, Pickle, Mustard Pickle, Tomato Sauce... It Is Common Knowledge In My Family That I Can't Tell The Difference Between A Veggie Burger And A Meat One, Because The Ratio Of Burger To Pickles Is So High.

When I Was A Child, I Spake As A Child, I Understood As A Child, I Thought As A Child: But When I Became A Man I Put Away Childish Things Because. Wow, Then I Could Afford Much *better* Childish Things!

Million-to-one Chances...crop Up Nine Times Out Of Ten.

"it Would Seem That You Have No Useful Skill Or Talent Whatsoever" He Said. "have You Thought Of Going Into Teaching?"

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

Rincewind Could Scream For Mercy In Nineteen Languages, And Just Scream In Another Forty-four.

Of Course, Ankh-morpork's Citizens Had Always Claimed That The River Water Was Incredibly Pure. Any Water That Had Passed Through So Many Kidneys, They Reasoned, Had To Be Very Pure Indeed.

He Felt As If He Had Been Shipwrecked On The Titanic, But In The Nick Of Time Had Been Rescued. By The Lusitania

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.

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.

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

That's The Ankh-morpork Instinct, Vimes Thought. Run Away, And Then Stop And See If Anything Interesting Is Going To Happen To Other People.

If Failure Had No Penalty Success Would Not Be A Prize.

The Significant Owl Hoots In The Night.

Don't Do Anything I Wouldn't Do, If You Ever Find Anything I Wouldn't Do.

...the Proliferation Of Luminous Fungi Or Iridescent Crystals In Deep Caves Where The Torchlessly Improvident Hero Needs To See Is One Of The Most Obvious Intrusions Of Narrative Causality Into The Physical Universe.

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

As Far As I'm Concerned, I'm A Writer Who's Writing Books, And Therefore, I Don't Want To Die. You'd Miss The End Of The Book, Wouldn't You? You Can't Die With An Unfinished Book.

What Did They Feed The Lions And Tigers With In The Ark, Sir?

The English Were Notoriously Unenthusiastic About Burning Witches. I Suppose Ours Were Too Soggy.

Vimes's Lack Of Interest In Other People's Children Was Limitless.

As Large As Worlds. As Old As Time. As Patient As A Brick.

I Don't Think I've Drunk Enough Beer To Understand That.

Learnin’ How Not To Do Things Is As Hard As Learning How To Do Them.

It Was Also A Room Full Of Books And Made Of Books. There Was No Actual Furniture; This Is To Say, The Desk And Chairs Were Shaped Out Of Books. It Looked As Though Many Of Them Were Frequently Referred To, Because They Lay Open With Other Books Used As Bookmarks.

First Thoughts Are The Everyday Thoughts. Everyone Has Those. Second Thoughts Are The Thoughts You Think About The Way You Think. People Who Enjoy Thinking Have Those. Third Thoughts Are Thoughts That Watch The World And Think All By Themselves. They’re Rare, And Often Troublesome. Listening To Them Is Part Of Witchcraft.

I Used To Think That I Was Stupid, And Then I Met Philosophers.

It's A God-eat-god World.

Geography Is Just Physics Slowed Down, With A Couple Of Trees Stuck In It.

One Person Is Nothing. Two People Are A Nation.

Nigeria Independence

That’s Mortals For You, Death Continued. They’ve Only Got A Few Years In This World And They Spend Them All In Making Things Complicated For Themselves. Fascinating.

Questions Don't Have To Make Sense, Vincent," Said Miss Susan. "but Answers Do.

The Author Can Always Delve Into His Own Personality And Find Aspects Of Himself With Which He Can Dress His Characters.

I Saved A Man's Life Once," Said Granny. "special Medicine, Twice A Day. Boiled Water With A Bit Of Berry Juice In It. Told Him I'd Bought It From The Dwarves. That's The Biggest Part Of Doct'rin, Really. Most People'll Get Over Most Things If They Put Their Minds To It, You Just Have To Give Them An Interest.

One Day I'll Be Dead And Then You'll All Be Sorry.

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

Asking Someone To Repeat A Phrase You'd Not Only Heard Very Clearly But Were Also Exceedingly Angry About Was Around Defcon Ii In The Lexicon Of Squabble.

After All, When You Seek Advice From Someone It's Certainly Not Because You Want Them To Give It. You Just Want Them To Be There While You Talk To Yourself.

And What Are You Doing On It, I Would Like To Know? Running Away From Home, Yesno? If You Were A Boy I'd Say Are You Going To Seek Your Fortune?" "can't Girls Seek Their Fortune?" "i Think They're Supposed To Seek A Boy With A Fortune.

If Words Had Weight, A Single Sentence From Death Would Have Anchored A Ship.

Ankh-morpork Had Dallied With Many Forms Of Government And Had Ended Up With That Form Of Democracy Known As One Man, One Vote. The Patrician Was The Man; He Had The Vote.

Truth! Freedom! Justice! And A Hard-boiled Egg!

We've Got A Lot Of Experience Of Not Having Any Experience

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

The Point Is That If A Book That Had Been Published Three Years Ago Started To Sell Twice As Many All Of A Sudden It Probably Wouldn't Even Get Noticed. People Wouldn't Be Tracking It. The System Has Cleaned Up Its Act An Awful Lot But The Best-seller List System Is Not An Entirely Foolproof Thing.

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

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

The Only Superstition I Have Is That I Must Start A New Book On The Same Day That I Finish The Last One, Even If It's Just A Few Notes In A File. I Dread Not Having Work In Progress.

And All Those Exclamation Marks, You Notice? Five? A Sure Sign Of Someone Who Wears His Underpants On His Head.

Exclamation Marks

Vampires Have Risen From The Dead, The Grave, And The Crypt, But Have Never Managed It From The Cat.

Look, He Said To His Imagination, If This Is How You're Going To Behave, I Shan't Bring You Again.

The Battle Of Koom Valley Is The Only One Known To History Where Both Sides Ambushed Each Other.

Cats Don't Hunt Seals. They Would If They Knew What They Were And Where To Find Them. But They Don't, So That's All Right.

Nanny Ogg Could See The Future In The Froth On A Beer Mug. It Invariably Showed That She Was Going To Enjoy A Refreshing Drink Which She Almost Certainly Was Not Going To Pay For.

The Best Research Is The Research That You Don't Know That You Are Doing.

It Doesn't Stop Being Magic Just Because You Know How It Works.

The People Of Ankh-morpork Had A Straightforward, No-nonsense Approach To Entertainment, And While They Were Looking Forward To Seeing A Dragon Slain, They'd Be Happy To Settle Instead For Seeing Someone Being Baked Alive In His Own Armour. You Didn't Get The Chance Every Day To See Someone Baked Alive In Their Own Armour. It Would Be Something For The Children To Remember.

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

Whole New Theories Of Money Were Growing Here Like Mushrooms: In The Dark And Based On Bullshit.

I Don't Really Plan. I'm Almost Intuitive About Things.

Insofar As He'd Formed Any Opinion Of Her, It Was That She Suffered From Misplaced Gentility And The Mistaken Belief That Etiquette Meant Good Breeding. She Mistook Mannerisms For Manners.

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).

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

Some Of My Best Sources Are Ex-policemen, Just To Get A Feeling Of What It's Like To Be One. And It's Quite Different From Being A Civilian - Except, Of Course, That I Believe That Policemen Are Just Special Sorts Of Civilians. Things Like How Hard It Is To Hold Someone That Doesn't Want To Be Held. This Is The Kind Of Thing That Is Worth Knowing.

Sometimes The Crime Follows The Punishment, Which Only Serves To Prove The Foresight Of The Great God." "that's What My Grandmother Used To Say," Said Brutha Automatically. "indeed? I Would Like To Know More About This Formidable Lady." "she Used To Give Me A Thrashing Every Morning Because I Would Certainly Do Something To Deserve It During The Day," Said Brutha. "a Most Complete Understanding Of The Nature Of Mankind.

This Is Art Holding A Mirror Up To Life. That’s Why Everything Is Exactly The Wrong Way Around.

He Says Gods Like To See An Atheist Around. Gives Them Something To Aim At.

Words Are The Litmus Paper Of The Minds. If You Find Yourself In The Power Of Someone Who Will Use The Word "commence" In Cold Blood, Go Somewhere Else Very Quickly. But If They Say "enter", Don't Stop To Pack.

Finding Yourself

But In His Experience It Was Only A Matter Of Time Before The Normal Balance Of The Universe Restored Itself And Started Doing The Usual Terrible Things To Him.

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.

You Know How To Pray, Don’t You? Just Put Your Hands Together And Hope.

Two Types Of People Laugh At The Law: Those That Break It And Those That Make It.

Either All Days Are Holy Or None Are.

When People Say Things Are A Lot More Complicated Than That, They Means They're Getting Worried That They Won't Like The Truth.

Colon Has Always Thought That Heroes Had Some Special Kind Of Clockwork That Made Them Go Out And Die Famously For God, Country And Apple Pie, Or Whatever Particular Delicacy Their Mother Made. It Had Never Occurred To Him That They Might Do It Because They'd Get Yelled At If They Didn't.

What Your Soldier Wants - Really, Really Wants - Is No-one Shooting Back At Him.

I Do Note With Interest That Old Women In My Books Become Young Women On The Covers... This Is Discrimination Against The Chronologically Gifted.

The Baby Boomers Are Getting Older, And Will Stay Older For Longer. And They Will Run Right Into The Dementia Firing Range. How Will A Society Cope? Especially A Society That Can't So Readily Rely On Those Stable Family Relationships That Traditionally Provided The Backbone Of Care?

You Need To Believe In Things That Aren't True. How Else Can They Become?

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

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

Journalism Makes You Think Fast. You Have To Speak To People In All Walks Of Life. Especially Local Journalism.

At Least I Know I'm Bewildered About The Really Fundamental And Important Facts Of The Universe.

The Librarian Considered Matters For A While. So…a Dwarf And A Troll. He Preferred Both Species To Humans. For One Thing, Neither Of Them Were Great Readers. The Librarian Was, Of Course, Very Much In Favor Of Reading In General, But Readers In Particular Got On His Nerves. There Was Something, Well, Sacrilegious About The Way They Kept Taking Books Off The Shelves And Wearing Out The Words By Reading Them. He Liked People Who Loved And Respected Books, And The Best Way To Do That, In The Librarian’s Opinion, Was To Leave Them On The Shelves Where Nature Intended Them To Be.

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

History Isn't Like That. History Unravels Gently, Like An Old Sweater. It Has Been Patched And Darned Many Times, Reknitted To Suit Different People, Shoved In A Box Under The Sink Of Censorship To Be Cut Up For The Dusters Of Propaganda, Yet It Always - Eventually - Manages To Spring Back Into Its Old Familar Shape. History Has A Habit Of Changing The People Who Think They Are Changing It. History Always Has A Few Tricks Up Its Frayed Sleeve. It's Been Around A Long Time.

Because No Man Wants To Be A Coward In Front Of A Cheese.

The Gods Of The Disc Have Never Bothered Much About Judging The Souls Of The Dead, And So People Only Go To Hell If That's Where They Believe, In Their Deepest Heart, That They Deserve To Go. Which They Won't Do If They Don't Know About It. This Explains Why It Is So Important To Shoot Missionaries On Sight.

Rings Try To Find Their Way Back To Their Owner. Someone Ought To Write A Book About It.

He'd Heard That Writers Spent All Day In Their Dressing Gowns Drinking Champagne. This Is, Of Course, Absolutely True.

Even Our Fears Make Us Feel Important, Because We Fear We Might Not Be.

It’s Quite Easy To Accidentally Overhear People Talking Downstairs If You Hold An Upturned Glass To The Floorboards And Accidentally Put Your Ear To It.

Many Feel They Are Called To The Priesthood, But What They Really Hear Is An Inner Voice Saying, 'it's Indoor Work With No Heavy Lifting, Do You Want To Be A Ploughman Like Your Father?'

It's An Old Magical Principle - It's Even Filtered Down Into Rpg Systems - That Magic, While Taking A Lot Of Effort, Can Be 'stored' - In A Staff, For Example. No Doubt A Wizard Spends A Little Time Each Day Charging Up His Staff, Although You Go Blind If You Do It Too Much, Of Course.

Sometimes Words Need Music Too. Sometimes The Descriptions Are Not Enough. Books Should Be Written With Soundtracks, Like Films.

This Book Had Two Authors, And They Were Both The Same Person.

The Hippo Of Recollection Stirred In The Muddy Waters Of The Mind.

You Can't Build A Plot Out Of Jokes. You Need Tragic Relief. And You Need To Let People Know That When A Lot Of Frightened People Are Running Around With Edged Weaponry, There Are Deaths. Stupid Deaths, Usually. I'm Not Writing 'the A-team' - If There's A Fight Going On, People Will Get Hurt. Not Letting This Happen Would Be A Betrayal.

Some People Are Confident Because They Are Fools. Leonard Had The Look Of Someone Who Was Confident Because, So Far, He'd Never Found A Reason Not To Be.

Little Fussy Otto, In His Red-lined Black Opera Cloak With Pockets For All His Gear, His Shiny Black Shoes, His Carefully Cut Widow's Peak And, Not Least, His Ridiculous Accent That Grew Thicker Or Thinner Depending On Who He Was Talking To, Did Not Look Like A Threat. He Looked Funny, A Joke, A Music-hall Vampire. It Had Never Previously Occurred To Vimes That, Just Possibly, The Joke Was On Other People.

No Matter What She Did With Her Hair It Took About Three Minutes For It To Tangle Itself Up Again, Like A Garden Hosepipe In A Shed [which, No Matter How Carefully Coiled, Will Always Uncoil Overnight And Tie The Lawnmower To The Bicycles].

I Keep Vaguely Wondering What Macs Are Like, But The Ones I've Seen Spend Too Much Time Being Friendly.

…we Were Born Vampires." "i Thought You Became –" "— Vampires By Being Bitten? Dear Me, No. Oh, We Can Turn People Into Vampires, It’s An Easy Technique, But What Would Be The Point? When You Eat… Now What Is It You Eat? Oh Yes, Chocolate… You Don’t Want To Turn It Into Another Agnes Nitt, Do You? Less Chocolate To Go Around." He Sighed. "oh Dear, Superstition, Superstition Everywhere We Turn.

When Mister Safety Catch Is Not On, Mister Crossbow Is Not Your Friend.

Sometimes I Really Think People Ought To Have To Pass A Proper Exam Before They're Allowed To Be Parents. Not Just The Practical, I Mean.

The Most Important Thing Was That Time Had Passed, Pouring Thousands Of Soothing Seconds Across The Island. People Need Time To Deal With The Now Before It Runs Away And Becomes The Then.

Seeing Things A Human Shouldn't Have To See Makes Us Human.

Always Face What You Fear. Have Just Enough Money, Never Too Much, And Some String. Even If It’s Not Your Fault, It’s Your Responsibility. Witches Deal With Things. Never Stand Between Two Mirrors. Never Cackle. Do What You Must Do. Never Lie, But You Don’t Always Have To Be Honest. Never Wish. Especially Don’t Wish Upon A Star, Which Is Astronomically Stupid. Open Your Eyes, And Then Open Your Eyes Again.

The Auditors Fluttered Anxiously. And, As Always Happens In Their Species When Something Goes Radically Wrong And Needs Fixing Instantly, They Settled Down To Try To Work How Who Was To Blame.

Oh, Well...up Until Now It Had Been A Good Day, In A Horrible Kind Of Way.

There Has Been A Lot Of Bad Fantasy In The Past - I'm By No Means Saying That All Classic Fantasy Out There Is Bad - But There Has Been A Lot Of Bad Fantasy Written By People Who Read A Lot Of Fantasy And So All They Keep Doing Is Recycling It.

Raising The Flag And Singing The Anthem Are, While Somewhat Suspicious, Not In Themselves Acts Of Treason.

Smaller-than-medium-jock-but-bigger-than-wee-jock-jock

I Certainly Don't Sit Down And Plan A Book Out Before I Write It. There's A Phrase I Use Called "the Valley Full Of Clouds." Writing A Novel Is As If You Are Going Off On A Journey Across A Valley. The Valley Is Full Of Mist, But You Can See The Top Of A Tree Here And The Top Of Another Tree Over There. And With Any Luck You Can See The Other Side Of The Valley. But You Cannot See Down Into The Mist. Nevertheless, You Head For The First Tree.

Perhaps It Would Be Simpler If You Just Did What You're Told And Didn't Try To Understand Things.

Hat = Wizard, Wizard = Hat. Everything Else Is Frippery.

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

When She Spoke Again It Was In The Thin, Careful And Above All Brave Voice Of Someone Who Has Pulled Themselves Together Despite Overwhelming Odds But Might Let Go Again At Any Moment.

Ninety Percent Of True Love Is Acute, Ear-burning Embarrassment.

"out Of Print" Is Bookseller Speak For "we Can't Be Hedgehogged".

There Have Been Times, Lately, When I Dearly Wished That I Could Change The Past. Well, I Can’t, But I Can Change The Present, So That When It Becomes The Past It Will Turn Out To Be A Past Worth Having.

I'm Not Really Good At Fun-to-know, Human Interest Stuff. We're Not 'celebrities', Whose Life Itself Is A Performance. Good Or Bad Or Ugly, We Are Our Words. They're What People Meet.

Life Is Just Chemicals. A Drop Here, A Drip There, Everything's Changed. A Mere Dribble Of Fermented Juices And Sudenlly You're Going To Live Another Few Hours.

Every Intelligent Being, Whether It Breathes Or Not, Coughs Nervously At Some Time In Its Life.

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Karl Liebknecht

Charles W. Pickering

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