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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.

-Terry Pratchett

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Fear Is A Strange

Terry Pratchett

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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.

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He’s Bound To Have Done Something,” Nobby Repeated. In This He Was Echoing The Patrician’s View Of Crime And Punishment. If There Was A Crime, There Should Be Punishment. If The Specific Criminal Should Be Involved In The Punishment Process Then This Was A Happy Accident, But If Not Then Any Criminal Would Do, And Since Everyone Was Undoubtedly Guilty Of Something, The Net Result Was That, In General Terms, Justice Was Done.

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

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

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Their Families Cordially Detested One Another.

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The Librarians Were Mysterious. It Was Said They Could Tell What Book You Needed Just By Looking At You, And They Could Take Your Voice Away With A Word.

But What's Worth More Than Gold?" "practically Everything. You, For Example. Gold Is Heavy. Your Weight In Gold Is Not Very Much Gold At All. Aren't You Worth More Than That?

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The Second Mouse Gets The Cheese!

It Seems Sensible To Me That We Should Look To The Medical Profession, That Over The Centuries Has Helped Us To Live Longer And Healthier Lives, To Help Us Die Peacefully Among Our Loved Ones In Our Own Home Without A Long Stay In God's Waiting Room.

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.

There Was This About Vampires : They Could Never Look Scruffy. Instead, They Were... What Was The Word... Deshabille. It Meant Untidy, But With Bags And Bags Of Style.

Magrat Had Used A Lot Of Powder To Make Her Face Pale And Interesting. It Combined With The Lavishly Applied Mascara To Give The Guard The Impression That He Was Looking At Two Flies That Had Crashed Into A Sugar Bowl.

Don't You *ever* Let Go?" "i Haven't Yet." "why?" "i Suppose... Because In This World, After Everyone Panics, There's Always Got To Be Someone To Tip The Wee Out Of The Shoe.

Only To People!' Shouted Rincewind. He Drew His Sword And, With A Smooth Overarm Throw, Completely Failed To Hit The Troll.

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.

Poets Have Tried To Describe Ankh-morpork. They Have Failed. Perhaps It's The Sheer Zestful Vitality Of The Place, Or Maybe It's Just That A City With A Million Inhabitants And No Sewers Is Rather Robust For Poets, Who Prefer Daffodils And No Wonder. So Let's Just Say That Ankh-morpork Is As Full Of Life As An Old Cheese On A Hot Day, As Loud As A Curse In A Cathedral, As Bright As An Oil Slick, As Colourful As A Bruise And As Full Of Activity, Industry, Bustle And Sheer Exuberant Busyness As A Dead Dog On A Termite Mound.

Imagination Is Only Intelligence Having Fun. A Healthy Mind Knows How To Switch Between Worlds, And Which One You Need To Eat And Sleep In.

It's A Guilty Secret Of A Lot Of Writers, As You Get Older You Don't Read As Much Fiction As You Used To, Mainly Because It's Like You Are Deconstructing It All The Time.

Drinks Like This Tend To Get Called Traffic Lights Or Rainbow's Revenge Or, In Places Where Truth Is More Highly Valued, Hello And Good-bye, Mr. Brain Cell.

I Am A Technophile, So There Is No Such Thing As A First Draft. The First Draft Plunges On, And About A Quarter Of The Way Through It I Realise I'm Doing Things Wrong, So I Start Rewriting It. What You Call The First Draft Becomes Rather Like A Caterpillar; It Is Progressing Fairly Slowly, But There Is Movement Up And Down Its Whole Length, The Whole Story Is Being Changed. I Call This Draft Zero, Telling Myself How The Story Is Supposed To Go.

Chaos Is Found In Greatest Abundance Wherever Order Is Being Sought. It Always Defeats Order, Because It Is Better Organized.

It Is A Long-cherished Tradition Among A Certain Type Of Military Thinker That Huge Casualties Are The Main Thing. If They Are On The Other Side Then This Is A Valuable Bonus.

But I Think You Have A Right To Know What It Is You’re Not Being Told.

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.

People Who Didn't Need People Needed People Around To Know That They Were The Kind Of People Who Didn't Need People.

This, Milord, Is My Family's Axe. We Have Owned It For Almost Nine Hundred Years, See. Of Course, Sometimes It Needed A New Blade. And Sometimes It Has Required A New Handle, New Designs On The Metalwork, A Little Refreshing Of The Ornamentation . . . But Is This Not The Nine Hundred-year-old Axe Of My Family? And Because It Has Changed Gently Over Time, It Is Still A Pretty Good Axe, Y'know. Pretty Good.

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!

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.

Assassins Did Have A Certain Code, After All. It Was Dishonorable To Kill Someone If You Weren't Being Paid.

So Let's Not Get Frightened When The Children Read Fantasy. It's The Compost For A Healthy Mind. It Stimulate S The Inquisitive Nodes, And There Is Some Evidence That A Rich Internal Fantasy Life Is As Good And Necessary For A Child As Healthy Soil Is For A Plant, For Much The Same Reasons.

Matter Exploded Into Being, Apparently As Chaos, But In Fact As A Chord. The Ultimate Power Chord.

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

The Oldest Fan Letter I've Had Is From Someone Aged Eighty-five.

Apes Had It Worked Out. No Ape Would Philosophize, "the Mountain Is, And Is Not." They Would Think, "the Banana Is. I Will Eat The Banana. There Is No Banana. I Want Another Banana.

You Were The Kind Of Kid Who Couldn't See The Difference Between Throwing Rocks At A Cat And Setting It On Fire.

Yes, But People Have Got To Believe That, Or What's The Point My Point Exactly.

I See Evil When I Look In My Shaving Mirror. It Is, Philosophically, Present Everywhere In The Universe In Order, Apparently, To Highlight The Existence Of Good. I Think There Is More To This Theory, But I Tend To Burst Out Laughing At This Point.

And That's What I Don't Like About Magic, Captain. 'cos It's *magic*. You Can't Ask Questions, It's Magic. It Doesn't Explain Anything, It's Magic. You Don't Know Where It Comes From, It's Magic! That's What I Don't Like About Magic, It Does Everything By Magic!

Banana Daiquiris Aren't Knock-'em-back-by-the-flagon.

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

Funny Inspirational

The Disc, Being Flat, Has No Real Horizon. Any Adventurous Sailor Who Got Funny Ideas From Staring At Eggs And Oranges For Too Long And Set Out For The Antipodes Soon Learned That The Reason Why Distant Ships Sometimes Looked As Though They Were Disappearing Over The Edge Of The World Was That They Were Disappearing Over The Edge Of The World.

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.

You Couldn't Say 'i Had Orders.' You Couldn't Say 'it's Not Fair.' No One Was Listening. There Were No Words. You Owned Yourself. [...] Not 'thou Shalt Not'. Say 'i Will Not'.

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

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.

When In Doubt, Choose To Live.

There Are Times When The Best Writing You Can Do Is To Go For A Walk Or Drive, A Long Drive Is Ideal.

I Staggered Into A Manchester Bar Late One Night On A Tour And The Waitress Said "you Look As If You Need A Screaming Orgasm". At The Time This Was The Last Thing On My Mind.

-oh Yes? Can You Identify Yourself? -certainly. I'd Know Me Anywhere.

The Price Of Being The Best Is Having To Be The Best.

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

He Was Certain He Was Anorectic, Because Every Time He Looked In A Mirror He Saw A Fat Man. It Was The Archchancellor, Standing Behind Him And Shouting At Him.

These People Were Not Only Cheering, They Were Throwing Flowers And Hats. The Hats Were Made Of Stone, But The Thought Was There.

Reality Is Not Digital, An On-off State, But Analog. Something Gradual. In Other Words, Reality Is A Quality That Things Possess In The Same Way That They Possess, Say, Weight. Some People Are More Real Than Others, For Example. It Has Been Estimated That There Are Only About Five Hundred Real People On Any Given Planet, Which Is Why They Keep Unexpectedly Running Into One Another All The Time.

And We Don't Often Get Any Wading Birds In The River Ankh, Mainly Because The Pollution Would Eat Their Legs Away And Anyway, It's Easier For Them To Walk On The Surface.

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.

Taxation Is Just A Sophisticated Way Of Demanding Money With Menaces.

Natural Selection Saw To It That Professional Heroes Who At A Crucial Moment Tended To Ask Themselves Questions Like 'what Is My Purpose In Life?' Very Quickly Lacked Both.

I Have No Fear Of Death Whatsoever. I Suspect That Few People Do, What They All Fear Is What Might Happen In The Years Or Months Before Death.

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.

My Agent Pointed Out One Day That I Had Been Quoted By A Columnist In Some American Newspaper, And He Noted With Some Glee That They Simply Identified Me By Name Without Reminding People Who I Was, Apparently In The Clear Expectation That Their Readers Would Know Who I Am.

Granny Weatherwax Was Not A Good Loser. From Her Point Of View, Losing Was Something That Happened To Other People.

I Like The Idea Of Democracy. You Have To Have Someone Everyone Distrusts.

No One Knew Where You Were Before You Were Born, But When You Were Born, It Wasn't Long Before You Found You'd Arrived With Your Return Ticket Already Punched.

Real Children Do Not Go Hoppity Skip Unless They Are On Drugs.

I Think," He Said, "i Think, If You Want Thousands, You Have To Fight For One.

The Reaper Does Not Listen To The Harvest.

Whatever Happens, They Say Afterwards, It Must Have Been Fate. People Are Always A Little Confused About This, As They Are In The Case Of Miracles. When Someone Is Saved From Certain Death By A Strange Concatenation Of Circumstances, They Say That's A Miracle. But Of Course If Someone Is Killed By A Freak Chain Of Events -- The Oil Spilled Just There, The Safety Fence Broken Just There -- That Must Also Be A Miracle. Just Because It's Not Nice Doesn't Mean It's Not Miraculous.

He’sh Mad?’ ‘sort Of Mad. But Mad With Lots Of Money.’ ‘ah, Then He Can’t Be Mad. I’ve Been Around; If A Man Hash Lotsh Of Money He’sh Just Ecshentric.

Certainly I Have No Faith In Jehovah, Although I Think It Quite Likely That Jesus Christ, As A Preacher And A Wise Man, Did Indeed Exist.

Priests Were Metal-reinforced Overshoes. They Saved Your Soles. This Is An Assassin Joke.

It Wasn't That Nanny Ogg Sang Badly. It Was Just That She Could Hit Notes Which, When Amplified By A Tin Bath Half Full Of Water, Ceased To Be Sound And Became Some Sort Of Invasive Presence.

Cheery Was Aware That Commander Vimes Didn't Like The Phrase 'the Innocent Have Nothing To Fear', Believing The Innocent Had Everything To Fear, Mostly From The Guilty But In The Longer Term Even More From Those Who Say Things Like 'the Innocent Have Nothing To Fear'.

Sometimes You Had To Take A Look At Yourself And Then Look Away.

Look At Yourself

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