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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.

-Terry Pratchett

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He’s Bound To Have

Terry Pratchett

...

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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I Just Rearrange Words Into A Pleasing Order For Money.

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

The Best Research You Can Do Is To Talk To People.

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

The Shortest Unit Of Time In The Multiverse Is The New York Second, Defined As The Period Of Time Between The Traffic Lights Turning Green And The Cab Behind You Honking.

It Is Important That We Know Where We Come From, Because If You Do Not Know Where You Come From, Then You Don't Know Where You Are, And If You Don't Know Where You Are, You Don't Know Where You're Going. And If You Don't Know Where You're Going, You're Probably Going Wrong.

This Man Was So Absent-mindedly Clever That He Could Paint Pictures That Didn’t Just Follow You Around The Room But Went Home With You And Did The Washing-up.

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

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

Writing, For Me, Is A Little Like Wood Carving. You Find The Lump Of Tree (the Big Central Theme That Gets You Started), And You Start Cutting The Shape That You Think You Want It To Be. But You Find, If You Do It Right, That The Wood Has A Grain Of Its Own (characters Develop And Present New Insights, Concentrated Thinking About The Story Opens New Avenues). If You're Sensible, You Work With The Grain And, If You Come Across A Knot Hole, You Incorporate That Into The Design. This Is Not The Same As 'making It Up As You Go Along'; It's A Very Careful Process Of Control.

Dogs Are Not Like Cats, Who Amusingly Tolerate Humans Only Until Someone Comes Up With A Tin Opener That Can Be Operated With A Paw. Men Made Dogs, They Took Wolves And Gave Them Human Things - Unnecessary Intelligence, Names, A Desire To Belong, And A Twitching Inferiority Complex. All Dogs Dream Wolf Dreams, And Know They're Dreaming Of Biting Their Maker. Every Dog Knows, Deep In His Heart, That He Is A Bad Dog.

He Looked Up At Them, A Scruffy Napoleon With His Laces Trailing, Exiled To A Rose-trellised Elba.

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?'

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

I Wonder If It's Like This For Mountain Climbers, He Thought. You Climb Bigger And Bigger Mountains And You Know That One Day One Of Them Is Going To Be Just That Bit Too Steep. But You Go On Doing It, Because It’s So-o Good When You Breathe The Air Up There. And You Know You'll Die Falling.

An Author Writes A Book, And That's The Book At That Point. And If The Author Writes The Book Again, Then Somehow Something Has Gone Wrong, If You See What I Mean.

It's Lies. It's All Lies. Some Of Them Are Just Prettier Than Others, That's All. People See What They Think Is There.

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

Aliens Don't Get Stuck In Air Ducts. It's Practically A Well-known Fact.

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.

Everything Makes Sense A Bit At A Time. But When You Try To Think Of It All At Once, It Comes Out Wrong.

When A Man Is Tired Of Ankh-morpork, He Is Tired Of Ankle-deep Slurry.

The Storm Was Really Giving It Everything It Had. This Was Its Big Chance. It Had Spent Years Hanging Around The Provinces, Putting In Some Useful Work As A Squall, Building Up Experience, Making Contacts, Occasionally Leaping Out On Unsuspecting Shepherds Or Blasting Quite Small Oak Trees. Now An Opening In The Weather Had Given It An Opportunity To Strut Its Hour, And It Was Building Up Its Role In The Hope Of Being Spotted By One Of The Big Climates.

What Have I Always Believed? That On The Whole, And By And Large, If A Man Lived Properly, Not According To What Any Priests Said, But According To What Seemed Decent And Honest Inside, Then It Would, At The End, More Or Less, Turn Out All Right.

Progress Just Means Bad Things Happen Faster.

I Try To Make Computers Say Things Like You Have 60 Seconds To Achieve Safe Distance.

Granny Weatherwas Was Not A Jouster In The Lists Of Love, But, As An Intelligent Onlooker, She Knew How The Game Was Played.

Sybil's Female Forebears Had Valiantly Backed Up Their Husbands As Distant Embassies Were Besieged, Had Given Birth On A Camel Or In The Shade Of A Stricken Elephant, Had Handed Around The Little Gold Chocolates While Trolls Were Trying To Break Into The Compound, Or Had Merely Stayed At Home And Nursed Such Bits Of Husbands And Sons As Made It Back From Endless Little Wars. The Result Was A Species Of Woman Who, When Duty Called, Turned Into Solid Steel.

I Once Absent-mindedly Ordered Three Mile Island Dressing In A Restaurant And, With Great Presence Of Mind, They Brought Thousand Island Dressing And A Bottle Of Chili Sauce.

Presence Of Mind

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.

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

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James Weldon Johnson

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