Background Image

...

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.

-Terry Pratchett

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Am A Technophile,

Terry Pratchett

...

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.

Views: 7

Topic

More From Terry Pratchett

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

And When The Patrician Was Unhappy, He Became Very Democratic. He Found Intricate And Painful Ways Of Spreading That Unhappiness As Far As Possible.

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 . . .)

It's No Wonder Most Religions Are Born In The Desert, Because When Men Lay Beneath That Boundless Night Sky And Look Up At The Infinite Expanse Of Creation They Have An Uncontrollable Urge To Put Something In The Way .

The Trouble With Having An Open Mind, Of Course, Is That People Will Insist On Coming Along And Trying To Put Things In It.

They Were Small, Brightly Coloured, Happy Little Creatures Who Secreted Some Of The Nastiest Toxins In The World, Which Is Why The Job Of Looking After The Large Vivarium Where They Happily Passed Their Days Was Given To First-year Students, On The Basis That If They Got Things Wrong There Wouldn't Be Too Much Education Wasted.

But There Was More To It Than That. As The Amazing Maurice Said, It Was Just A Story About People And Rats. And The Difficult Part Of It Was Deciding Who The People Were, And Who Were The Rats.

You Have Reached The End Of Cake

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 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!

It Was Then That Marvin Got Religion. Not The Quiet, Personal Kind, That Involves Doing Good Deeds And Living A Better Life; Not Even The Kind That Involves Putting On A Suit And Ringing People's Doorbells; But The Kind That Involves Having Your Own Tv Network And Getting People To Send You Money.

You’d Better Tell Me What You Know, Toad,” Said Tiffany. “miss Tick Isn’t Here. I Am.” “another World Is Colliding With This One,” Said The Toad. “there. Happy Now? That’s What Miss Tick Thinks. But It’s Happening Faster Than She Expected. All The Monsters Are Coming Back.” “why?” “there’s No One To Stop Them.” There Was Silence For A Moment. “there’s Me,” Said Tiffany.

'don't Think Of It As Dying,' Said Death. 'just Think Of It As Leaving Early To Avoid The Rush.'

I Decided At School That The Only Sensible Way To Make A Living By Arranging Words In A Pleasing Order Was By Working On Newspapers, Because You Got Paid At The End Of The Week Or The End Of The Month.

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

Once Upon A Time

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.

There Are, It Has Been Said, Two Types Of People In The World. There Are Those Who, When Presented With A Glass That Is Exactly Half Full, Say: This Glass Is Half Full. And Then There Are Those Who Say: This Glass Is Half Empty. The World Belongs, However, To Those Who Can Look At The Glass And Say: What's Up With This Glass? Excuse Me? Excuse Me? This Is My Glass? I Don't Think So. My Glass Was Full! And It Was A Bigger Glass! Who's Been Pinching My Beer?

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.

But, In Truth, It Had Not Exactly Been Gold, Or Even The Promise Of Gold, But More Like The Fantasy Of Gold, The Fairy Dream That The Gold Is There, At The End Of The Rainbow, And Will Continue To Be There Forever - Provided, Naturally, That You Don't Go And Look. This Is Known As Finance.

The Yen Buddhists Are The Richest Religious Sect In The Universe. They Hold That The Accumulation Of Money Is A Great Evil And A Burden To The Soul. They Therefore, Regardless Of Personal Hazard, See It As Their Unpleasant Duty To Acquire As Much As Possible In Order To Reduce The Risk To Innocent People.

What's The Good Of Having Mastery Over Cosmic Balance And Knowing The Secrets Of Fate If You Can't Blow Something Up?

Be Careful What You Wish For. You Never Know Who Will Be Listening.

His Progress Through Life Was Hampered By His Tremendous Sense Of His Own Ignorance, A Disability Which Affects All Too Few.

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

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.

We Have Been So Successful In The Past Century At The Art Of Living Longer And Staying Alive That We Have Forgotten How To Die. Too Often We Learn The Hard Way. As Soon As The Baby Boomers Pass Pensionable Age, Their Lesson Will Be Harsher Still.

How Do You Get All Those Coins?" Asked Mort. In Pairs.

Tʜᴇʀᴇ's ɴᴏ ᴊᴜsᴛɪᴄᴇ, ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ's ᴊᴜsᴛ ᴍᴇ. —death

I Read Anything That’s Going To Be Interesting. But You Don’t Know What It Is Until You’ve Read It. Somewhere In A Book On The History Of False Teeth There’ll Be The Making Of A Novel.

Mum Had Done Everything You Need To Educate A Kid. She Made Me A Kid Who Likes Books And She Told Me About 'wind In The Willows' And Read It And I Thought This Is Weird, Rat, Mole, Toad And My First Ever Bolshie Thought - You Know About 'the Wind In The Willows.'

Poetic Simile Was Strictly Limited To Statements Like 'his Mighty Steed Was As Fleet As The Wind On A Fairly Calm Day, Say About Force Three,' And Any Loose Talk About A Beloved Having A Face That Launched A Thousand Ships Would Have To Be Backed By Evidence That The Object Of Desire Did Indeed Look Like A Bottle Of Champagne.

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

There Are Some Things That Are More Appropriate To A Children's Than An Adult Book But There's A Huge Overlapping Area And Most Kids Read An Age Group Up Anyway.

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.

The Rising Sun Managed To Peek Around The Vast Column Of Smoke That Forever Rose From Ankh-morpork, City Of Cities, Illustrating Almost Up To The Edge Of Space That Smoke Means Progress Or, At Least, People Setting Fire To Things.

I Can No Longer Type, So I Use Talkingpoint And Dragon Dictate. It's A Speech-to-text Program, And There's An Add-on For Talking Which Some Guys Came Up With.

Just Because Someone's A Member Of An Ethnic Minority Doesn't Mean They're Not A Nasty Small-minded Little Jerk [...]

Stand Before Your God, Bow Before Your King, Kneel Before Your Man.

Steal Five Dollars And You're A Common Thief. Steal Thousands And You're Either The Government Or A Hero.

Aziraphale Collected Books. If He Were Totally Honest With Himself He Would Have To Have Admitted That His Bookshop Was Simply Somewhere To Store Them. He Was Not Unusual In This. In Order To Maintain His Cover As A Typical Second-hand Book Seller, He Used Every Means Short Of Actual Physical Violence To Prevent Customers From Making A Purchase. Unpleasant Damp Smells, Glowering Looks, Erratic Opening Hours - He Was Incredibly Good At It.

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

Life Is A Trick, And You Get One Chance To Learn It.

For The First Time In Her Life Granny Wondered Whether There Might Be Something Important In All These Books People Were Setting Store By These Days, Although She Was Opposed To Books On Strict Moral Grounds, Since She Had Heard That Many Of Them Were Written By Dead People And Therefore It Stood To Reason Reading Them Would Be As Bad As Necromancy. Among The Many Things In The Infinitely Varied Universe With Which Granny Did Not Hold Was Talking To Dead People, Who By All Accounts Had Enough Troubles Of Their Own.

History Always Has A Few Tricks Up Its Frayed Sleeve. It's Been Around A Long Time.

The Enemy Isn’t Men, Or Women, It’s Bloody Stupid People And No-one Has The Right To Be Stupid.

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.

I Was A Very Keen Reader Of Science Fiction, And During The Time I Was Going To Libraries, It Was Good, Written By People Who Knew Their Science.

What's The Orbital Velocity Of The Moon?

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.

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.

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

I Would Not Like It Thought That I Do Not Buy My Own Paperclips, Sir. I Enjoy Owning My Own Paperclips. It Means They Are Mine.

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.

Watching A Dog Try To Chew A Large Piece Of Toffee Is A Pastime Fit For Gods. Mr. Fusspot's Mixed Ancestry Had Given Him A Dexterity Of Jaw That Was Truly Awesome. He Somersaulted Happily Around The Floor, Making Faces Like A Rubber Gargoyle In A Washing Machine.

That's Why It's Always Worth Having A Few Philosophers Around The Place. One Minute It's All Is Truth Beauty And Is Beauty Truth, And Does A Falling Tree In The Forest Make A Sound If There's No One There To Hear It, And Then Just When You Think They're Going To Start Dribbling One Of 'em Says, Incidentally, Putting A Thirty-foot Parabolic Reflector On A High Place To Shoot The Rays Of The Sun At An Enemy's Ships Would Be A Very Interesting Demonstration Of Optical Principles.

When Much Is Taken, Something Is Returned.

I Know It's A Very Human Thing To Say 'is There Anything I Can Do', But In This Case I Would Only Entertain Offers From Very High-end Experts In Brain Chemistry.

Albert Grunted. "do You Know What Happens To Lads Who Ask Too Many Questions?" Mort Thought For A Moment. "no," He Said Eventually, "what?" There Was Silence. Then Albert Straightened Up And Said, "damned If I Know. Probably They Get Answers, And Serve 'em Right.

Freedom Without Limits Is Just A Word.

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

There Are Millions Of Chords. There Are Millions Of Numbers. And Everyone Forgets The One That Is A Zero. But Without The Zero, Numbers Are Just Arithmetic. Without The Empty Chord, Music Is Just Noise.

People Don't Like To Say Fantasy They Say Magic Realism Which Means Fantasy Written By Somebody I Went To University With.

The Phrase "may You Live In Interesting Times" Is The Lowest In A Trilogy Of Chinese Curses That Continue "may You Come To The Attention Of Those In Authority" And Finish With "may The Gods Give You Everything You Ask For." I Have No Idea About Its Authenticity.

Granny Weatherwaz Was A Witch. That Was Quite Acceptable In The Ramtops, And No One Had A Bad Word To Say About Witches. At Least, Not If He Wanted To Wake Up In The Morning The Same Shape As He Went To Bed.

Commander, I Always Used To Consider That You Had A Definite Anti-authoritarian Streak In You.” “sir?” “it Seems That You Have Managed To Retain This Even Though You Are Authority.” “sir?” “that’s Practically Zen.

Down There - He Said - Are People Who Will Follow Any Dragon, Worship Any God, Ignore Any Inequity. All Out Of A Kind Of Humdrum, Everyday Badness. Not The Really High, Creative Loathsomeness Of The Great Sinners, But A Sort Of Mass-produced Darkness Of The Soul. Sin, You Might Say, Without A Trace Of Originality. They Accept Evil Not Because They Say Yes, But Because They Don't Say No.

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

If He'd Been A Hero, He Would Have Taken The Opportunity To Say, "that's What I Call Sorted!" Since He Wasn't A Hero, He Threw Up.

They Called Themselves The Munrungs. It Meant The People, Or The True Human Beings. It's What Most People Call Themselves, To Begin With. And Then One Day The Tribe Meets Some Other People Or, If It's Not Been A Good Day, The Enemy. If Only They'd Think Up A Name Like Some More True Human Beings, It'd Save A Lot Of Trouble Later On

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 Don't Want To Hurt You, Mistress Weatherwax," Said Mrs Gogol. "that's Good," Said Granny. "i Don't Want You To Hurt Me Either.

You Did Something Because It Had Always Been Done, And The Explanation Was, ‘but We’ve Always Done It This Way.’ A Million Dead People Can’t Have Been Wrong, Can They?

Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot.

A Good Plan Isn't One Where Someone Wins, It's Where Nobody Thinks They've Lost.

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

What I've Always Said Was, Hang In There, Let Me Write What I Want To Write, And You'll Probably Like It.

The Trouble Is You Can Shut Your Eyes But You Can’t Shut Your Mind.

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

I Dinna Trust Him," Said Slightly Mad Angus. "he Reads Books An' Such.

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

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

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

Zoology, Eh? That's A Big Word, Isn't It." "no, Actually It Isn't," Said Tiffany. "patronizing Is A Big Word. Zoology Is Really Quite Short.

If You Get The Characters Right You've Done Sometimes Nearly Half The Work. I Sometimes Find I Get The Characters Right Then The Characters Will Often Help Me Write The Book - Not What They Look Like That's Not Very Important - What People Look Like Is Not About Their Character. You Have To Describe The Shape They Leave In The World, How They React To Things, What Effect They Have On People And You Do That By Telling Their Story.

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

This I Choose To Do. If There Is A Price, This I Choose To Pay. If It Is My Death, Then I Choose To Die. Where This Takes Me, There I Choose To Go. I Choose. This I Choose To Do.

The Short Conversation That Follows Eventually Led To A Tree Religion. Its Tenet Of Faith Was This: A Tree That Was A Good Tree And Led A Clean Decent And Upstanding Life Could Be Assured Of A Future Life After Death. If It Was Very Good Indeed It Would Eventually Be Reincarnated As Five Thousand Rolls Of Lavatory Paper.

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

I Reckon Responsible Behavior Is Something To Get When You Grow Older. Like Varicose Veins.

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.

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

Magicians And Scientists Are, On The Face Of It, Poles Apart. Certainly, A Group Of People Who Often Dress Strangely, Live In A World Of Their Own, Speak A Specialized Language And Frequently Make Statements That Appear To Be In Flagrant Breach Of Common Sense Have Nothing In Common With A Group Of People Who Often Dress Strangely, Speak A Specialized Language, Live In ... Er.

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

We're Dealing Here," Said Vimes, "with A Twisted Mind." "oh, No! You Think So?" "yes." "but... No... You Can't Be Right. Because Nobby Was With Us All The Time." "not Nobby," Said Vimes Testily. "whatever He Might Do To A Dragon, I Doubt If He'd Make It Explode. There's Stranger People In This World Than Corporal Nobbs, My Lad." Carrot's Expression Slid Into A Rictus Of Intrigued Horror. "gosh," He Said.

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.

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

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.

The Only Thing More Dangerous Then A Vampire Crazed With Blood Lust Was A Vampire Crazed With Anything Else. All The Meticulous Single-mindedness That Went Into Finding Young Women Who Slept With Their Bedroom Window Open Got Channeled Into Some Other Interest, With Merciless And Painstaking Efficiency.

They Know That People Need Witches; They Need The Unofficial People Who Understand The Difference Between Right And Wrong, And When Right Is Wrong And When Wrong Is Right. The World Needs The People Who Work Around The Edges. They Need The People Who Can Deal With The Little Bumps And Inconveniences. And Little Problems. After All, We Are Almost All Human. Almost All Of The Time.

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

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

As They Say In Discworld, We Are Trying To Unravel The Mighty Infinite Using A Language Which Was Designed To Tell One Another Where The Fresh Fruit Was.

The Universe Is, Instant By Instant, Recreated Anew. There Is In Truth No Past, Only A Memory Of The Past. Blink Your Eyes, And The World You See Next Did Not Exist When You Closed Them. Therefore, The Only Appropriate State Of The Mind Is Surprise. The Only Appropriate State Of The Heart Is Joy. The Sky You See Now, You Have Never Seen Before. The Perfect Moment Is Now. Be Glad Of It.

He Never Pays Attention, He Always Knows The Answer, And He Can Never Tell You How He Knows. We Can't Keep Thrashing Him. He Is A Bad Example To The Other Pupils. There's No Educating A Smart Boy.

Fascism May Be Good At Making The Trains Run On Time, But You Wouldn't Like Some Of The Destinations.

Building A Temple Didn't Mean You Believed In Gods, It Just Meant You Believed In Architecture.

People Were People, Even If They Had Four Legs And Had Called Themselves Names Like Dangerous Beans, Which Is The Kind Of Name You Gave Yourself If You Learned To Read Before You Understood What All The Words Actually Meant.

At Least Nine-tenths Of All The Original Reality Ever Created Lies Outside The Multiverse, And Since The Multiverse By Definition Includes Absolutely Everything That Is Anything, This Puts A Bit Of A Strain On Things. Outside The Boundaries Of The Universe Lie The Raw Realities, The Could-have-beens, The Might-bes, The Never-weres, The Wild Ideas, All Being Created And Uncreated Chaotically Like Elements In Fermenting Supernovas. Just Occasionally Where The Walls Of The Worlds Have Worn A Bit Thin, They Can Leak In.

He Thought About How It Might Be To Be, Say, A Fox Confronted With An Angry Sheep. A Sheep Moreover, That Could Afford To Employ Wolves.

I Should Have Learned This, She Thought. I Wanted To Learn Fire, And Pain, But I Should Have Learned People.

The Library Didn't Only Contain Magical Books, The Ones Which Are Chained To Their Shelves And Are Very Dangerous. It Also Contained Perfectly Ordinary Books, Printed On Commonplace Paper In Mundane Ink. It Would Be A Mistake To Think That They Weren't Also Dangerous, Just Because Reading Them Didn't Make Fireworks Go Off In The Sky. Reading Them Sometimes Did The More Dangeous Trick Of Making Fireworks Go Off In The Privacy Of The Reader's Brain.

Oh, He Did His Best To Make Their Short Lives Miserable, Because That Was His Job, But Nothing He Could Think Up Was Half As Bad As The Stuff They Thought Up Themselves.

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.

Actors, Said Granny, Witheringly. As If The World Weren't Full Of Enough History Without Inventing More.

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.

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

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.

Do You Know How Wizards Like To Be Buried?" "yes!" "well, How?" Granny Weatherwax Paused At The Bottom Of The Stairs. "reluctantly.

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

Nature Abhors A Lot Of Things, Including Vacuums, Ships Called The Marie Celeste, And The Chuck Keys For Electric Drills.

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!

There Is A Soak-the-rich Attitude In The Air, A Feeling That If You Have A Lot Of Money You Must Have Got It By Some Ghastly Means. I Can Quite Happily Say There Was Never Any Family Money. All The Money We Got Was Mine, Just From Writing Books.

He Was The Sort Of Person Who Stood On Mountaintops During Thunderstorms In Wet Copper Armour Shouting 'all The Gods Are Bastards.'

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.

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

Some Of Them Wanted To Sell Me Snake Oil And I'm Not Necessarily Going To Dismiss All Of These, As I Have Never Found A Rusty Snake.

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 Haven't Really Been Anywhere Until You've Got Back Home.

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

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.

Things Just Happen. What The Hell.

People Aren't Just People, They Are People Surrounded By Circumstances.

Evil Begins When You Begin To Treat People As Things.

Rincewind Tried To Force The Memory Out Of His Mind, But It Was Rather Enjoying Itself There, Terrorizing The Other Occupants And Kicking Over The Furniture.

My Programming Language Was Solder.

Programming Languages

Stop Stealing The Funeral Meats Right Now, You Wee Scuggers!" She Shouted. The Feegles Stopped And Stared At Her. Then Rob Anybody Said: "socks Wi'oot Feets?

My Character - And For That Matter My Worst Habits - Could Only Be Described By Someone Else. You Can't Open A Box With The Crowbar Inside It.

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.

Ordinary Fortune-tellers Tell You What You Want To Happen; Witches Tell You What’s Going To Happen Whether You Want It To Or Not. Strangely Enough, Witches Tend To Be More Accurate But Less Popular.

But What Should We Do When The Highborn And Wealthy Take To Crime? Indeed, If A Poor Man Will Spend A Year In Prison For Stealing Out Of Hunger, How High Would The Gallows Need To Be To Hang The Rich Man Who Breaks The Law Out Of Greed?

We Who Think We Are About To Die Will Laugh At Anything.

It Was Quite Impossible To Describe. Here Is What It Looked Like. It Looked Like A Piano Sounds Shortly After Being Dropped Down A Well. It Tasted Yellow, And It Felt Paisley. It Smelled Like The Total Eclipse Of The Moon.

Ingenuity And Incongruity Always Cheer Me Up.

[science Fiction Is] Out In The Mainstream Now. You Can Tell By The Way Mainstream Literary Authors Pillage Sf While Denying They're Writing It!

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

This Book Was Written Using 100% Recycled Words.

One Person Is Nothing. Two People Are A Nation.

Nigeria Independence

Plot Exposition That Can Be Gently Wound Out By The Authorial Voice And Internal Monologue Of A Character In The Length Of A Page Has To Be Delivered In A Matter Of Seconds On The Stage.

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.

Rincewind Had Always Been Happy To Think Of Himself As A Racist. The One Hundred Meters, The Mile, The Marathon -- He'd Run Them All.

When I Am Old I Shall Wear Midnight.

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.

Tiffany Has Been Apprenticing As A Witch By Visiting People In Need With Her Mentor. After Meeting With One Particularly Sad Case, She Tells Her Mentor, "it Shouldn't Be Like This." Her Mentor Replies, "there Isn't A Way Things Should Be. There's Just What Happens, And What We Do.

But Then Science Is Nothing But A Series Of Questions That Lead To More Questions.

I Meant," Said Ipslore Bitterly, "what Is There In This World That Truly Makes Living Worthwhile?" Death Thought About It. Cats, He Said Eventually. Cats Are Nice.

Bishops Move Diagonally. That's Why They Often Turn Up Where The Kings Don't Expect Them To Be.

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

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.

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

Curiosity May Have Killed The Cat, But Her's Curiosity Could Have Massacred A Pride Of Lions.

I Read The 'old Testament' All The Way Through When I Was About 13 And Was Horrified. A Few Months Afterwards I Read 'the Origin Of Species', Hallucinating Very Mildly Because I Was In Bed With Flu At The Time. Despite That, Or Because Of That, It All Made Perfect Sense.

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

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.

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.

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).

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

[...] The Awesome Splendor Of The Universe Is Much Easier To Deal With If You Think Of It As A Series Of Small Chunks.

There Was A Man And He Had Eight Sons. Apart From That, He Was Nothing More Than A Comma On The Page Of History. It's Sad, But That's All You Can Say About Some People.

Ritual And Ceremony In Their Due Times Kept The World Under The Sky And The Stars In Their Courses. It Was Astonishing What Ritual And Ceremony Could Do.

Neither Of My Parents Went To Church, But They Did Everything That You Needed To Do To Be Christian. That's Something A Quaker Would Call An Intimation Of The Divine.

But Here's Some Advice, Boy. Don't Put Your Trust In Revolutions. They Always Come Around Again. That's Why They're Called Revolutions.

A Police Procedural Novel Can Be Even Funnier If The Police Include Trolls And Dwarves And Things Like That. You Start Looking At The Whole Basis Of The Cop Novel. You Get The Cop Moving In A Different Way When You've Actually Set It In A Fantasy City.

Don't Be Smart. Smart Is Only A Polished Version Of Dumb. Try Intelligence. It Will Surely See You Through.

They Say That There Can Never Be Two Snowflakes That Are Exactly Alike, But Has Anyone Checked Lately?

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

Wisdom Is One Of The Few Things That Looks Bigger The Further Away It Is.

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.

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

Perhaps, If You Knew You Were Going To Die, Your Senses Crammed In As Much Detail As They Could While They Still Had The Chance.

The People Who Really Run Organizations Are Usually Found Several Levels Down, Where It Is Still Possible To Get Things Done.

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

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

A Good Banana Daiquiri Is Hard To Come By. I've Only Ever Found One Place In This Country That Makes A Proper One, And That's In Leeds.

The City's Full Of People Who You Just See Around.

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

Either All Days Are Holy Or None Are.

Never Build A Dungeon You Wouldn't Be Happy To Spend The Night In Yourself. The World Would Be A Happier Place If More People Remembered That.

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

You Just Put That Sword Away, Sir, Please," Said The Voice Of Lance-constable Vimes. "you Will Not Shoot Me, You Young Idiot. That Would Be Murder," Said The Captain Calmly. "not Where I'm Aiming, Sir.

Build A Man A Fire, And He'll Be Warm For A Day. Set A Man On Fire, And He'll Be Warm For The Rest Of His Life.

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

People Couldn't Become Truly Holy, He Said, Unless They Also Had The Opportunity To Be Definitively Wicked.

The Purpose Of This Lectchoor Is To Let You Know Where We Are. We Are In The Deep Cack. It Couldn't Be Worse If It Was Raining Arseholes. Any Questions?

Veil, You See, If I Vas To Say Something Portentous Like "zer Dark Eyes Of Zer Mind" Back Home In Uberwald, Zer Would Be A Sudden Crash Of Thunder,' Said Otto. 'and If I Vas To Point At A Castle On A Towering Crag And Say "yonder Is . . . Zer Castle" A Volf Would Be Bound To Howl Mournfully.' He Sighed. 'in Zer Old Country, Zer Scenery Is Psychotropic And Knows Vot Is Expected Of It. Here, Alas, People Just Look At You In A Funny Vay.

"there's A Door," He Whispered. "where Does It Go?" "it Stays Where It Is, I Think," Said Rincewind.

… People Didn't Seem To Be Able To Remember What It Was Like With The Elves Around. Life Was Certainly More Interesting Then, But Usually Because It Was Shorter. And It Was More Colorful, If You Liked The Color Of Blood.

An Ancient Proverb Summed It Up When A Wizard Is Tired Of Looking For Broken Glass In His Dinner, It Ran, He Is Tired Of Life.

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

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.

The Wages Of Sin Is Death But So Is The Salary Of Virtue, And At Least The Evil Get To Go Home Early On Fridays.

Trending Author

Alexandra Kosteniuk

John Singer Sargent

Category