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I Don't Want Unnecessary Violence, Sergeant," Said Blouse. "right You Are, Sir!" Said The Sergeant. "carborundum! First Man Comes Through That Door Runnin', I Want Him Nailed To The Wall!" He Caught The Lieutenant's Eye, And Added: "but Not Too Hard!

-Terry Pratchett

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I Don't Want Unnecessary

Terry Pratchett

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I Don't Want Unnecessary Violence, Sergeant," Said Blouse. "right You Are, Sir!" Said The Sergeant. "carborundum! First Man Comes Through That Door Runnin', I Want Him Nailed To The Wall!" He Caught The Lieutenant's Eye, And Added: "but Not Too Hard!

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Quit While You're A Head, That's What I Say.

Evil Begins When You Begin To Treat People As Things.

As A Species, We Are Forever Sticking Our Finger Into The Electric Socket Of The Universe To See What Will Happen Next.

A Marriage Is Always Made Up Of Two People Who Are Prepared To Swear That Only The Other One Snores.

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.

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.

The Merest Accident Of Microgeography Had Meant That The First Man To Hear The Voice Of Om, And Who Gave Om His View Of Humans, Was A Shepherd And Not A Goatherd. They Have Quite Different Ways Of Looking At The World, And The Whole Of History Might Have Been Different. For Sheep Are Stupid, And Have To Be Driven. But Goats Are Intelligent, And Need To Be Led.

People Whose Concept Of Ancient History Is The First Series Of Star Trek May Be Treated With Patience, Because It's Usually Not Their Fault They Were Reduced To Getting Their Education From School.

I Wouldn't Trust You With A Bucket Of Water If My Knickers Were On Fire!

Only In Our Dreams Are We Free. The Rest Of The Time We Need Wages.

Everything Happens For A Reason, Except Possibly Football. (in Thief Of Time)

Everything Happens For A Reason

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.

The Universe Was Bad Enough Without People Poking It.

And Therefore Education At The University Mostly Worked By The Age-old Method Of Putting A Lot Of Young People In The Vicinity Of A Lot Of Books And Hoping That Something Would Pass From One To The Other, While The Actual Young People Put Themselves In The Vicinity Of Inns And Taverns For Exactly The Same Reason.

You Do Know You Could Find Yourself Charged With Being A Dominant Species While Under The Influence Of Impulse-driven Consumerism, Don't You?

Finding Yourself

If You Put Butter And Salt On It, It Tastes Like Salty Butter.

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.

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

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!

It Is True That Words Have Power, And One Of The Things They Are Able To Do Is Get Out Of Someone’s Mouth Before The Speaker Has The Chance To Stop Them.

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

One Of The Important Things About Being A Small-town Reporter Is Knowing What Not To Put In The Paper.

And Our Lady Friend, She Thinks Life Works Like A Fairy Tale.' Well, That’s Harmless, Isn’t It?' Yeah, But In Fairy Tales, When Someone Dies... It’s Just A Word.

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

A Lot Hinges On The Fact That, In Most Circumstances, People Are Not Allowed To Hit You With A Mallet. They Put Up All Kinds Of Visible And Invisible Signs That Say, 'do Not Do This' In The Hope That It'll Work, But If It Doesn't, Then They Shrug, Because There Is, Really, No Real Mallet At All.

Somewhere Around The Place I've Got An Unfinished Short Story About Schrodinger's Dog; It Was Mostly Moaning About All The Attention The Cat Was Getting.

She Was Convinced That She Was Anorexic, Because Every Time She Looked In The Mirror She Did Indeed See A Fat Person.

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

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.

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...

It Takes Forty Men With Their Feet On The Ground To Keep One Man With His Head In The Air.

Maybe The Only Significant Difference Between A Really Smart Simulation And A Human Being Was The Noise They Made When You Punched Them.

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

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

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.

You Did What You Were Told Or You Didn't Get Paid, And If Things Went Wrong It Wasn't Your Problem. It Was The Fault Of Whatever Idiot Has Accepted This Message For Sending In The First Place. No One Cared About You, And Everyone At Headquarters Was An Idiot. It Wasn't Your Fault, No One Listened To You. Headquarters Had Even Started An Employee Of The Month Scheme To Show How Much They Cared. That Was How Much They Didn't Care.

I Was Just A Kid Then. But I Won't Forget. Nor Will Others. There's Lots Of People With Reason To Hate The Church.

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

If Cats Looked Like Frogs We'd Realize What Nasty, Cruel Little Bastards They Are. Style. That's What People Remember.

Voodoo Is A Very Interesting Religion For The Whole Family, Even Those Members Of It Who Are Dead.

Who Knows What The Future Holds.

It Was Amazing How Many Friends You Could Make By Being Bad At Things, Provided You Were Bad Enough To Be Funny.

This Is A Lovely Party," Said The Bursar To A Chair, "i Wish I Was Here.

The Real World Was Far Too Real To Leave Neat Little Hints. It Was Full Of Too Many Things. It Wasn't By Eliminating The Impossible That You Got To The Truth, However Improbable; It Was By The Much Harder Process Of Eliminating The Possibilities.

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.

Last Hopeless Chances Have Got To Work. Nothing Makes Sense Otherwise. You Might As Well Not Be Alive.

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.

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.

[y]ou Weren't Born With A Talent For Witchcraft: It Didn't Come Easily; You Worked Hard At It Because You Wanted It. You Forced The World To Give It To You, No Matter The Price, And The Price Is And Always Will Be High... People Say You Don't Find Witchcraft; Witchcraft Finds You. But You've Found It, Even If At The Time You Didn't Know What It Was You Were Finding, And You Grabbed It By Its Scrawny Neck And Made It Work For You.

They May Have Been Ugly. They May Have Been Evil. But When It Came To Poetry In Motion, The Things Had All The Grace And Coordination Of A Deck-chair.

They Can Tak' Oour Lives But They Canna Tak' Oour Troousers!

Granny Weatherwax Was Firmly Against Fiction. Life Was Hard Enough Without Lies Floating Around And Changing The Way People Thought.

Some People Think This Is Paranoia, But It Isn't. Paranoids Only Think Everyone Is Out To Get Them. Wizards Know It.

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

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.

You Call Yourself Some Kind Of Goddess And You Know Nothing, Madam, Nothing. What Don't Die Can't Live. What Don't Live Can't Change. What Don't Change Can't Learn. The Smallest Creature That Dies In The Grass Knows More Than You.

One Minute I'm Just Another Rabbit And Happy About It, Next Minute *whazaam*, I'm Thinking. That's A Major Drawback If You're Looking For Happiness As A Rabbit, Let Me Tell You. You Want Grass And Sex, Not Thoughts Like 'what's It All About, When You Get Right Down To It?'

It's Either Because Of The Number Of Times The Scholar Puts The Boot Into Peter Jackson The Director Of The Lord Of The Rings Films Or Is Making A Point They Have Never Heard Of.

The Significant Owl Hoots In The Night.

Most Horses Don't Walk Backwards Voluntarily, Because What They Can't See Doesn't Exist.

The Students Were Staring At Her In The Manner Of Those Who Have Heard Of The Species 'female' But Have Never Expected To Get This Close To One.

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.

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

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Trial And Error

A World Like That, Which Exists Only Because The Gods Enjoy A Joke, Must Be A Place Where Magic Can Survive. And Sex Too, Of Course.

I Thought It Very Strange, And Very Sad, That The Fairy Kingdom Largely Appears To Be English. I Thought It Was Time For Some Regional Representation. And The Nac Mac Feegle Are, Well, They're Like Tiny Little Scottish Smurfs Who Have Seen Braveheart Altogether Too Many Times.

History, Contrary To Popular Theories, Is Kings And Dates And Battles.

It Is Said That Whomsoever The Gods Wish To Destroy, They First Make Mad. In Fact, Whomsoever The Gods Wish To Destroy, They First Hand The Equivalent Of A Stick With A Fizzing Fuse And Acme Dynamite Company Written On The Side. It's More Interesting, And Doesn't Take So Long.

There Are Thousands Of Good Reasons Why Magic Doesn't Rule The World. They're Called Witches And Wizards.

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

These Weren't Cheap Modern Books; These Were Books Bound In Leather, And Not Just Leather, But Leather From Clever Cows Who Had Given Their Lives For Literature After A Happy Existence In The Very Best Pastures.

It Was Like Being In A Jane Austen Novel, But One With Far Less Clothing.

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.

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.

Interesting Thing, These Fellows Never Seem To Get The Idea Of Perspective-' The Bursar Thought, Or Received The Thought: That's Because Perspective Is A Lie. If I Know A Pond Is Round Then Why Should I Draw It Oval? I Will Draw It Round Because Round Is True. Why Should My Brush Lie To You Just Because My Eye Lies To Me?

I Don’t See Why It Matters What Is Written. Not When It’s About People. It Can Always Be Crossed Out.

Welcome To Fear, Said Moist To Himself. It's Hope, Turned Inside Out. You Know It Can't Go Wrong, You're Sure It Can't Go Wrong... But It Might.

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.

It Was Sad Music. But It Waved Its Sadness Like A Battle Flag. It Said The Universe Had Done All It Could, But You Were Still Alive.

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.

Technically, The City Of Ankh-morpork Is A Tyranny, Which Is Not Always The Same Thing As A Monarchy, And In Fact Even The Post Of Tyrant Has Been Somewhat Redefined By The Incumbent, Lord Vetinari, As The Only Form Of Democracy That Works. Everyone Is Entitled To Vote, Unless Disqualified By Reason Of Age Or Not Being Lord Vetinari.

He's Out Of His Depth On A Wet Pavement.

You Get All Sorts Of People In The Library, And The Librarian Gets It All.

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.

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

And No Practical Definition Of Freedom Would Be Complete Without The Freedom To Take The Consequences. Indeed, It Is The Freedom Upon Which All The Others Are Based.

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!

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.

If Per Capita Was A Problem, Decapita Could Be Arranged.

I Found While Driving In Wyoming That Wearing A Stetson And Driving A Beat-up Pickup Meant You Could Go As Fast As You Like, While The Police Picked Up Californian Winnebagos That Went One Mph Over 55. After All, They Wanted To Bring Money Into The State, Not Merely Circulate It.

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.

Experience Has Taught Me That You Feel Better On A Flight If You Avoid Chicken Fat In Plastic Sauce.

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.

It's A Sword. Said The Hogfather. They're Not Meant To Be Safe.

Death Was Standing Behind A Lectern, Poring Over A Map. He Looked At Mort As If He Wasn’t Entirely There. You Haven't Heard Of The Bayof Mante, Have You? He Said. “no, Sir,” Said Mort. Famous Shipwreck There. “was There?” There Will Be, Said Death, If I Can Find The Damn Place.

It's The Expression On Their Little Faces I Like, Said The Hogfather. "you Mean Sort Of Fear And Awe And Not Knowing Whether To Laugh Or Cry Or Wet Their Pants?" Yes. Now That Is What I Call Belief.

In The Beginning There Was Nothing, Which Exploded.

Lords And Ladies

Mort Was Hurt By This. It Was One Thing Not To Want To Marry Someone, But Quite Another To Be Told They Didn't Want To Marry You.

Unlike Wizards, Who Like Nothing Better Than A Complicated Hierarchy, Witches Don't Go In Much For The Structured Approach To Career Progression. It's Up To Each Individual Witch To Take On A Girl To Hand The Area Over To When She Dies. Witches Are Not By Nature Gregarious, At Least With Other Witches, And They Certainly Don't Have Leaders. Granny Weatherwax Was The Most Highly-regarded Of The Leaders They Didn't Have.

In The Ramtops Village Where They Dance The Real Morris Dance, For Example, They Believe That No-one Is Finally Dead Until The Ripples They Cause In The World Die Away - Until The Clock He Wound Up Winds Down, Until The Wine She Made Has Finished Its Ferment, Until The Crop They Planted Is Harvested. The Span Of Someone's Life, They Say, Is Only The Core Of Their Actual Existence.

Nanny Ogg Looked Under Her Bed In Case There Was A Man There. Well, You Never Knew Your Luck.

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

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

The Entire Universe Has Been Neatly Divided Into Things To (a) Mate With, (b) Eat, (c) Run Away From, And (d) Rocks.

No. Men Should Die For Lies. But The Truth Is Too Precious To Die For.

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.

A Horse's Skull Always Looks Scary, Even If Someone Has Put Lipstick On It.

Knowing How Bad You Could Be Is A Great Encouragement To Being Good.

And Then Jack Chopped Down What Was The World's Last Beanstalk, Adding Murder And Ecological Terrorism To The Theft, Enticement, And Trespass Charges Already Mentioned, And All The Giant's Children Didn't Have A Daddy Anymore. But He Got Away With It And Lived Happily Ever After, Without So Much As A Guilty Twinge About What He Had Done...which Proves That You Can Be Excused For Just About Anything If You Are A Hero, Because No One Asks Inconvenient Questions.

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.

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.

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

The Space Between The Young Reader’s Eyeballs And The Printed Page Is A Holy Place And Officialdom Should Trample All Over It At Their Peril.’

I Write Books Back To Back, And I Work Very Hard On Them.

No Clowns Were Funny. That Was The Whole Purpose Of A Clown. People Laughed At Clowns, But Only Out Of Nervousness. The Point Of Clowns Was That, After Watching Them, Anything Else That Happened Seemed Enjoyable

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

There Are Times In Life When People Must Know When Not To Let Go. Balloons Are Designed To Teach Small Children This.

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.

There's That Lovely Thing For The First Month Or Two Of Writing A New Book: Ok, I Don't Know What That Character's Going To Do, But We'll Find Out Later. After About Three Or Four Months You Come To That Bit Where You've Got To Put Some Plot In Before It's Too Late, And You Have To Go Back And Start Inserting Plot, And, Ooh, I've Left Out The Literature, Ok, Lets Put Some In.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

There's A Saying That All Roads Lead To Ankh-morpork. And It's Wrong. All Roads Lead Away From Ankh-morpork, But Sometimes People Just Walk Along Them The Wrong Way.

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

Granny Weatherwax, Who Had Walked Nightly Without Fear In The Bandit-haunted Forests Of The Mountains All Her Life In The Certain Knowledge That The Darkness Held Nothing More Terrible Than She Was.

Now That Their Long War Was Over, They Could Get On With The Proper Concern Of All Civilised Nations, Which Is To Prepare For The Next One.

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.

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.

This Isn't Life In The Fast Lane, It's Life In The Oncoming Traffic.

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.

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.

Your Whole Life Passes In Front Of Your Eyes Before You Die. This Is Called Living.

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.

People Like That Don't Need A Reason Apart From "because I Can". They Have A Nightmare And Try To Make It Happen.

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.

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.

However, You Do Need Rules. Driving On The Left (or The Right Or, In Parts Of Europe, On The Left And The Right As The Mood Takes You) Is A Rule Which Works, Since Following It Means You're More Likely To Reach Your Intended Rather Than Your Final Destination.

Some Pirates Achieved Immortality By Great Deeds Of Cruelty Or Derring-do. Some Achieved Immortality By Amassing Great Wealth. But The Captain Had Long Ago Decided That He Would, On The Whole, Prefer To Achieve Immortality By Not Dying.

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 . . .)

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

The Landscape Was Snow And Green Ice On Broken Mountains. These Weren't Old Mountains, Worn Down By Time And Weather And Full Of Gentle Ski Slopes, But Young, Sulky, Adolescent Mountains. They Held Secret Ravines And Merciless Crevices. One Yodel Out Of Place Would Attract, Not The Jolly Echo Of A Lonely Goatherd, But Fifty Tons Of Express-delivery Snow.

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?

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.

He Said It Was Better To Belong Where You Don't Belong Than Not To Belong Where You Used To Belong, Remembering When You Used To Belong There.

Walter Plinge Said: "you Know She Asked Me A Very Silly Question Mrs Ogg! It Was A Silly Question Any Fool Knows The Answer!" "oh, Yes," Said Nanny. "about Houses On Fire, I Expect..." "yes! What Would I Take Out Of Our House If It Was On Fire!" "i Expect You Were A Good Boy And Said You'd Take Your Mum," Said Nanny. "no! My Mum Would Take Herself!" "what Would You Take Out Then, Walter?" Nanny Said. "the Fire!

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

Some Humans Would Do Anything To See If It Was Possible To Do It. If You Put A Large Switch In Some Cave Somewhere, With A Sign On It Saying 'end-of-the-world Switch. Please Do Not Touch,' The Paint Wouldn't Even Have Time To Dry.

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.

The Days Followed One Another Patiently. Right Back At The Beginning Of The Multiverse They Had Tried All Passing At The Same Time, And It Hadn't Worked.

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.

They Always Gives Me Bath Salts," Complained Nobby. "and Bath Soap And Bubble Bath And Herbal Bath Lumps And Tons Of Bath Stuff And I Can't Think Why, 'cos It's Not As If I Hardly Ever Has A Bath. You'd Think They'd Take The Hint, Wouldn't You?

Oh. I See. People Don't Want To See What Can't Possibly Exist.

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

There Is Always Time For Another Last Minute

People Who Used Magic Without Knowing What They Were Doing Usually Came To A Sticky End. All Over The Entire Room, Sometimes.

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'.

I'll Be More Enthusiastic About Encouraging Thinking Outside The Box When There's Evidence Of Any Thinking Going On Inside It.

Animals Never Spend Time Dividing Experience Into Little Bits And Speculating About All The Bits They've Missed. The Whole Panoply Of The Universe Has Been Neatly Expressed To Them As Things To (a) Mate With, (b) Eat, (c) Run Away From, And (d) Rocks.

Carpe Jugulum," Read Agnes Aloud. "that's... Well, Carpe Diem Is 'sieze The Day,' So This Means-" "go For The Throat

As We All Know, The Discworld Is A Flat Planet - Like A Geological Pizza, But Without The Anchovies.

This Book Was Written Using 100% Recycled Words.

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.

Everyone Knew There Were Wolves In The Mountains, But They Seldom Came Near The Village-the Modern Wolves Were The Offspring Of Ancestors That Had Survived Because They Had Learned That Human Meat Had Sharp Edges.

What Kind Of Man Would Put A Known Criminal In Charge Of A Major Branch Of Government? Apart From, Say, The Average Voter.

Most Armies Are In Fact Run By Their Sergeants - The Officers Are There Just To Give Things A Bit Of Tone And Prevent Warfare Becoming A Mere Lower-class Brawl.

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.

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.

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.

I Think What Drove Me Away From Being A Reporter Was An Inability To Accept That The World Came In Neat Stories. Every Story You Have To Report Is Just Part Of Something Bigger. The News Isn't What Happened Last Night - It's Some Cumulative Thing That's Happened Over Centuries. I Found It Hard To Think Of One Event And Drag It Out Of A Bubbling Pot And Present It As The Story That Explains It All.

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

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

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

It Is Always Useful To Face An Enemy Who Is Prepared To Die For His Country," He Read. "this Means That Both You And He Have Exactly The Same Aim In Mind.

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

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

Things That Try To Look Like Things Often Do Look More Like Things Than Things.

You've Got A Lot Of Time For Abstract Thought When You've Got Your Hand Stuck Up A Dead Badger.

Opera Happens Because A Large Number Of Things Amazingly Fail To Go Wrong.

All Assassins Had A Full-length Mirror In Their Rooms, Because It Would Be A Terrible Insult To Anyone To Kill Them When You Were Badly Dressed.

Who Shall I Shoot? You Choose. Now, Listen Very Carefully: Where's Your Coffee? You've Got Coffee, Haven't You? C'mon, Everyone's Got Coffee! Spill The Beans!

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

Words Are The Litmus Paper Of The Mind.

You Have The Effrontery To Be Squeamish, It Thought At Him. But We Were Dragons. We Were Supposed To Be Cruel, Cunning, Heartless And Terrible. But This Much I Can Tell You, You Ape – The Great Face Pressed Even Closer, So That Wonse Was Staring Into The Pitiless Depths Of His Eyes – We Never Burned And Tortured And Ripped One Another Apart And Called It Morality.

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

...and The Funny Thing Was That People Who Weren't Entirely Certain They Were Right Always Argued Much Louder Than Other People, As If The Main Person They Were Trying To Convince Were Themselves.

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

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 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.

I Can't Stand Any Music That Requires Its Singers To Be So Dumb They Wear Their Baseball Caps Backwards.

The Thing About Football - The Important Thing About Football - Is That It Is Not Just About Football.

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.

Good Or Bad, Do It As You. Too Many Lies And There's No Truth To Go Back To.

(about A Cookbook...) - What About This One? Maids Of Honor? - Weeelll, They Starts Out As Maids Of Honor...but They Ends Up Tarts.

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.

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?

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

It Was Octarine, The Colour Of Magic. It Was Alive And Glowing And Vibrant And It Was The Undisputed Pigment Of The Imagination, Because Wherever It Appeared It Was A Sign That Mere Matter Was A Servant Of The Powers Of The Magical Mind. It Was Enchantment Itself. But Rincewind Always Thought It Looked A Sort Of Greenish-purple.

The Most Prudent Thing Any Intelligent Animal Can Do, If It Would Prefer Its Descendents Not To Spend A Lot Of Time On A Slab With Electrodes Clamped To Their Brains Or Sticking Mines On The Bottom Of Ships, Or Being Patronised By Zoologists, Is To Make Bloody Certain Humans Don't Find Out About It.

Nac Mac Feegle! The Wee Free Men! Nae King! Nae Quin! Nae Laird! Nae Master! We Willna' Be Fooled Again!

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