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I'm Not The World's Greatest Expert, But I Would Have Thought That The Wizards, Witches, Trolls, Unicorns, ... Broomsticks And Spells Would Have Given Her A Clue?' - When J.k. Rowling Insisted She Wasn't Writing Fantasy.

-Terry Pratchett

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I'm Not The World's

Terry Pratchett

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I'm Not The World's Greatest Expert, But I Would Have Thought That The Wizards, Witches, Trolls, Unicorns, ... Broomsticks And Spells Would Have Given Her A Clue?' - When J.k. Rowling Insisted She Wasn't Writing Fantasy.

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

The Truth May Be Out There, But Lies Are Inside Your Head.

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.

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.

Got To Be Worth A Try, I Suppose," Said Crowley. "it's Not As If I Haven't Got Lots Of Other Work To Do, God Knows." His Forehead Creased For A Moment, And Then He Slapped The Steering Wheel Triumphantly. "ducks!" He Shouted. "what?" "that's What Water Slides Off!" Aziraphale Took A Deep Breath. "just Drive The Car, Please," He Said Wearily.

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

Knowing That You Are Going To Die Is, I Suspect, The Beginning Of Wisdom.

Fantasy Doesn't Have To Be Fantastic. American Writers In Particular Find This Much Harder To Grasp. You Need To Have Your Feet On The Ground As Much As Your Head In The Clouds. The Cute Dragon That Sits On Your Shoulder Also Craps All Down Your Back, But This Makes It More Interesting Because It Gives It An Added Dimension.

That's What's So Stupid About The Whole Magic Thing, You Know. You Spend Twenty Years Learning The Spell That Makes Nude Virgins Appear In Your Bedroom, And Then You're So Poisoned By Quicksilver Fumes And Half-blind From Reading Old Grimoires That You Can't Remember What Happens Next.

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

"i'm Sorry, I Just Got Carried Away," Hissed Aziraphale.

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

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

Making Money Isn't Something To Be Ashamed Of. There's A Feeling Now That If You Have Money You Must Have Got It By Some Kind Of Shady Dealing Or Being An Mp.

There Are, Almost By Definition, An Unlimited Number Of Hells - Potentially At Least A Personal One For Every Living Sapient Being.

Wisdom Comes From Experience. Experience Is Often A Result Of Lack Of Wisdom.

Wisdom Experience

Wisdom And Experience

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.

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.

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?

Occasionally He Would Very Nearly Swear.

It Must Be Powerful Language If You Canna Make Oout What The Heel It’s Goin’ On Aboot!

First Of All You Are A Writer, A Writer Is What You Are, So It Doesn't Actually Stop The Moment You Leave Your Desk, Your Computer, Your Keyboard, Whatever. Something Is Operating The Back Of Your Mind.

You Have To Start Out Learning To Believe The Little Lies. "so We Can Believe The Big Ones?" Yes. Justice, Mercy, Duty. That Sort Of Thing.

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

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

Lots Of People Would Be As Cowardly As Me If They Were Brave Enough.

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

It's Not Brits Who Think American Readers Are A Bunch Of Whinging Morons With The Geo-social Understanding Of A Wire Coathanger, It's American Editors.

What Is A Fantasy Map But A Space Beyond Which There Be Dragons?

What Is Magic? There Is The Wizard's Explanation... Wizards Talk About Candles, Circles, Planets, Stars, Bananas, Chants, Runes And The Importance Of Having At Least Four Good Meals Every Day.

"right!" "right!" "you Can Get There!" "i Can Get There!" "you're A Natural At Counting To Two!" "i'm A Nat'ral At Counting To Two!" "if You Can Count To Two, You Can Count To Anything!" "if I Can Count To Two, I Can Count To Anything!" "and Then The World Is Your Mollusc!" "my Mollusc! What's A Mollusc?

This Wasn't Food - It Was What Food Became If It Had Been Good And Gone To Food Heaven.

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.

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

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.

(about Sweeping).... What He Was In Fact Doing Was Moving The Dirt Around With A Broom, To Give It A Change Of Scenery And A Chance To Make New Friends.

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.

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.

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.

Incidentally, It's Best Not To Argue With The Nursing Staff. I Find The Best Course Of Action Is To Throw Some Chocolates In One Direction And Hurry Off In The Other While Their Attention Is Distracted.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

My Advice Is This. For Christ's Sake, Don't Write A Book That Is Suitable For A Kid Of 12 Years Old, Because The Kids Who Read Who Are 12 Years Old Are Reading Books For Adults. I Read All Of The James Bond Books When I Was About 11, Which Was Approximately The Right Time To Read James Bond Books.

Thats How We Survive Infinity - We Kill It By Breaking It Up Into Small Bits.

Gravity Is A Habit That Is Hard To Shake Off.

Igor?' Said Moist. 'you Have An Igor?' Oh, Yes,' Said Hubert. 'that's How I Get This Wonderful Light. They Know The Secret Of Storing Lightning In Jars! But Don't Let That Worry You, Mr Lipspick. Just Because I'm Employing An Igor And Working In A Cellar Doesn't Mean I'm Some Sort Of Madman, Ha Ha Ha!' Ha Ha,' Agreed Moist. Ha Hah Hah!,' Said Hubert. 'hahahahahaha!! Ahahahahahahhhhh!!!!!-' Bent Slapped Him On The Back. Hubert Coughed. Sorry About That, It's The Air Down Here,' He Mumbled.

Shoes, Men, Coffins; Never Accept The First One You See.

Never Trust A Species That Grins All The Time. It’s Up To Something.

Sam Vimes Could Parallel Process. Most Husbands Can. They Learn To Follow Their Own Line Of Thought While At The Same Time Listening To What Their Wives Say. And The Listening Is Important, Because At Any Time They Could Be Challenged And Must Be Ready To Quote The Last Sentence In Full. A Vital Additional Skill Is Being Able To Scan The Dialogue For Telltale Phrases Such As "and They Can Deliver It Tomorrow" Or "so I've Invited Them For Dinner?" Or "they Can Do It In Blue, Really Quite Cheaply.

In Genua, Someone Set Out To Make Dreams Come True. Remember Some Of Your Dreams?

Dreams Come True

Previous Generations Understood About Death, And Undoubtedly Would Have Seen A Reasonable Amount Of Death. Once You Get Into The Victorian Era, You Might Well Have Seen The Funerals Of Many Of Your Siblings Before You Were Very Old.

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.

[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.

Remember - That Which Does Not Kill Us Can Only Make Us Stronger. And That Which Does Kill Us Leaves Us Dead!

When You Look Into The Abyss, It’s Not Supposed To Wave Back.

For Example, The Dwarfs Found Out How To Turn Lead Into Gold By Doing It The Hard Way. The Difference Between That And The Easy Way Is That The Hard Way Works.

She Was Already Learning That If You Ignore The Rules People Will, Half The Time, Quietly Rewrite Them So That They Don't Apply To You.

And These Are Your Reasons, My Lord?" "do You Think I Have Others?" Said Lord Vetinari. "my Motives, As Ever, Are Entirely Transparent." Hughnon Reflected That 'entirely Transparent' Meant Either That You Could See Right Through Them Or That You Couldn't See Them At All.

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

They Say That The Eyes Of Some Paintings Can Follow You Around The Room, A Fact That I Doubt, But I Am Wondering Whether Some Music Can Follow You For Ever.

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.

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

She Walked Quickly Through The Darkness With The Frank Stride Of Someone Who Was At Least Certain That The Forest, On This Damp And Windy Night, Contained Strange And Terrible Things And She Was It.

Well, It Would Have To Be “the Man Who Was Thursday.” It’s A Damn Good Read That I Believe Should Be Read By Everyone In Politics.

Some People Are Heroes. And Some People Jot Down Notes.

Some People Think 'coven' Is A Word For A Group Of Witches, And It's True That's What The Dictionary Says. But The Real Word For A Group Of Witches Is 'an Argument'.

Everyone Should Occasionally Break The Law In Some Small And Delightful Way. It's Good For The Hygiene Of The Brain.

Why Do You Go Away? So That You Can Come Back. So That You Can See The Place You Came From With New Eyes And Extra Colors. And The People There See You Differently, Too. Coming Back To Where You Started Is Not The Same As Never Leaving.

The Thing About Witchcraft," Said Mistress Weatherwax, "is That It's Not Like School At All. First You Get The Test, And Then Afterward You Spend Years Findin' Out How You Passed It. It's A Bit Like Life In That Respect

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.

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.

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

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.

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

It Was Possibly The Most Circumspect Advance In The History Of Military Maneuvers, Right Down At The Bottom End Of The Scale That Things Like The Charge Of The Light Brigade Are At The Top Of.

He Moved In A Way That Suggested He Was Attempting The World Speed Record For The Nonchalant Walk.

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.

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.

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).

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

Look At Satan. Created As An Angel, Grows Up To Be The Great Adversary. Hey, If You’re Going To Go On About Genetics, You Might As Well Say The Kid Will Grow Up To Be An Angel. After All, His Father Was Really Big In Heaven In The Old Days. Saying He’ll Grow Up To Be A Demon Just Because His Dad Became One Is Like Saying A Mouse With Its Tail Cut Off Will Give Birth To Tailless Mice. No. Upbringing Is Everything. Take It From Me.

Many An Ancient Lord's Last Words Have Been, 'you Can't Kill Me Because I've Got Magic Aaargh.'

If You Kept Changing The Way People Saw The World, You Ended Up Changing The Way You Saw Yourself.

Them As Can Do Has To Do For Them As Can't. And Someone Has To Speak Up For Them As Has No Voices.

The Duke Had A Mind That Ticked Like A Clock And, Like A Clock, It Regularly Went Cuckoo.

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.

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.

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

Just Because It's Not Nice Doesn't Mean It's Not Miraculous.

It's Going To Look Pretty Good, Then, Isn't It," Said War Testily, "the One Horseman And Three Pedestrians Of The Apocalypse.

The Trouble With Life Was That You Didn’t Get A Chance To Practice Before Doing It For Real.

Who'd Want A Pony When You Could Have The Whole Universe? It Was Far More Interesting And You Didn't Have To Muck It Out Once A Week.

Personal’s Not The Same As Important. People Just Think It Is.

Mister Teatime Had A Truly Brilliant Mind, But It Was Brilliant Like A Fractured Mirror, All Marvellous Facets And Rainbows But, Ultimately, Also Something That Was Broken.

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.

I Am Certain No One Sets Out To Be Cruel, But Our Treatment Of The Elderly Ill Seems To Have No Philosophy To It. As A Society, We Should Establish Whether We Have A Policy Of Life At Any Cost.

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

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.

The Four Horsemen Whose Ride Presages The End Of The World Are Known To Be Death, War, Famine, And Pestilence. But Even Less Significant Events Have Their Own Horsemen. For Example, The Four Horsemen Of The Common Cold Are Sniffles, Chesty, Nostril, And Lack Of Tissues; The Four Horsemen Whose Appearance Foreshadows Any Public Holiday Are Storm, Gales, Sleet, And Contra-flow.

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.

This Is Where The Gods Play Games With The Lives Of Men, On A Board Which Is At One And The Same Time A Simple Playing Area And The Whole World. And Fate Always Wins.

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

Exclamation Marks

Peace?' Said Vetinari. 'ah, Yes, Defined As Period Of Time To Allow For Preparation For The Next War.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

I Know It’s Not The Right Thing To Say To A Lady, Miss, But You Are Sweating Like A Pig!" "my Mother Always Said That Horses Sweat, Men Perspire, And Ladies Merely Glow…" "is That So? Well, Miss, You Are Glowing Like A Pig!

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

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

Be One Of The Crowd? It Went Against Everything A Wizard Stood For, And A Wizard Would Not Stand For Anything If He Could Sit Down For It, But Even Sitting Down, You Had To Stand Out.

If You Are Going To Write, Say, Fantasy - Stop Reading Fantasy. You've Already Read Too Much. Read Other Things; Read Westerns, Read History, Read Anything That Seems Interesting, Because If You Only Read Fantasy And Then You Start To Write Fantasy, All You're Going To Do Is Recycle The Same Old Stuff And Move It Around A Bit.

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

And Then You Bit Onto Them, And Learned Once Again That Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler Could Find A Use For Bits Of An Animal That The Animal Didn't Know It Had Got. Dibbler Had Worked Out That With Enough Fried Onions And Mustard People Would Eat Anything.

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.

Most Modern Fantasy Just Rearranges The Furniture In Tolkien's Attic.

Not All Questions Are Answered, But Fortunately Some Answers Are Questioned.

When They're Standing Right In Front Of You, Kings Are A Kind Of Speech Impediment.

No One Is Actually Dead Until The Ripples They Cause In The World Die Away.

Sometimes Glass Glitters More Than Diamonds Because It Has More To Prove.

The Mountains Of Madness Have Many Little Plateau Of Sanity.

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

Oh, A Very Useful Philosophical Animal, Your Average Tortoise. Outrunning Metaphorical Arrows, Beating Hares In Races... Very Handy.

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.

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

Humans Can Think Inhuman Thoughts.

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.

Soon To Come In Licorice, Orange, Cinnamon, And Banana, But Not Strawberry, Because I Hate Strawberries.

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

This Book Was Written Using 100% Recycled Words.

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

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

Mind You, The Elizabethans Had So Many Words For The Female Genitals That It Is Quite Hard To Speak A Sentence Of Modern English Without Inadvertently Mentioning At Least Three Of Them.

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.

They Were Indeed What Was Known As 'old Money', Which Meant That It Had Been Made So Long Ago That The Black Deeds Which Had Originally Filled The Coffers Were Now Historically Irrelevant. Funny, That: A Brigand For A Father Was Something You Kept Quiet About, But A Slave-taking Pirate For A Great-great-great-grandfather Was Something To Boast Of Over The Port. Time Turned The Evil Bastards Into Rogues, And Rogue Was A Word With A Twinkle In Its Eye And Nothing To Be Ashamed Of.

People Who Are Rather More Than Six Feet Tall And Nearly As Broad Across The Shoulders Often Have Uneventful Journeys. People Jump Out At Them From Behind Rocks Then Say Things Like, "oh. Sorry. I Thought You Were Someone Else.

Granny Was An Old-fashioned Witch. She Didn’t Do Good For People, She Did Right By Them.

And, While It Was Regarded As Pretty Good Evidence Of Criminality To Be Living In A Slum, For Some Reason Owning A Whole Street Of Them Merely Got You Invited To The Very Best Social Occasions.

Well, The Traveling Teachers Do Come Through Every Few Months," Said The Baron. "yes, Sir, I Know, Sir, And They're Useless, Sir. They Teach Facts, Not Understanding. It's Like Teaching People About Forests By Showing Them A Saw. I Want A Proper School, Sir, To Teach Reading And Writing, And Most Of All Thinking, Sir, So People Can Find What They're Good At, Because Someone Doing What They Really Like Is Always An Asset To Any Country, And Too Often People Never Find Out Until It's Too Late.

In All Seriousness, People Think That It's The Ideas That Are Important. Well, Everyone Has Ideas, All The Time. I Tend To Write Mine Down And Remember Them, But At Some Point You Have To Apply The Bum To The Seat And Knock Out About Sixty Five Thousand Words - That's How Long A Novel Is.

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.

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

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.

I Have, Before Now, Waited For A Pen To Perform A Macro.

There Are All Kinds Of Darkness, And All Kinds Of Things Can Be Found In Them, Imprisoned, Banished, Lost Or Hidden. Sometimes They Escape. Sometimes They Simply Fall Out. Sometimes They Just Can't Take It Any More.

It Was A Backwards Memory Of An Event In His Future So Terrifying That It Had Generated Harmonics Of Fear All The Way Along His Lifeline.

I Would Advise Budding Writers Some Other Kind Of Job, Unless They Think They're Very, Very Lucky.

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.

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.

What Can The Harvest Hope For, If Not For The Care Of The Reaper Man?

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

They Can Ta'k Our Lives But They Can Never Ta'k Our Freedom!' Now There's A Battle Cry Not Designed By A Clear Thinker

He Moved On, In The Centre Of A Widening Circle. He Wasn't An Enemy, He Was A Nemesis.

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

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.

If You Want To Change A Whole People, Then You Start With The Girls. It Stands To Reason: They Learn Faster, And They Pass On What They Learn To Their Children.

I Mean, You're Right About The Fire And War, All That. But That Rapture Stuff--well, If You Could See Them All In Heaven--serried Ranks Of Them As Far As The Mind Can Follow And Beyond, League After League Of Us, Flaming Swords, All That, Well, What I'm Trying To Say Is Who Has Time To Go Round Picking People Out And Popping Them Up In The Air To Sneer At The People Dying Of Radiation Sickness On The Parched And Burning Earth Below Them? If That's Your Idea Of A Morally Acceptable Time, I Might Add.

Granddad Was Superstitious About Books. He Thought That If You Had Enough Of Them Around, Education Leaked Out, Like Radioactivity.

Seeing, Contrary To Popular Wisdom, Isn't Believing. It's Where Belief Stops, Because It Isn't Needed Any More.

The Sign, Which Says: "do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Open This Door!" - Of Course, I've Read It. Why Do You Think I Want It Opened?.. To See Why They Wanted It Shut, Of Course. This Exchange Contains Almost All You Need To Know About Human Civilization. At Least, Those Bits Of It That Are Now Under The Sea, Fenced Off Or Still Smoking.

When People Say "how Do You Write A Book, How Does It All Happen?" I Say, You Line Things Up, And You Line Them Up As Actually As You Possibly Can, But Sooner Or Later The Book Has Got Momentum And It's Moving Along Under That Momentum. It's Like A Sculpture, If You're Working With The Grain Of The Wood, The Wood Will Start Defining What Shape It's Going To Become.

First Sight Means You Can See What Really Is There, And Second Thoughts Mean Thinking About What You Are Thinking. And In Tiffany's Case, There Were Sometimes Third Thoughts And Fourth Thoughts Although These...sometimes Led Her To Walk Into Doors.

It Was Said That Life Was Cheap In Ankh-morpork. This Was Of Course, Completely Wrong. Life Was Often Very Expensive; You Could Get Death For Free.

Appreciate Life

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

Times Are Changing

She Was A Beefy Young Woman And, Whatever Piece Of Music She Was Playing, It Was Definitely Losing.

I Have A Suspicion - I Have To Be Careful What I Say - That You Might Actually Find The Best Comics Actually Written By People Who Are Comics Writers And Who Aren't Setting Out To Do Graphic Novels.

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

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.

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.

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 Wrote Three Books, I Had Three Greenhouses. It Seemed To Me To Be Very Satisfactory.

He'd Been An Angel Once. He Hadn't Meant To Fall. He'd Just Hung Around With The Wrong People.

Just Because Something Is A Metaphor Doesn't Mean It Can't Be Real.

An Assassin, A Real Assassin Had To Look Like One-black Clothes, Hood, Boots, And All. If They Could Wear Any Clothes, Any Disguise, Then What Could Anyone Do But Spend All Day In A Small Room With A Loaded Crossbow Pointed At The Door?

The Trouble With Being A God Is That You've Got No One To Pray To.

But Ye Gotta Know Where Ye're Just Gonna Rush In. Ye Cannae Just Rush In Anywhere. It Looks Bad, Havin' To Rush Oout Again Straight Awa'.

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.

Lots Of Ingenuity Gets You Through Times With No Money Better Than Money Gets You Through Times Of No Ingenuity.

You Are In Favour Of The Common People?” Said Dragon Mildly. The Common People?” Said Vimes. “they’re Nothing Special. They’re No Different From The Rich And Powerful Except They’ve Got No Money Or Power. But The Law Should Be There To Balance Things Up A Bit. So I Suppose I’ve Got To Be On Their Side.

But The Helmet Had Gold Decoration, And The Bespoke Armorers Had Made A New Gleaming Breastplate With Useless Gold Ornamentation On It. Sam Vimes Felt Like A Class Traitor Every Time He Wore It. He Hated Being Thought Of As One Of Those People That Wore Stupid Ornamental Armor. It Was Gilt By Association.

Evil In General Does Not Sleep, And Therefore Doesn't See Why Anyone Else Should.

The 'new Testament', Now, I Quite Liked. Jesus Had A Lot Of Good Things To Say, And As For His Father, He Must Have Been Highly Thought Of By The Community To Work With Wood - A Material That Couldn't Have Been Widely Available In Palestine.

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

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.

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.

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.

I'd Go For "really Great Writer." Although I Don't Think I Am. I Know I Have A Style Which Is Recognizable. I Think You Can See Terry Pratchett In Every Book. I Like Doing It. I Was Once A Journalist. And I Think Of Myself As A Journalist, And That's It.

She Was, In Fact, Quite A Pleasant Looking Girl, Even If Her Bosom Had Clearly Been Intended For A Girl Two Feet Taller; But She Was Not Her. The Egregious Professor Of Grammar And Usage Would Have Corrected This To "she Was Not She," Which Would Have Caused The Professor Of Logic To Spit Out His Drink.

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.

A Good Man Will Kill You With Hardly A Word.

…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.

Take It From Me, Whenever You See A Bunch Of Buggers Puttering Around Talking About Truth And Beauty And The Best Way Of Attacking Ethics, You Can Bet Your Sandals It's All Because Dozens Of Other Poor Buggers Are Doing All The Real Work Around The Place.

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