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I Read The Best Works Of Some Of The Best Satirists, And Indeed Best Writers From The Beginning Of The Victorian Era To About The 1960s. If You Want To Be A Blacksmith, You Go And Watch The Blacksmith Working, And You Work Out What The Blacksmith Does.

-Terry Pratchett

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I Read The Best

Terry Pratchett

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I Read The Best Works Of Some Of The Best Satirists, And Indeed Best Writers From The Beginning Of The Victorian Era To About The 1960s. If You Want To Be A Blacksmith, You Go And Watch The Blacksmith Working, And You Work Out What The Blacksmith Does.

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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.

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.

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

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

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

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

And So The Children Of The Revolution Were Faced With The Age-old Problem: It Wasn't That You Had The Wrong Kind Of Government, Which Was Obvious, But That You Had The Wrong Kind Of People. As Soon As You Saw People As Things To Be Measured, They Didn't Measure Up.

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.’

Some Shadows Are So Long, They Arrive Before The Light.

If I Knew That I Could Die, I Would Live. My Life, My Death, My Choice.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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...

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

Granny Weatherwax Was Not Lost. She Wasn't The Kind Of Person Who Ever Became Lost. It Was Just That, At The Moment, While She Knew Exactly Where She Was, She Didn't Know The Position Of Anywhere Else.

Real Education Happens When You Pick Up A Fact Here, And Another Fact There, And Put Them Together And Get An Insight.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Find The Story, Granny Weatherwax Always Said. She Believed That The World Was Full Of Story Shapes. If You Let Them, They Controlled You. But If You Studied Them, If You Found Out About Them... You Could Use Them, You Could Change Them.

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.

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.

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

Insofar As He'd Formed Any Opinion Of Her, It Was That She Suffered From Misplaced Gentility And The Mistaken Belief That Etiquette Meant Good Breeding. She Mistook Mannerisms For Manners.

Science: A Way Of Finding Things Out And Then Making Them Work. Science Explains What Is Happening Around Us The Whole Time. So Does Religion, But Science Is Better Because It Comes Up With More Understandable Excuses When It's Wrong.

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.

Dark Fantasy Is Just Another Way Of Saying Horror.

There Has Been A Lot Of Bad Fantasy In The Past - I'm By No Means Saying That All Classic Fantasy Out There Is Bad - But There Has Been A Lot Of Bad Fantasy Written By People Who Read A Lot Of Fantasy And So All They Keep Doing Is Recycling It.

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.

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

If Anyone Wants One My Advise Is To Go Where The Orthodox Jews Shop, Because When It Comes To A Big Black Fedora, The Guys With Ringlets And Long Black Coats Definitely Know A Stylish Hat When They See One. You Want To Get It Home And Use A Hot Steaming Kettle, And Bob's Your Uncle - You Have A Hat With All The Right Curves!

Her Singing Always Cheered Him Up. Life Seemed So Much Brighter When She Stopped.

He Sighed. It Had Come To This. He Was A Responsible Authority, And People Could Use Terms Like "core Values" At Him With Impunity.

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.

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.

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

Joy Is To Fun What The Deep Sea Is To A Puddle. It’s A Feeling Inside That Can Hardly Be Contained.

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.

Ponder Just Let It Happen. It's Because Their Minds Are So Often Involved With Deep And Problematic Matters, He Told Himself, That Their Mouths Are Allowed To Wander Around Making A Nuisance Of Themselves.

The Fastest Way To Travel Is To Be There Already.

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.

That's One Form Of Magic, Of Course." "what, Just Knowing Things?" "knowing Things That Other People Don't Know.

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.

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.

Inside Every Sane Person There's A Madman Struggling To Get Out," Said The Shopkeeper. "that's What I've Always Thought. No One Goes Mad Quicker Than A Totally Sane Person.

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.

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

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

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.

Let Grammar, Punctuation, And Spelling Into Your Life! Even The Most Energetic And Wonderful Mess Has To Be Turned Into Sentences.

If The Government Ever Imposes A Tax On Books - And I Wouldn't Put It Past Them - I'm In Dead Trouble.

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.

Lessee...he'd Gone Off After The Funeral And Gotten Drunk. No, Not Drunk, Another Word, Ended With "er." Drunker. That Was It.

Whut's The Plan, Rob?" Said One Of Them. "okay, Lads, This Is What We'll Do. As Soon As We See Somethin', We'll Attack It. Right?" This Caused A Cheer. "ach, 'tis A Good Plan," Said Daft Wullie.

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

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

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

Do I Detect A Note Of Unseasonal Grumpiness? Said Death. No Sugar Piggywiggy For You, Albert.

I Get It,' Said The Prisoner. 'good Cop, Bad Cop, Eh?' If You Like.' Said Vimes. 'but We're A Bit Short Staffed Here, So If I Give You A Cigarette Would You Mind Kicking Yourself In The Teeth?

I'd Like To Stand Up For The Rights Of People Who Put Everything On Their Burger - Chutney, Mustard, Pickle, Mustard Pickle, Tomato Sauce... It Is Common Knowledge In My Family That I Can't Tell The Difference Between A Veggie Burger And A Meat One, Because The Ratio Of Burger To Pickles Is So High.

Cats Will Amusingly Tolerate Humans Only Until Someone Comes Up With A Tin Opener That Can Be Operated With A Paw.

Many Feel They Are Called To The Priesthood, But What They Really Hear Is An Inner Voice Saying, 'it's Indoor Work With No Heavy Lifting, Do You Want To Be A Ploughman Like Your Father?'

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.

Quick, Someone's Coming! Look Real!

Ah," Said Mr Pin. "right. I Remember. You Are Concerned Citizens." He Knew About Concerned Citizens. Wherever They Were, They All Spoke The Same Private Language, Where 'traditional Values' Meant 'hang Someone'.

It's Beautiful," Said Mort Softly. "what Is It?" The Sun Is Under The Disc, Said Death. "is It Like This Every Night?" Every Night, Said Death. Nature's Like That. "doesn't Anyone Know?" Me. You. The Gods. Good, Isn't It? "gosh!" Death Leaned Over The Saddle And Looked Down At The Kingdoms Of The World. I Don't Know About You, He Said, But I Could Murder A Curry.

Whatever You Choose, Your Choice Will Mean There Are Two New Worlds. And Perhaps Sometimes, On The Edge Of Sleep, We Will See The Shadow Of The Other World. There Will Be No Unhappy Memories.

The Man Gave A Shrug Which Indicated That, Although The World Did Indeed Have Many Problems, This Was One Of Them That Was Not His.

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

Evolution Of Man

Trial And Error

They Looked At One Another In Incomprehension, Two Minds Driving Opposite Ways Up A Narrow Street And Waiting For The Other Man To Reverse First.

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

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

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.

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.

I Really Wish That Peoplewould Just Say, 'yes, It's A Comic. Yes, This Is Fantasy. Yes, This Is Science Fiction,' And Defend The Genre Instead Of Saying, 'horror Is A Bit Passe So This Is Dark Fantasy,' And That' S Playing Someone Else's Game. So That's Why I Say I'm A Fantasy Writer And To Hell With 'it Doesn't Read Like What I Think Of As A Fantasy'. In That Case What You Think Of As A Fantasy Is Not A Fantasy. Or There Is More To It Than You Think.

The Singers All Loathe The Sight Of One Another, The Chorus Despises The Singers, They Both Hate The Orchestra, And Everyone Fears The Conductor; The Staff On One Prompt Side Won't Talk To The Staff On The Opposite Prompt Side, The Dancers Are All Crazed From Hunger In Any Case.

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.

I Don't See What's So Triffic About Creating People As People And Then Gettin' Upset 'cos They Act Like People.

I Taught Myself More In The Library Than School Taught Me.

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

But…but You Can’t Treat Religion As A Sort Of Buffet, Can You? I Mean, You Can’t Say Yes Please, I’ll Have Some Of The Celestial Paradise And A Helping Of The Divine Plan But Go Easy On The Kneeling And None Of The Prohibition Of Images, They Give Me Wind. Its Table D´hôte Or Nothing, Otherwise…well, It Would Be Silly.

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

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.

Inside Every Lump Of Coal There's A Diamond Waiting To Get Out.

This Book Was Written Using 100% Recycled Words.

Even The Blind And Meek And Voiceless Have Gods.

The Mountains Of Madness Have Many Little Plateau Of Sanity.

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.

Too Much Magic Could Wrap Time And Space Around Itself, And That Wasn't Good News For The Kind Of Person Who Had Grown Used To Things Like Effects Following Things Like Causes.

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

Funny Inspirational

You Know, You're Rather Amusingly Wrong.

It Was The Heart Of Any Scam Or Fiddle -- Keep The Punter Uncertain, Or, If He Is Certain, Make Him Certain Of The Wrong Thing.

Belief Was Never Mentioned At Home, But Right Actions Were Taught By Daily Example.

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.

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.

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.

The Trouble Was That He Was Talking In Philosophy But They Were Listening In Gibberish.

In My Early Teens, I Read Every Bound Volume Of The Magazine Punch. Every Writer Of Any Distinction In The English Language, And I Mean Including America And England, At Some Time Wrote For Punch. Jerome K. Jerome, Who Wrote Three Men In A Boat, I Loved. I Was Very Impressed When I Read A Piece By Mark Twain In Punch, And Realized That Despite The Fact That They Were On Different Continents, Jerome K. Jerome And Mark Twain Had The Same Kind Of Laconic, Laid-back, "the Human Race Is Damn Stupid, But Quite Interesting" Attitude. They Were Almost Talking With The Same Voice.

My Programming Language Was Solder.

Programming Languages

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

No Matter What She Did With Her Hair It Took About Three Minutes For It To Tangle Itself Up Again, Like A Garden Hosepipe In A Shed [which, No Matter How Carefully Coiled, Will Always Uncoil Overnight And Tie The Lawnmower To The Bicycles].

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.

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.

I Don't Think I've Drunk Enough Beer To Understand That.

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 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.

Evolution Was Far More Thrilling To Me Than The Biblical Account. Who Would Not Rather Be A Rising Ape Than A Falling Angel? To My Juvenile Eyes, Darwin Was Proved True Every Day. It Doesn't Take Much To Make Us Flip Back Into Monkeys Again.

You Can't Kill Me, I've Got A Magic... Aaaargh !

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

I Never Said Nothing..." "i Know You Never! I Could Hear You Not Saying Anything! You've Got The Loudest Silences I Ever Did Hear From Anyone Who Wasn't Dead!

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.

Next Comes The Realist Phase ("after All, From A Purely Geometrical Point Of View A Cat Is Only A Tube With A Door At The Top.")

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

The Brain Works Fast When It Thinks It’s About To Be Cut In Half.

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

‎no One Remembers The Singer. The Song Remains.

Nanny's Philosophy Of Life Was To Do What Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time, And Do It As Hard As Possible. It Had Never Let Her Down.

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.

The Diplomatic Thing For Me To Say Is That If Publishers Are Dressing Up Other Authors As Terry Pratchett Clones Then They Are Doing A Disservice To Those Authors. If They Didn't Dress Them As Clones But Did Something Different, Then Those Authors Could Be Pioneering In A Different Sense.

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.

A Witch Who Is Bored Might Do Anything. People Said Things Like 'we Had To Make Our Own Amusements In Those Days' As If This Signified Some Kind Of Moral Worth, And Perhaps It Did, But The Last Thing You Wanted A Witch To Do Was Get Bored And Start Making Her Own Amusements, Because Witches Sometimes Had Famously Erratic Ideas About What Was Amusing.

Where's The Pleasure In Bein' The Winner If The Loser Ain't Alive To Know They've Lost?

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.

Time Is A Drug. Too Much Of It Kills You.

Fresh Wounds," Said Angua. "but One Of Them Did Shoot One Of The Other In The Leg By Accident." "i Think You'd Better Put In Your Report As -self Inflicted- Wounds While Resisting Arrest," Said Vimes.

The Three Rules Of The Librarians Of Time And Space Are: 1) Silence; 2) Books Must Be Returned By No Later Than The Date Shown; And 3) Do Not Interfere With The Nature Of Causality.

Yes, Sir, Thank You, Sir, And I Wouldn’t Trust Me One Little Inch, Sir. I Knows A Bad One When I Sees Them. I Have A Mirror.

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.

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.

Jesus Won't Cut You Off Before You're Through With Him You Won't Never Get A Crossed Line, And When Your Bill Comes It'll All Be Properly Itemised He's The Telephone Repairman On The Switchboard Of My Life. The Phone Line To The Saviour's Always Free Of Interference He's In At Any Hour, Day Or Night And When You Call J-e-s-u-s You Always Call Toll-free He's The Telephone Repairman On The Switchboard Of My Life.

Science Fiction Is Fantasy With Bolts Painted On Outside.

Science Fiction

You Had To Hand It To The Patrician, He Admitted Grudgingly. If You Didn't, He Sent Men To Come And Take It Away.

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

My Name Is Unpronounceable In Your Tongue, Woman,” It Said. “i’ll Be The Judge Of That,” Warned Granny, And Added, “don’t Call Me Woman.” “very Well. My Name Is Wxrthltl-jwlpklz,” Said The Demon Smugly.

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 Sad, Like Those Businessmen Who Came To Work In Serious Clothes But Wore Colorful Ties In A Mad, Desperate Attempt To Show There Was A Free Spirit In There Somewhere.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Look At Yourself

It's Always Surprising To Be Reminded That While You're Watching And Thinking About People, All Knowing And Superior, They're Watching And Thinking About You, Right Back At You.

Thinking About You

The Captain Of The Watch Says If You're Still In The City By Sunrise He Will Personally Have You Buried Alive.

What's Money Interested In? More Money.

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?

Sometimes The Truth Is Arrived At By Adding All The Little Lies Together And Deducting Them From The Totality Of What Is Known.

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?

It's Not Lying When You Do It To Officers!

His Movements Could Be Called Cat-like, Except That He Did Not Stop To Spray Urine Up Against Things.

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.

Or -- And This She Knew Was A Far More Accurate Way Of Looking At It -- The Book Was True And Reality Was Lying.

Light Thinks It Travels Faster Than Anything But It Is Wrong. No Matter How Fast Light Travels, It Finds The Darkness Has Always Got There First, And Is Waiting For It.

He'd Been Wrong, There Was A Light At The End Of The Tunnel, And It Was A Flamethrower.

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.

He Says Gods Like To See An Atheist Around. Gives Them Something To Aim At.

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.

Every Procedure For Getting A Cat To Take A Pill Works Fine - Once. Like The Borg, They Learn.

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.

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?

Ninety Percent Of Most Magic Merely Consists Of Knowing One Extra Fact.

And At The Other End Of The Bar The World Is Full Of The Other Type Of Person, Who Has A Broken Glass, Or A Glass That Has Been Carelessly Knocked Over (usually By One Of The People Calling For A Larger Glass) Or Who Had No Glass At All, Because He Was At The Back Of The Crowd And Had Failed To Catch The Barman's Eye.

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.

Nanny Ogg Never Did Any Housework Herself, But She Was The Cause Of Housework In Other People.

Lords And Ladies

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.

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.

Books Must Be Treated With Respect, We Feel That In Our Bones, Because Words Have Power. Bring Enough Words Together They Can Bend Space And Time.

Sham Harga Had Run A Successful Eatery For Many Years By Always Smiling, Never Extending Credit, And Realizing That Most Of His Customers Wanted Meals Properly Balanced Between The Four Food Groups: Sugar, Starch, Grease, And Burnt Crunchy Bits.

The Sun Rose Slowly, As If It Wasn't Sure It Was Worth All The Effort.

Picture A Tall, Dark Figure, Surrounded By Cornfields... No, You Can't Ride A Cat. Who Ever Heard Of The Death Of Rats Riding A Cat? The Death Of Rats Would Ride Some Kind Of Dog. Picture More Fields, A Great Horizon-spanning Network Of Fields, Rolling In Gentle Waves... Don't Ask Me I Don't Know. Some Kind Of Terrier, Maybe. ...fields Of Corn, Alive, Whispering In The Breeze... Right, And The Death Of Fleas Can Ride It Too. That Way You Kill Two Birds With One Stone. ...awaiting The Clockwork Of The Seasons. Metaphorically.

There Is Always Time For Another Last Minute

I Believe It Should Be Possible For Someone Stricken With A Serious And Ultimately Fatal Illness To Choose To Die Peacefully With Medical Help, Rather Than Suffer.

Well, Basically There Are Two Sorts Of Opera," Said Nanny, Who Also Had The True Witch's Ability To Be Confidently Expert On The Basis Of No Experience Whatsoever. "there's Your Heavy Opera, Where Basically People Sing Foreign And It Goes Like "oh Oh Oh, I Am Dyin', Oh I Am Dyin', Oh Oh Oh, That's What I'm Doin'", And There's Your Light Opera, Where They Sing In Foreign And It Basically Goes "beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I Like To Drink Lots Of Beer!", Although Sometimes They Drink Champagne Instead. That's Basically All Of Opera, Reely.

There Have Been Better Attempts At Marching, And They Have Been Made By Penguins.

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.

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.

And Sin, Young Man, Is When You Treat People Like Things.

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

Presence Of Mind

Bringing About Armageddon Can Be Dangerous. Do Not Attempt It In Your Own Home.

We Live In A Science Fiction Universe. We Have Done For A Long Time.

A Thaum Is The Basic Unit Of Magical Strength. It Has Been Universally Established As The Amount Of Magic Needed To Create One Small White Pigeon Or Three Normal-sized Billiard Balls.

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 Is Always A Choice." "you Mean I Could Choose Certain Death?" "a Choice Nevertheless, Or Perhaps An Alternative. You See I Believe In Freedom. Not Many People Do, Although They Will Of Course Protest Otherwise. 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.

The Theater Troubled Her. It Had A Magic Of Its Own, One That Didn’t Belong To Her, One That Wasn’t In Her Control. It Changed The World, And Said Things Were Otherwise Than They Were. And It Was Worse Than That. It Was Magic That Didn’t Belong To Magical People. It Was Commanded By Ordinary People, Who Didn’t Know The Rules. They Altered The World Because It Sounded Better.

When I Was A Kid, I Read The Science-fiction Shelves, And I Read The Fantasy Shelves.

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.

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

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

Susan Says, Don't Get Afraid, Get Angry.

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

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

Someone Got Killed Up Here.... It Was Outside. A Tall Man. He Had One Leg Longer’n The Other. And A Beard. He Was Probably A Hunter." "how’d You Know All That?" "i Just Trod On ‘im.

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

She Was Beautiful, But She Was Beautiful In The Way A Forest Fire Was Beautiful: Something To Be Admired From A Distance, Not Up Close.

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!

...william Wondered Why He Always Disliked People Who Said 'no Offense Meant.' Maybe It Was Because They Found It Easier To To Say 'no Offense Meant' Than Actually To Refrain From Giving Offense.

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