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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.

-Terry Pratchett

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I Really Wish That

Terry Pratchett

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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.

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

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 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.

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.

Everyone's Heard Of Erwin Schrodinger's Famous Thought Experiment. You Put A Cat In A Box With A Bottle Of Poison, Which Many People Would Suggest Is About As Far As You Need To Go.

The Girls Were Expected To Grow Up To Be Somebody's Wife. They Were Also Expected To Read And Write, Those Being Considered Soft Indoor Jobs That Were Too Fiddly For The Boys.

I Was Merely Endeavoring To Indicate That If We Do Not Grab Events By The Collar They Will Have Us By The Throat. -lord Vetinari

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.

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

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.

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

What's The Orbital Velocity Of The Moon?

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

The Intelligence Of The Creature Known As A Crowd, Is The Square Root Of The Number Of People In It.

Taxation, Gentlemen, Is Very Much Like Dairy Farming. The Task Is To Extract The Maximum Amount Of Milk With The Minimum Amount Of Moo.

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.

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

Ridcully Was To Management What King Herod Was To The Bethlehem Playgroup Association.

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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.

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No It's Not!" Said Constable Visit. "atheism Is A Denial Of A God." "therefore It Is A Religious Position," Said Dorfl. "indeed, A True Atheist Thinks Of The Gods Constantly, Albeit In Terms Of Denial. Therefore, Atheism Is A Form Of Belief. If The Atheist Truly Did Not Believe, He Or She Would Not Bother To Deny.

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The Point Of Page One Is To Make People Turn To Page Two And If At The End Of The Book People Think That The Book Was Good Value For Money, You Have Achieved Something, Because If You Haven't Achieved Those Things You're Not Going To Achieve The Other Thing.

Let's See, Now... In Hogfather There Are A Number Of Stabbings, Someone's Killed By A Man Made Of Knives, Someone's Killed By The Dark, And Someone Just Been Killed By A Wardrobe. It's A Book About The Magic Of Childhood. You Can Tell.

He Stared At His Feet. “i’m Still Very Ignorant,” He Said, “but At Least I’m Ignorant About Really Important Things.

In The Beginning There Was Nothing, Which Exploded.

Lords And Ladies

I'm Trying To Remember How You Tell The Time By Looking At The Sun." -"i Should Leave It For A While, It's Too Bright To See The Numbers At The Moment.

He Had About The Same Life Expectancy As A Three Legged Hedgehog On A Six Lane Motorway.

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

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.

I’m Not Superstitious. I’m A Witch. Witches Aren’t Superstitious. We Are What People Are Superstitious Of.

The Kappamaki, A Whaling Research Ship, Was Currently Researching The Question: How Many Whales Can You Catch In One Week?

Balance. It Was All About Balance. That Had Been One Of The First Things That She Had Learned: The Centre Of The Seesaw Has Neither Up Nor Down, But Upness And Downness Flow Through It While It Remains Unmoved. You Had To Be The Centre Of The Seesaw So The Pain Flowed Through You, Not Into You. It Was Very Hard. But She Could Do It!

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

Classically, Very Few People Have Considered That Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness. A Rank Loincloth And Hair In An Advanced State Of Matted Entanglement Have Generally Been The Badges Of Office Of Prophets Whose Injunction To Disdain Earthly Things Starts With Soap.

We've Strayed Into A Zone With A High Magical Index,' He Said. 'don't Ask Me How. Once Upon A Time A Really Powerful Magic Field Must Have Been Generated Here, And We're Feeling The After-effects.' Precisely,' Said A Passing Bush.

Once Upon A Time

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.

He’sh Mad?’ ‘sort Of Mad. But Mad With Lots Of Money.’ ‘ah, Then He Can’t Be Mad. I’ve Been Around; If A Man Hash Lotsh Of Money He’sh Just Ecshentric.

He Felt That The Darkness Was Full Of Unimaginable Horrors - And The Trouble With Unimaginable Horrors Was That They Were Only Too Easy To Imagine.

I Hate Cats." Death's Face Became A Little Stiffer, If That Were Possible. The Blue Glow In His Eye Sockets Flickered Red For An Instant. "i See," He Said. The Tone Suggested That Death Was Too Good For Cat Haters.

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

The Stories Never Said Why She Was Wicked. It Was Enough To Be An Old Woman, Enough To Be All Alone, Enough To Look Strange Because You Have No Teeth. It Was Enough To Be Called A Witch. If It Came To That, The Book Never Gave You The Evidence Of Anything. It Talked About "a Handsome Prince"... Was He Really, Or Was It Just Because He Was A Prince That People Called Handsome? As For "a Girl Who Was As Beautiful As The Day Was Long"... Well, Which Day? In Midwinter It Hardly Ever Got Light! The Stories Don't Want You To Think, They Just Wanted You To Believe What You Were Told.

Your Average Witch Is Not, By Nature, A Social Animal.... The Natural Size Of A Coven Is One. Witches Only Get Together When They Can't Avoid It.

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].

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.

I Intend, Before The Endgame Looms, To Die Sitting In A Chair In My Own Garden With A Glass Of Brandy In My Hand And Thomas Tallis On The Ipod. Oh, And Since This Is England, I Had Better Add, "if Wet, In The Library." Who Could Say That This Is Bad?

Child. That Was A Terrible Thing To Say To Anyone Who Was Almost Thirteen.

I Became A Journalist At 17. A Few Hours Later, I Saw My First Dead Body, Which Was Somewhat... Colourful. That's When I Learned You Can Go On Throwing Up After You Run Out Of Things To Throw Up.

The Key To Winning, As Always, Was Looking As If You Had Every Right, Nay, Duty To Be Where You Were. It Helped If You Could Also Suggest In Every Line Of Your Body That No One Else Had Any Rights To Be Doing Anything, Anywhere, Whatsoever.

Everything Is A Test.

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

Ingenuity And Incongruity Always Cheer Me Up.

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