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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.

-Terry Pratchett

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I Think What Drove

Terry Pratchett

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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.

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Bill Door Was Impressed. Miss Flitworth Could Actually Give The Word "revenue", Which Had Two Vowels And One Diphthong, All The Peremptoriness Of The Word "scum.

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.

He’s Bound To Have Done Something,” Nobby Repeated. In This He Was Echoing The Patrician’s View Of Crime And Punishment. If There Was A Crime, There Should Be Punishment. If The Specific Criminal Should Be Involved In The Punishment Process Then This Was A Happy Accident, But If Not Then Any Criminal Would Do, And Since Everyone Was Undoubtedly Guilty Of Something, The Net Result Was That, In General Terms, Justice Was Done.

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

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?'

Nanny Ogg Knew How To Start Spelling 'banana', But Didn't Know How You Stopped.

I Don't Regret It, You Know. I Would Do It All Again. Children Are Our Hope For The Future." There Is No Hope For The Future, Said Death. "what Does It Contain, Then?" Me.

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What's The Orbital Velocity Of The Moon?

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.

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.

Perhaps The Magic Would Last, Perhaps It Wouldn't. But Then Again, What Does?

She Folded Her Arms And Then Shouted, "right You Thieving Scunners! How Dare You Steal Miss Treason's Funeral Meats!" "oh, Waily, Waily, It's The Foldin' O' The Arms, The Foooldin' O' The Aaaarmss!" Cried Daft Wullie, Dropping To The Ground And Trying To Cover Himself With Leaves. Around Him Feegles Started To Wail And Cower And Big Yan Began To Bang His Head On The Rear Wall Of The Dairy.

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.

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

This Time It Had Been Magic. And It Didn't Stop Being Magic Just Because You Found Out How It Was Done.

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.

There's No Such Thing As Writer's Block. That Was Invented By People In California Who Couldn't Write.

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Cake Is Not The Issue Here.

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I Do Note With Interest That Old Women In My Books Become Young Women On The Covers... This Is Discrimination Against The Chronologically Gifted.

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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.

Correct Observation Followed By Meticulous Deduction And The Precise Visualization Of Goals Is Vital To The Success Of Any Enterprise.

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So Much Universe, And So Little Time.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

In Order To Have A Change Of Fortune At The Last Minute, You Have To Take Your Fortune To The Last Minute.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Education Had Been Easy. Learning Things Had Been Harder.

I Just Rearrange Words Into A Pleasing Order For Money.

It Was Sci-fi And Fantasy That Got Me Reading, And Sci-fi Writers In Particular Have Pack Rat Minds. They Introduce All Sorts Of Interesting Themes And Ideas Into Their Books, And So For Me It Was A Short Leap To Go From The Fantasy And Sci-fi Genres To Folklore, Mythology, Ancient History And Philosophy. I Did Not Read Philosophy Because I Set Out To Become A Philosopher; I Read It Because It Looked Interesting.

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

Fantasy Is Escapism, But Wait... Why Is This Wrong? What Are You Escaping From, And Where Are You Escaping To? Is The Story Opening Windows Or Slamming Doors? The British Author G.k. Chesterton Summarized The Role Of Fantasy Very Well. He Said Its Purpose Was To Take The Everyday, Commonplace World And Lift It Up And Turn It Around And Show It To Us From A Different Perspective, So That Once Again We See It For The First Time And Realize How Marvelous It Is. Fantasy - The Ability To Envisage The World In Many Different Ways - Is One Of The Skills That Make Us Human.

Where's My Cow? Are You My Cow?

Sergeant Colon Of The Ankh-morpork City Guard Was On Duty. He Was Guarding The Brass Bridge, The Main Link Between Ankh And Morpork. From Theft. When It Came To Crime Prevention, Sergeant Colon Found It Safest To Think Big.

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.

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

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

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

Any Wizard Bright Enough To Survive For Five Minutes Was Also Bright Enough To Realize That If There Was Any Power In Demonology, Then It Lay With The Demons. Using It For Your Own Purposes Would Be Like Trying To Beat Mice To Death With A Rattlesnake.

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