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

-Terry Pratchett

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In The Ramtops Village

Terry Pratchett

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

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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.

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

A European Says: I Can't Understand This, What's Wrong With Me? An American Says: I Can't Understand This, What's Wrong With Him? I Make No Suggestion That One Side Or Other Is Right, But Observation Over Many Years Leads Me To Believe It Is True.

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.

In The End The Problem Isn't That You Have The Wrong Sort Of Government For The People, But That You Have The Wrong Sort Of People.

This Book Was Written Using 100% Recycled Words.

For The First Time In Her Life Granny Wondered Whether There Might Be Something Important In All These Books People Were Setting Store By These Days, Although She Was Opposed To Books On Strict Moral Grounds, Since She Had Heard That Many Of Them Were Written By Dead People And Therefore It Stood To Reason Reading Them Would Be As Bad As Necromancy. Among The Many Things In The Infinitely Varied Universe With Which Granny Did Not Hold Was Talking To Dead People, Who By All Accounts Had Enough Troubles Of Their Own.

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

The Battle Of Koom Valley Is The Only One Known To History Where Both Sides Ambushed Each Other.

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.

When All Else Failed, She Tried Being Reasonable.

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.

As Far As I'm Concerned, I'm A Writer Who's Writing Books, And Therefore, I Don't Want To Die. You'd Miss The End Of The Book, Wouldn't You? You Can't Die With An Unfinished Book.

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.

If You Try To To Take My Bananas From Me, I Will Reclaim Them From Your Cold Dead Hands.

It Was The Living Who Ignored The Strange And Wonderful, Because Life Was Too Full Of The Boring And Mundane.

There Are, It Has Been Said, Two Types Of People In The World. There Are Those Who, When Presented With A Glass That Is Exactly Half Full, Say: This Glass Is Half Full. And Then There Are Those Who Say: This Glass Is Half Empty. The World Belongs, However, To Those Who Can Look At The Glass And Say: What's Up With This Glass? Excuse Me? Excuse Me? This Is My Glass? I Don't Think So. My Glass Was Full! And It Was A Bigger Glass! Who's Been Pinching My Beer?

Adventure! People Talked About The Idea As If It Were Something Worthwhile, Rather Than A Mess Of Bad Food, No Sleep And Strange People Inexplicably Trying To Stick Pointed Objects In Bits Of You.

Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot.

- Don’t Worry, It Won’t Be Forever. - Good. - It May Seem Like Forever.

I Am Death, Not Taxes. I Turn Up Only Once.

Raising The Flag And Singing The Anthem Are, While Somewhat Suspicious, Not In Themselves Acts Of Treason.

Another Priest Said,"is It True You've Said You'll Believe In Any God Whose Existence Can Be Proved By Logical Debate?""yes."vimes Had A Feeling About The Immediate Future And Took A Few Steps Away From Dorfl."but The Gods Plainly Do Exist," Said A Priest."it Is Not Evident."a Bolt Of Lightning Lanced Down Through The Clouds And Hit Dorfl's Helmet. There Was A Sheet Of Flame And Then A Trickling Noise. Dorfl's Molten Armour Formed Puddles Around His White-hot Feet."i Don't Call That Much Of An Argument," Said Dorfl Calmly, From Somewhere In The Clouds Of Smoke.

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.

It's Daft, Locking Us Up," Said Nanny. "i'd Have Had Us Killed." "that's Because You're Basically Good," Said Magrat. "the Good Are Innocent And Create Justice. The Bad Are Guilty, Which Is Why They Invent Mercy.

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

It Had A Very Long Pendulum, And The Pendulum Swung With A Slow Tick-tock That Set His Teeth On Edge, Because It Was The The Kind Of Delibrate, Annoying Ticking That Wanted To Make It Abundantly Clear That Every Tick And Every Tock Was Stripping Another Second Off Your Life.

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Any True Wizard, Faced With A Sign Like 'do Not Open This Door. Really. We Mean It. We're Not Kidding. Opening This Door Will Mean The End Of The Universe,' Would Automatically Open The Door In Order To See What All The Fuss Is About. This Made Signs Rather A Waste Of Time, But At Least It Meant That When You Handed What Was Left Of The Wizard To His Grieving Relatives You Could Say, As They Grasped The Jar, 'we Told Him Not To."

God Moves In Extremely Mysterious, Not To Say, Circuitous Ways. God Does Not Play Dice With The Universe; He Plays An Ineffable Game Of His Own Devising, Which Might Be Compared, From The Perspective Of Any Of The Other Players, Ie., Everybody, To Being Involved In An Obscure And Complex Version Of Poker In A Pitch-dark Room, With Blank Cards, For Infinite Stakes, With A Dealer Who Won't Tell You The Rules, And Who Smiles All The Time.

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.

"and What Would Humans Be Without Love?" Rare, Said Death.

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As They Say In Discworld, We Are Trying To Unravel The Mighty Infinite Using A Language Which Was Designed To Tell One Another Where The Fresh Fruit Was.

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.

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

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

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Well, Yes, But It's Not About The Football." "you're Saying That Football Is Not About Football?" "it's The Sharing," She Said. "it's Being Part Of The Crowd. It's Chanting Together. It's All Of It. The Whole Thing.

And All The Stories Had, Somewhere, The Witch. The Wicked Old Witch. And Tiffany Had Thought: Where's The Evidence?

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The Power Of Prayer And Faith Can Heal And Bring Happiness. The Real Tragedy Is That The People That Are Helped By This Don't Realize That This Power Is Really Coming From Within.

At Least I Know I'm Bewildered About The Really Fundamental And Important Facts Of The Universe.

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You Can't Remember The Plot Of The Dr Who Movie Because It Didn't Have One, Just A Lot Of Plot Holes Strung Together. It Did Have A Lot Of Flashing Lights, Though.

Hello, Inner Child, I'm The Inner Babysitter!

A True Beanie Should Have A Propellor On The Top.

People Were Stupid, Sometimes. They Thought The Library Was A Dangerous Place Because Of All The Magical Books, Which Was True Enough, But What Made It Really One Of The Most Dangerous Places There Could Ever Be Was The Simple Fact That It Was A Library.

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

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.

A Bad Hunter Chases. A Good Hunter Waits.

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.

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.

What's Money Interested In? More Money.

Oh, Come On. Revelation Was A Mushroom Dream That Belonged In The Apocrypha. The New Testament Is Basically About What Happened When God Got Religion.

But That Was Just It - Hate Was Exactly The Right Word. Hate Is A Force Of Attraction. Hate Is Just Love With Its Back Turned.

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Good And Bad Is Tricky," She Said. "i Ain't Too Certain About Where People Stand. P'raps What Matters Is Which Way You Face." (pp. 348-349)

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.

A Hardback's Harder At Christmas Time Because That's A Good Hardback Buying Time.

Humans Need Fantasy To Be Human. To Be The Place Where The Falling Angel Meets The Rising Ape.

It Was So Much Easier To Blame It On Them. It Was Bleakly Depressing To Think That They Were Us. If It Was Them, Then Nothing Was Anyone's Fault. If It Was Us, What Did That Make Me? After All, I'm One Of Us. I Must Be. I've Certainly Never Thought Of Myself As One Of Them. No One Ever Thinks Of Themselves As One Of Them. We're Always One Of Us. It's Them That Do The Bad Things.

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

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.

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

I Mistrust The Term Graphic Novel Because It Sounds Like A Good Thing To Put On A Tee-shirt. That's Why The French Like Them.

Albert Grunted. "do You Know What Happens To Lads Who Ask Too Many Questions?" Mort Thought For A Moment. "no," He Said Eventually, "what?" There Was Silence. Then Albert Straightened Up And Said, "damned If I Know. Probably They Get Answers, And Serve 'em Right.

...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.

People Look Down On Stuff Like Geography And Meteorology, And Not Only Because They're Standing On One And Being Soaked By The Other. They Don't Look Quite Like Real Science. But Geography Is Only Physics Slowed Down And With A Few Trees Stuck On It, And Meteorology Is Full Of Excitingly Fashionable Chaos And Complexity. And Summer Isn't A Time. It's A Place As Well. Summer Is A Moving Creature And Likes To Go South For The Winter.

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.

Ankh-morpork Had Dallied With Many Forms Of Government And Had Ended Up With That Form Of Democracy Known As One Man, One Vote. The Patrician Was The Man; He Had The Vote.

I Don't Hold With Paddlin' With The Occult," Said Granny Firmly. "once You Start Paddlin' With The Occult You Start Believing In Spirits, And When You Start Believing In Spirits You Start Believing In Demons, And Then Before You Know Where You Are You're Believing In Gods. And Then You're In Trouble." "but All Them Things Exist," Said Nanny Ogg. "that's No Call To Go Around Believing In Them. It Only Encourages 'em.

The Characters Are The Plot. What They Do And Say And The Things That Happen To Them Are, In A Sense, What The Plot Is. You Can't Take Character And Plot Apart From Each Other, Really.

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

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

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

Most Of My Schooldays Were The Worst Day Of My Life.

History Isn't Like That. History Unravels Gently, Like An Old Sweater. It Has Been Patched And Darned Many Times, Reknitted To Suit Different People, Shoved In A Box Under The Sink Of Censorship To Be Cut Up For The Dusters Of Propaganda, Yet It Always - Eventually - Manages To Spring Back Into Its Old Familar Shape. History Has A Habit Of Changing The People Who Think They Are Changing It. History Always Has A Few Tricks Up Its Frayed Sleeve. It's Been Around A Long Time.

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.

Neither Of My Parents Went To Church, But They Did Everything That You Needed To Do To Be Christian. That's Something A Quaker Would Call An Intimation Of The Divine.

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.

Escapism Isn't Good Or Bad In Itself. What Is Important Is What You Are Escaping From And Where You Are Escaping To.

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

I Decided At School That The Only Sensible Way To Make A Living By Arranging Words In A Pleasing Order Was By Working On Newspapers, Because You Got Paid At The End Of The Week Or The End Of The Month.

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

Building A Temple Didn't Mean You Believed In Gods, It Just Meant You Believed In Architecture.

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

Young Man, The Games We Play Are Lessons We Learn. The Assumptions We Make, Things We Ignore, And Things We Change Make Us What We Become.

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

While A Book Has Got To Be Worthwhile From The Point Of View Of The Reader It's Got To Be Worthwhile From The Point Of View Of The Writer As Well.

I Can See We're Going To Get Along Like A House On Fire," Said Miss Tick. "there May Be No Survivors.

Often I Sort Of Work Up And Down The Manuscript. I Sometimes Used To Go Ahead Of Myself To See What Was Going To Happen Next, To Make Certain It Fits What Was Going To Be Happening Soon.

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?

I Don't Think A Baker Reads An Awful Lot About Bread.

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

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

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Sometimes You Can Think That 'i've Had Enough Of Wizards!' And Sometimes Fantasy Is Not Just About Wizards.

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.

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The Pamphlet Was Very Patriotic. That Is, It Talked About Killing Foreigners.

Rincewind Had Always Been Happy To Think Of Himself As A Racist. The One Hundred Meters, The Mile, The Marathon -- He'd Run Them All.

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You Are Very Clever," Said The Old Man Shyly. "i Would Like To Eat Your Brains, One Day.

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

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

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

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

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London Was Not Designed For Cars. Come To That, It Wasn't Designed For People. It Just Sort Of Happened. This Created Problems, And The Solutions That Were Implemented Became The Next Problems, Five Or Ten Or A Hundred Years Down The Line.

If You Were Going To Be Successful In The World Of Crime, You Needed A Reputation For Honesty.

I Wonder If It's Like This For Mountain Climbers, He Thought. You Climb Bigger And Bigger Mountains And You Know That One Day One Of Them Is Going To Be Just That Bit Too Steep. But You Go On Doing It, Because It’s So-o Good When You Breathe The Air Up There. And You Know You'll Die Falling.

The Point Is That If A Book That Had Been Published Three Years Ago Started To Sell Twice As Many All Of A Sudden It Probably Wouldn't Even Get Noticed. People Wouldn't Be Tracking It. The System Has Cleaned Up Its Act An Awful Lot But The Best-seller List System Is Not An Entirely Foolproof Thing.

Education Had Been Easy. Learning Things Had Been Harder.

People Don't Like To Say Fantasy They Say Magic Realism Which Means Fantasy Written By Somebody I Went To University With.

Death: Human Beings Make Life So Interesting. Do You Know, That In A Universe So Full Of Wonders, They Have Managed To Invent Boredom.

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 Important Thing About Having Lots Of Things To Remember Is That You’ve Got To Go Somewhere Afterwards Where You Can Remember Them, You See? You’ve Got To Stop. You Haven’t Really Been Anywhere Until You’ve Got Back Home.

If You Really Want To Upset A Witch, Do Her A Favor Which She Has No Means Of Repaying. The Unfulfilled Obligation Will Nag At Her Like A Hangnail.

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

Probably The Last Sound Heard Before The Universe Folded Up Like A Paper Hat Would Be Someone Saying, "what Happens If I Do This?"

The Second Mouse Gets The Cheese!

Sometimes It Is Better To Light A Flamethrower Than Curse The Darkness.

He Talks Pretty Big For A Gutter Wizard," He Muttered. "you Don't Understand At All," Said The Wizard Wearily. "i'm So Scared Of You My Spine Has Turned To Jelly, It's Just That I'm Suffering From An Overdose Of Terror Right Now. I Mean, When I've Got Over That Then I'll Have Time To Be Decently Frightened Of You.

Gods Don't Like People Not Doing Much Work. People Who Aren't Busy All The Time Might Start To Think.

The Phrase "may You Live In Interesting Times" Is The Lowest In A Trilogy Of Chinese Curses That Continue "may You Come To The Attention Of Those In Authority" And Finish With "may The Gods Give You Everything You Ask For." I Have No Idea About Its Authenticity.

Humans Had Built A World Inside The World, Which Reflected It In Pretty Much The Same Way As A Drop Of Water Reflected The Landscape. And Yet ... And Yet ... Inside This Little World They Had Taken Pains To Put All The Things You Might Think They Would Want To Escape From - Hatred, Fear, Tyranny, And So Forth. Death Was Intrigued. They Thought They Wanted To Be Taken Out Of Themselves, And Every Art Humans Dreamt Up Took Them Further In. He Was Fascinated.

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...

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.

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.’

What Your Soldier Wants - Really, Really Wants - Is No-one Shooting Back At Him.

What Do You Call Those Things At The Bottom Of Rivers? Frogs? Stones? Unsuccessful Gangsters?

The Hippo Of Recollection Stirred In The Muddy Waters Of The Mind.

Knowledge Is Dangerous, Which Is Why Governments Often Clamp Down On People Who Can Think Thoughts Above A Certain Caliber.

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

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

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

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.

Just Because Someone's A Member Of An Ethnic Minority Doesn't Mean They're Not A Nasty Small-minded Little Jerk [...]

She'd Stopped Reading The Kind Of Women's Magazine That Talked About Romance And Knitting And Started Reading The Kind Of Women's Magazine That Talked About Orgasms, But Apart From Making A Mental Note To Have One If Ever The Occasion Presented Itsel

It's Never A Good Idea To Ask A Man On A Tight-rope How He Keeps His Balance: A) He Would Probably Fall Off And B) He Probably Doesn't Know What The Muscles Are Called In Any Case.

I Don't Think About The End Game. I've Got Lots To Occupy My Mind. It's The Rage That Keeps Me Going.

Either All Days Are Holy Or None Are.

Tourist, Rincewind Decided, Meant ‘idiot.

It Looked The Sort Of Book Described In Library Catalogues As 'slightly Foxed,' Although It Would Be More Honest To Admit That It Looked As Though It Had Beed Badgered, Wolved And Possibly Beared As Well.

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.

I Saved A Man's Life Once," Said Granny. "special Medicine, Twice A Day. Boiled Water With A Bit Of Berry Juice In It. Told Him I'd Bought It From The Dwarves. That's The Biggest Part Of Doct'rin, Really. Most People'll Get Over Most Things If They Put Their Minds To It, You Just Have To Give Them An Interest.

Logic Is A Wonderful Thing But Doesn't Always Beat Actual Thought.

The Universe Was Bad Enough Without People Poking It.

Any Fool Could Be A Witch With A Runic Knife, But It Took Skill To Be One With An Apple Corer.

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

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

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.

Freedom Without Limits Is Just A Word.

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

What Would Have Happened If You Hadn't Saved Him? "yes! The Sun Would Have Risen Just The Same, Yes?" No "oh, Come On. You Can't Expect Me To Believe That. It's An Astronomical Fact." The Sun Would Not Have Risen. ... "really? Then What Would Have Happened, Pray?" A Mere Ball Of Flaming Gas Would Have Illuminated The World.

Ye Ken, We've Been Robbin' And Running Aroound On All Kinds O' Worlds For A Lang Time, And I'll Tell Ye This: The Universe Is A Lot More Comp-li-cated Than It Looks From The Ooutside.

One Person Is Nothing. Two People Are A Nation.

Nigeria Independence

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.

Some Of Them Wanted To Sell Me Snake Oil And I'm Not Necessarily Going To Dismiss All Of These, As I Have Never Found A Rusty Snake.

And That's When I First Learned About Evil. It Is Built In To The Very Nature Of The Universe. Every World Spins In Pain. If There Is Any Kind Of Supreme Being, I Told Myself, It Is Up To All Of Us To Become His Moral Superior.

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.

You Can't Second-guess Ineffability, I Always Say.

Omens Are Everywhere In This World You Just Have To Find The One That Fits.

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

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

I'm Not Really Good At Fun-to-know, Human Interest Stuff. We're Not 'celebrities', Whose Life Itself Is A Performance. Good Or Bad Or Ugly, We Are Our Words. They're What People Meet.

Thinking. This Book Contains Some. Whether You Try It At Home Is Up To You.

His Progress Through Life Was Hampered By His Tremendous Sense Of His Own Ignorance, A Disability Which Affects All Too Few.

Oh, Where Are My Manners? Do Sit Down. Pull Up A Small Child.

I [...] Vowed That Rather Than Let Alzheimer's Take Me, I Would Take It. I Would Live My Life As Ever To The Full And Die, before The Disease Mounted Its Last attack, In My Own Home, In A Chair On The Lawn, With A Brandy In My Hand To Wash Down Whatever Modern version Of The "brompton Cocktail" Some helpful Medic Could Supply. And With thomas Tallis On My Ipod, I Would Shake Hands With Death.

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.

Most Witches Don’t Believe In Gods. They Know That The Gods Exist, Of Course. They Even Deal With Them Occasionally. But They Don’t Believe In Them. They Know Them Too Well. It Would Be Like Believing In The Postman.

Vimes Stalked Gloomily Through The Crowded Streets, Feeling Like The Only Pickled Onion In A Fruit Salad.

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.

At Least Nine-tenths Of All The Original Reality Ever Created Lies Outside The Multiverse, And Since The Multiverse By Definition Includes Absolutely Everything That Is Anything, This Puts A Bit Of A Strain On Things. Outside The Boundaries Of The Universe Lie The Raw Realities, The Could-have-beens, The Might-bes, The Never-weres, The Wild Ideas, All Being Created And Uncreated Chaotically Like Elements In Fermenting Supernovas. Just Occasionally Where The Walls Of The Worlds Have Worn A Bit Thin, They Can Leak In.

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

Don't Stick Your Nose Where Someone Can Pull It Off And Eat It.

Magic Is Just A Way Of Saying 'i Don't Know.'

Just Call In At The Torturer On Your Way Out. See When He Can Fit You In.

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.

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