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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.

-Terry Pratchett

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It's Always Surprising To

Terry Pratchett

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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.

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Thinking About You

More From Terry Pratchett

You Have So Many Sources To Draw On When You're A Fantasy Writer.

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

Nothing But Dust And Fundamentalists.

Magic Never Dies. It Merely Fades Away.

Ye Know Full Well That The Meaning Of Life Is To Find Your Gift. To Find Your Gift Is Happiness. Never Tae Find It Is Misery.

Meaning Of Life

Granny Weatherwax Was Often Angry. She Considered It One Of Her Strong Points. Genuine Anger Was One Of The World's Greatest Creative Forces. But You Had To Learn How To Control It. That Didn't Mean You Let It Trickle Away. It Meant You Dammed It, Carefully, Let It Develop A Working Head, Let It Drown Whole Valleys Of The Mind And Then, Just When The Whole Structure Was About To Collapse, Opened A Tiny Pipeline At The Base And Let The Iron-hard Stream Of Wrath Power The Turbines Of Revenge.

It Is Often Said That Before You Die Your Life Passes Before Your Eyes. It Is In Fact True. It's Called Living.

All Holy Piety In Public, And All Peeled Grapes And Self-indulgence In Private.

As A Species, We Are Forever Sticking Our Finger Into The Electric Socket Of The Universe To See What Will Happen Next.

I'm Trying To Have A Moment O' Existential Dreed Here, Right? Crivens, It's A Puir Lookout If A Man Canna Feel The Chilly Winds O' Fate Lashing Aroound His Netheres Wi'out Folks Telling Him He's Deid, Eh?

I Dare Say That Quite A Few People Have Contemplated Death For Reasons That Much Later Seemed To Them To Be Quite Minor.

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.

The Reaper Does Not Listen To The Harvest.

I Like The Idea Of Democracy. You Have To Have Someone Everyone Distrusts.

Gods Play Games With The Fates Of Men. But First They Have To Get All The Pieces On The Board And Look All Over The Place For The Dice.

Everything Is A Test.

A Good Plan Isn't One Where Someone Wins, It's Where Nobody Thinks They've Lost.

What's Money Interested In? More Money.

Look, That's Why There's Rules, Understand? So That You Think Before You Break 'em.

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.

Real Stupidity Beats Artificial Intelligence Every Time.

The Secret Is Not To Dream," She Whispered. "the Secret Is To Wake Up. Waking Up Is Harder. I Have Woken Up And I Am Real. I Know Where I Come From And I Know Where I'm Going. You Cannot Fool Me Any More. Or Touch Me. Or Anything That Is Mine.

I Ushered Souls Into The Next World. I Was The Grave Of All Hope. I Was The Ultimate Reality. I Was The Assassin Against Whom No Lock Would Hold. - "yes, Point Taken, But Do You Have Any Particular Skills?"

… You Were So Worried About Legal And Illegal That You Never Stopped To Think About Whether It Was Right Or Wrong.

There's No Justice, Said Mort. Just Us.

There Was This About Vampires : They Could Never Look Scruffy. Instead, They Were... What Was The Word... Deshabille. It Meant Untidy, But With Bags And Bags Of Style.

A World Like That, Which Exists Only Because The Gods Enjoy A Joke, Must Be A Place Where Magic Can Survive. And Sex Too, Of Course.

Have A Bit More Patience With Newbies. Of Course Some Of Them Act Dumb - They're Often Students, For Heaven's Sake.

It Takes Forty Men With Their Feet On The Ground To Keep One Man With His Head In The Air.

Before You Can Become A Writer, You Have To Be A Reader, And A Reader Of Everything, At That. To The Best Of My Recollection, I Became A Reader At The Age Of 10 And Have Never Stopped. Like Many Authors, I Read All Sorts Of Books All The Time, And It Is Amazing How The Mind Fills Up.

Haven't You Got Any Romance In Your Soul?" Said Magrat Plaintively. "no," Said Granny. "i Ain't. And Stars Don't Care What You Wish, And Magic Don't Make Things Better, And No One Doesn't Get Burned Who Sticks Their Hand In A Fire. If You Want To Amount To Anything As A Witch, Magrat Garlick, You Got To Learn Three Things. What's Real, What's Not Real, And What's The Difference.

Mort Was Hurt By This. It Was One Thing Not To Want To Marry Someone, But Quite Another To Be Told They Didn't Want To Marry You.

By The Time You've Reached Your Sixties, You Do Know That One Day You Will Die, And Knowing That Is At Least The Beginning Of Wisdom.

Perhaps It Would Be Simpler If You Just Did What You're Told And Didn't Try To Understand Things.

Silverfish Looked Down. "oh. Are You A Dwarf?" Cuddy Gave Him A Blank Stare. "are You A Giant?" He Said. "me? Of Course Not!" "ah. Then I Must Be A Dwarf, Yes."

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 The Purpose Of The Book Is Not The Horror, It Is Horror's Defeat.

And What Do You Really Do? Asked Tiffany. The Thin Witch Hesitatied For A Moment, And Then: We Look To ... The Edges, Said Mistress Weatherwax. There's A Lot Of Edges, More Than People Know. Between Life And Death, This World And The Next, Night And Day, Right And Wrong ... An' They Need Watchin'. We Watch 'em, We Guard The Sum Of Things. And We Never Ask For Any Reward. That's Important.

Mr. Tulip Lived His Life On That Thin Line Most People Occupy Just Before They Haul Off And Hit Someone Repeatedly With A Wrench.

All Things That Are, Are Ours. But We Must Care. For If We Do Not Care, We Do Not Exist. If We Do Not Exist, Then There Is Nothing But Blind Oblivion. And Even Oblivion Must End Someday. Lord, Will You Grant Me Just A Little Time? For The Proper Balance Of Things. To Return What Was Given. For The Sake Of Prisoners And The Flight Of Birds. Death Took A Step Backwards. It Was Impossible To Read Expression In Azrael's Features. Death Glanced Sideways At The Servants. Lord, What Can The Harvest Hope For, If Not For The Care Of The Reaper Man?

Thou Shalt Not Submit Thy God To Market Forces.

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.

If You Have To Look Along The Shaft Of An Arrow From The Wrong End, If A Man Has You Entirely At His Mercy, Then Hope Like Hell That Man Is An Evil Man. Because The Evil Like Power... They Will Talk, They Will Gloat. So Hope Like Hell Your Captor Is An Evil Man. A Good Man Will Kill You With Hardly A Word.

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.

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

On The Disc, The Gods Aren't So Much Worshipped, As They Are Blamed.

The Words Are Easy - Most Of Them Have Already Been Invented.

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.

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.

Just Because Things Are Obvious Doesn't Mean They're True.

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.

Don't Look Back!" "why Not?" "because I Just Did! Run Faster!

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

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.

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.

It Was Sad Music. But It Waved Its Sadness Like A Battle Flag. It Said The Universe Had Done All It Could, But You Were Still Alive.

He Was, He Would Be The First To Admit, A Coward, An Incompetent, And Not Even Very Good At Being A Failure.

One Person Is Nothing. Two People Are A Nation.

Nigeria Independence

Asking Someone To Repeat A Phrase You'd Not Only Heard Very Clearly But Were Also Exceedingly Angry About Was Around Defcon Ii In The Lexicon Of Squabble.

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.

One Of The Important Things About Being A Small-town Reporter Is Knowing What Not To Put In The Paper.

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?

Here's What I Suggest," He Said. "you Pretend That Rats Can Think, And I'll Promise To Pretend That Humans Can Think, Too.

Anyway, Just Because You're Sworn Enemies Doesn't Mean You Can't Be Friends, Does It?

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

In The World I Live In, 'not Worse' Is Nearly As Good As 'better'.

They Suffered From The Terrible Delusion That Something Could Be Done. They Seemed Prepared To Make The World The Way They Wanted It Or Die In The Attempt, And The Trouble With Dying In The Attempt Was That You Died In The Attempt.

Sometimes I Feel That The World Is Made Up Of Sensible People Who Know The Plot And Bloody Idiots Who Don't.

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

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!

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

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?

'don't Think Of It As Dying,' Said Death. 'just Think Of It As Leaving Early To Avoid The Rush.'

A Lot Hinges On The Fact That, In Most Circumstances, People Are Not Allowed To Hit You With A Mallet. They Put Up All Kinds Of Visible And Invisible Signs That Say, 'do Not Do This' In The Hope That It'll Work, But If It Doesn't, Then They Shrug, Because There Is, Really, No Real Mallet At All.

I Don't Read An Awful Lot Of Fiction And When I Do, It Tends To Be Lightweight Stuff.

Polly Felt Questing Eyes Boring Into Her. She Was Embarrassed, Of Course. But Not For The Obvious Reason. It Was For The Other One, The Little Lesson That Life Sometimes Rams Home With A Stick: You Are Not The Only One Watching The World. Other People Are People; While You Watch Them They Watch You, And They Think About You While You Think About Them. The World Isn’t Just About You.

He Looked Up At Them, A Scruffy Napoleon With His Laces Trailing, Exiled To A Rose-trellised Elba.

Cats Gravitate To Kitchens Like Rocks Gravitate To Gravity.

I Know Loads Of Coppers And Dealt With Them A Lot When I Was A Journalist - Coppers Are Easy To Write For; They Tend To Run On Rails.

What's A Philosopher?' Said Brutha. Someone Who's Bright Enough To Find A Job With No Heavy Lifting,' Said A Voice In His Head.

The Conversation Of Human Beings Seldom Interested Him, But It Crossed His Mind That The Males And Females Always Got Along Best When Neither Actually Listened Fully To What The Other One Was Saying.

What're Quantum Mechanics?" "i Don't Know. People Who Repair Quantums, I Suppose.

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.

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

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

I Know That I Am A Small, Weak Man, But I Have Amassed A Large Library; I Dream Of Dangerous Places.

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.

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.

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

Anyway, It's Like With Bikes,' Said The First Speaker Authoritatively. 'i Thought I Was Going To Get This Bike With Seven Gears And One Of Them Razorblade Saddles And Purple Paint And Everything, And They Gave Me This Light Blue One. With A Basket. A Girl's Bike.' 'well. You're A Girl,' Said One Of The Others. 'that's Sexism, That Is. Going Around Giving People Girly Presents Just Because They're A Girl.

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.

Imagination, Not Intelligence, Made Us Human.

The Trouble With Thinking Was That, Once You Started, You Went On Doing It.

A Good Bookshop Is Just A Genteel Black Hole That Knows How To Read.

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.

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

I Reckon That Stonehege Was Build By The Contemporary Equivalent Of Microsoft, Whereas Avebury Was Definitely An Apple Circle.

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

Animals Never Spend Time Dividing Experience Into Little Bits And Speculating About All The Bits They've Missed. The Whole Panoply Of The Universe Has Been Neatly Expressed To Them As Things To (a) Mate With, (b) Eat, (c) Run Away From, And (d) Rocks.

He's Probably Their Battle Poet, Too." "you Mean He Makes Up Heroic Songs About Famous Battles?" "no, No. He Recites Poems That Frighten The Enemy....when A Well-trained Gonnagle Starts To Recite, The Enemy's Ears Explode.

Always Remember That The Crowd That Applauds Your Coronation Is The Same Crowd That Will Applaud Your Beheading. People Like A Show.

When You're All Singing Together, It Brings Things Together. I Know The Songs That My Grandfather And My Father Sang.

A Bad Hunter Chases. A Good Hunter Waits.

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

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.

I Thought Jet Planes Were Just Trucks With More Wings And Less Wheels.

He Had Never Been Interested In Stories At Any Age, And Had Never Quite Understood The Basic Concept. He'd Never Read A Work Of Fiction All The Way Through. He Did Remember, As A Small Boy, Being Really Annoyed At The Depiction Of Hickory Dickory Dock In A Rag Book Of Nursery Rhymes Because The Clock In The Drawing Was Completely Wrong For The Period.

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.

"god Does Not Play Games With His Loyal Servants," Said The Metatron, But In A Worried Tone Of Voice. "whooo-eee," Said Crowley. "where Have You Been?"

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.

Sister Mary Was A Nurse And Nurses, Whatever Their Creed, Are Primarily Nurses, Which Had A Lot To Do With Wearing Your Watch Upside Down, Keeping Calm In Emergencies, And Dying For A Cup Of Tea.

There's A Saying That All Roads Lead To Ankh-morpork. And It's Wrong. All Roads Lead Away From Ankh-morpork, But Sometimes People Just Walk Along Them The Wrong Way.

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.

Destiny Is Important, See, But People Go Wrong When They Think It Controls Them. It's The Other Way Around.

I'm Not Cruel, Sir, I Won't Shoot You In The Guts, But I Will Make You Realize How Much You Took Your Toes For Granted.

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

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.

It Is Said That Whomsoever The Gods Wish To Destroy, They First Make Mad. In Fact, Whomsoever The Gods Wish To Destroy, They First Hand The Equivalent Of A Stick With A Fizzing Fuse And Acme Dynamite Company Written On The Side. It's More Interesting, And Doesn't Take So Long.

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.

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

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

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?

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)

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

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.

Anyway, Why Would You Trust Anything Written Down? She Certainly Didn't Trust "mothers Of Borogravia!" And That Was From The Government. And If You Couldn't Trust The Government, Who Could You Trust? Very Nearly Everyone, Come To Think Of It.

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.

Words Are The Litmus Paper Of The Minds. If You Find Yourself In The Power Of Someone Who Will Use The Word "commence" In Cold Blood, Go Somewhere Else Very Quickly. But If They Say "enter", Don't Stop To Pack.

Finding Yourself

The Storm Was Really Giving It Everything It Had. This Was Its Big Chance. It Had Spent Years Hanging Around The Provinces, Putting In Some Useful Work As A Squall, Building Up Experience, Making Contacts, Occasionally Leaping Out On Unsuspecting Shepherds Or Blasting Quite Small Oak Trees. Now An Opening In The Weather Had Given It An Opportunity To Strut Its Hour, And It Was Building Up Its Role In The Hope Of Being Spotted By One Of The Big Climates.

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.

The Universe Clearly Operates For The Benefit Of Humanity. This Can Be Readily Seen From The Convenient Way The Sun Comes Up In The Morning, When People Are Ready To Start The Day.

Despite Rumor, Death Isn't Cruel--merely Terribly, Terribly Good At His Job.

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

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.

If You Had Enough Money, You Could Hardly Commit Crimes At All. You Just Perpetrated Amusing Little Peccadilloes.

Only In Our Dreams Are We Free. The Rest Of The Time We Need Wages.

People Don't Like To Say Comic So They Say Graphic Novel, Despite The Fact That I Don't Think The True Graphic Novel Has Been Written Anywhere.

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

Moist Was Sure Doctors Keep Skeletons Around To Cow Patients. Nyer, Nyer, We Know What You Look Underneath.

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.

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

There's Some Things That You Wouldn't Tackle In A Children's Book Because It Would Be Beyond, Not The Mental Capabilities, But The Experience Of Someone Under The Age Of Say Ten Or Eleven To Encompass. But That Field Is Smaller Than You Might Think. They Can Easily Cope With Death And Things Like That; They Know About It And It's A Subject That Often Preoccupies Them.

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

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).

Of Course, Like All The Informal Inhabitants Of The University The Roaches Were A Little Unusual, But There Was Something Particularly Unpleasant About The Sound Of Billions Of Very Small Feet Hitting The Stones In Perfect Time. Rincewind Stepped Gingerly Over The Marching Column. The Librarian Jumped It. The Luggage, Of Course, Followed Them With A Noise Like Someone Tapdancing Over A Bag Of Crisps.

You Had To Deal Every Day With People Who Were Foolish And Lazy And Untruthful And Downright Unpleasant, And You Could Certainly End Up Thinking That The World Would Be Considerably Improved If You Gave Them A Slap.

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.

It Is At This Point That Normal Language Gives Up, And Goes And Has A Drink.

I'm Referred To, I See, As 'the Biggest Banker In Modern Publishing'. Now There's A Line That Needed The Celebrated Guardian Proof-reading.

Students, Eh? Love 'em Or Hate 'em, You Can't Hit Them With A Shovel!

Tomorrow Is The First Day Of The Rest Of Our Lives.

If There's One Thing That Really Annoys A God, It's Not Knowing Something.

The Universe Was Bad Enough Without People Poking It.

What Was Supposed To Be So Special About A Full Moon? It Was Only A Big Circle Of Light. And The Dark Of The Moon Was Only Darkness. But Halfway Between The Two, When The Moon Was Between The Worlds Of Light And Dark, When Even The Moon Lived On The Edge...maybe Then A Witch Could Believe In The Moon.

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

I Certainly Don't Sit Down And Plan A Book Out Before I Write It. There's A Phrase I Use Called "the Valley Full Of Clouds." Writing A Novel Is As If You Are Going Off On A Journey Across A Valley. The Valley Is Full Of Mist, But You Can See The Top Of A Tree Here And The Top Of Another Tree Over There. And With Any Luck You Can See The Other Side Of The Valley. But You Cannot See Down Into The Mist. Nevertheless, You Head For The First Tree.

First Draft: Let It Run. Turn All The Knobs Up To 11. Second Draft: Hell. Cut It Down And Cut It Into Shape. Third Draft: Comb Its Nose And Blow Its Hair. I Usually Find That Most Of The Book Will Have Handed Itself To Me On That First Draft.

Several Sellers Of Hot Meat Pies And Sausages In A Bun Had Appeared From Nowhere And Were Doing A Brisk Trade. [footnote: They Always Do, Everywhere. No-one Sees Them Arrive. The Logical Explaination Is That The Franchise Includes The Stall, The Paper Hat And A Small Gas-powered Time Machine.]

Always Be Wary Of Any Helpful Item That Weighs Less Than Its Operating Manual.

If You Don't Turn Your Life Into A Story, You Just Become A Part Of Someone Else's Story.

Fantasy Stories

But I Think You Have A Right To Know What It Is You’re Not Being Told.

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 A Terrible Thing For A Man When His Woman Gangs Up On Him Wi' A Toad

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.

When In Doubt, Choose To Live.

They Obeyed, As Wise Men Do When A Woman Puts Her Foot Down . . .

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

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.

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

Rincewind Could Scream For Mercy In Nineteen Languages, And Just Scream In Another Forty-four.

There Are Hardly Any Excesses Of The Most Crazed Psychopath That Cannot Easily Be Duplicated By A Normal Kindly Family Man Who Just Comes In To Work Every Day And Has A Job To Do.

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

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.

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.

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.

Their Families Cordially Detested One Another.

There's No Point In Killing An Opponent... There's No Triumph Over A Corpse, But A Beaten Opponent, Who Will Remain Beaten Every Day Of The Remainder Of Their Sad And Wretched Life, Is Something To Treasure.

The Author Can Always Delve Into His Own Personality And Find Aspects Of Himself With Which He Can Dress His Characters.

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

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.

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

What Can The Harvest Hope For...

The Calendar Of The Theocracy Of Muntab Counts Down, Not Up. No-one Knows Why, But It Might Not Be A Good Idea To Hang Around And Find Out.

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.

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.

I Reckon Responsible Behavior Is Something To Get When You Grow Older. Like Varicose Veins.

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

I Can't Be Talking To A Tree. If I Was Talking To A Tree I'd Be Mad, And I'm Not Mad, So Trees Can't Talk.

Do You Think There’s Anything To Eat In This Forest?” “yes,” Said The Wizard Bitterly, “us.

Down There - He Said - Are People Who Will Follow Any Dragon, Worship Any God, Ignore Any Inequity. All Out Of A Kind Of Humdrum, Everyday Badness. Not The Really High, Creative Loathsomeness Of The Great Sinners, But A Sort Of Mass-produced Darkness Of The Soul. Sin, You Might Say, Without A Trace Of Originality. They Accept Evil Not Because They Say Yes, But Because They Don't Say No.

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.

Either All Days Are Holy Or None Are.

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.

Writing, For Me, Is A Little Like Wood Carving. You Find The Lump Of Tree (the Big Central Theme That Gets You Started), And You Start Cutting The Shape That You Think You Want It To Be. But You Find, If You Do It Right, That The Wood Has A Grain Of Its Own (characters Develop And Present New Insights, Concentrated Thinking About The Story Opens New Avenues). If You're Sensible, You Work With The Grain And, If You Come Across A Knot Hole, You Incorporate That Into The Design. This Is Not The Same As 'making It Up As You Go Along'; It's A Very Careful Process Of Control.

Some People Think This Is Paranoia, But It Isn't. Paranoids Only Think Everyone Is Out To Get Them. Wizards Know It.

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

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

The Truth Is That Even Big Collections Of Ordinary Books Distort Space, As Can Readily Be Proved By Anyone Who Has Been Around A Really Old-fashioned Secondhand Bookshop, One That Looks As Though They Were Designed By M. Escher On A Bad Day And Has More Stairways Than Storeys And Those Rows Of Shelves Which End In Little Doors That Are Surely Too Small For A Full-sized Human To Enter. The Relevant Equation Is: Knowledge = Power = Energy = Matter = Mass; A Good Bookshop Is Just A Genteel Black Hole That Knows How To Read.

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

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.

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