Background Image

...

It's Hard To Explain," Said Brutha. "but I Think It's Got Something To Do With How People Should Behave... You Should Do Things Because They're Right. Not Because Gods Say So. They Might Say Something Different Another Time.

-Terry Pratchett

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

It's Hard To Explain,"

Terry Pratchett

...

It's Hard To Explain," Said Brutha. "but I Think It's Got Something To Do With How People Should Behave... You Should Do Things Because They're Right. Not Because Gods Say So. They Might Say Something Different Another Time.

Views: 3

Topic

More From Terry Pratchett

It Was Written In Some Holy Book, Apparently, So That Made It Okay, And Probably Compulsory.

My Character - And For That Matter My Worst Habits - Could Only Be Described By Someone Else. You Can't Open A Box With The Crowbar Inside It.

It Is True That Words Have Power, And One Of The Things They Are Able To Do Is Get Out Of Someone’s Mouth Before The Speaker Has The Chance To Stop Them.

After All, When You Seek Advice From Someone It's Certainly Not Because You Want Them To Give It. You Just Want Them To Be There While You Talk To Yourself.

Life Doesn't Happen In Chapters - At Least, Not Regular Ones.

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.

I Used To Think That I Was Stupid, And Then I Met Philosophers.

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

It's Very Rare That I Ever Go And Research A Particular Subject. Mostly I Do Serendipitous Research, I Read Stuff, Things Spinning Out Of The Page.

Wikipedia, Eh? Must Be Accurate Then.

A Push-and-go Wooden Duck On Wheels Can Cause Quite A Lot Of Damage If Wielded With Enough Force.

And Then There Were Cats, Thought Dog. He'd Surprised The Huge Ginger Cat From Next Door And Had Attempted To Reduce It To Cowering Jelly By Means Of The Usual Glowing Stare And Deep-throated Growl, Which Had Always Worked On The Damned In The Past. This Time They Had Earned Him A Whack On The Nose That Had Made His Eyes Water. Cats, Dog Considered, Were Clearly A Lot Tougher Than Lost Souls. He Was Looking Forward To A Further Cat Experiment, Which He Planned Would Consist Of Jumping Around And Yapping Excitedly At It. It Was A Long Shot, But It Just Might Work.

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.

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

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

Somewhere Around The Place I've Got An Unfinished Short Story About Schrodinger's Dog; It Was Mostly Moaning About All The Attention The Cat Was Getting.

It's Hard To Explain," Said Brutha. "but I Think It's Got Something To Do With How People Should Behave... You Should Do Things Because They're Right. Not Because Gods Say So. They Might Say Something Different Another Time.

Rincewind Tried To Force The Memory Out Of His Mind, But It Was Rather Enjoying Itself There, Terrorizing The Other Occupants And Kicking Over The Furniture.

Take The Universe And Grind It Down To The Finest Powder And Sieve It Through The Finest Sieve And Then Show Me One Atom Of Justice, One Molecule Of Mercy. And Yet... And Yet You Act As If There Is Some Ideal Order In The World, As If There Is Some... Some Rightness In The Universe By Which It May Be Judged.

When I Was A Child, I Spake As A Child, I Understood As A Child, I Thought As A Child: But When I Became A Man I Put Away Childish Things Because. Wow, Then I Could Afford Much *better* Childish Things!

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

There Was Once A Caustic Comment From Someone Suggesting I Was Breeding A New Race. Fans From Different Countries Have Married, Amazing Things Like That. I've Been To Some Of The Weddings. I Went To One Here The Other Day, A Pagan Ceremony.

That's Why It's Always Worth Having A Few Philosophers Around The Place. One Minute It's All Is Truth Beauty And Is Beauty Truth, And Does A Falling Tree In The Forest Make A Sound If There's No One There To Hear It, And Then Just When You Think They're Going To Start Dribbling One Of 'em Says, Incidentally, Putting A Thirty-foot Parabolic Reflector On A High Place To Shoot The Rays Of The Sun At An Enemy's Ships Would Be A Very Interesting Demonstration Of Optical Principles.

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.

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.

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.

If You Have Let Pride Get The Better Of You, Then You Have Already Lost, But If You Grab Pride By The Scruff Of The Neck And Ride It Like A Stallion, Then You May Have Already Won.

My Advice Is This. For Christ's Sake, Don't Write A Book That Is Suitable For A Kid Of 12 Years Old, Because The Kids Who Read Who Are 12 Years Old Are Reading Books For Adults. I Read All Of The James Bond Books When I Was About 11, Which Was Approximately The Right Time To Read James Bond Books.

Anger Is Wonderful. It Keeps You Going. I'm Angry About Bankers. About The Government.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The Librarian Was Not Familiar With Love, Which Had Always Struck Him As A Bit Ethereal And Soppy, But Kindness, On The Other Hand, Was Practical. You Knew Where You Were With Kindness, Especially If You Were Holding A Pie It Had Just Given You.

You Have The Effrontery To Be Squeamish, It Thought At Him. But We Were Dragons. We Were Supposed To Be Cruel, Cunning, Heartless And Terrible. But This Much I Can Tell You, You Ape – The Great Face Pressed Even Closer, So That Wonse Was Staring Into The Pitiless Depths Of His Eyes – We Never Burned And Tortured And Ripped One Another Apart And Called It Morality.

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.

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.

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.

You Call Yourself Some Kind Of Goddess And You Know Nothing, Madam, Nothing. What Don't Die Can't Live. What Don't Live Can't Change. What Don't Change Can't Learn. The Smallest Creature That Dies In The Grass Knows More Than You.

You Couldn't Say 'i Had Orders.' You Couldn't Say 'it's Not Fair.' No One Was Listening. There Were No Words. You Owned Yourself. [...] Not 'thou Shalt Not'. Say 'i Will Not'.

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.

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

Remember - That Which Does Not Kill Us Can Only Make Us Stronger. And That Which Does Kill Us Leaves Us Dead!

Granny Weatherwax, Who Had Walked Nightly Without Fear In The Bandit-haunted Forests Of The Mountains All Her Life In The Certain Knowledge That The Darkness Held Nothing More Terrible Than She Was.

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

Two Types Of People Laugh At The Law: Those That Break It And Those That Make It.

Go Anywhere You Wish, Talk To Everyone. Ask Any Questions; You Will Be Given Answers. When You Want To Learn, You Will Be Taught. Use The Library. Open Any Book.

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

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.

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.

When You Look Into The Abyss, It’s Not Supposed To Wave Back.

They May Be Called The Palace Guard, The City Guard, Or The Patrol. Whatever The Name, Their Purpose In Any Work Of Heroic Fantasy Is Identical: It Is, Round About Chapter Three (or Ten Minutes Into The Film) To Rush Into The Room, Attack The Hero One At A Time, And Be Slaughtered. No One Ever Asks Them If They Want To. This Book Is Dedicated To Those Fine Men.

Jeremy Tried To Be An Interesting Person. The Trouble Was That He Was The Kind Of Person Who, Having Decided To Be An Interesting Person, Would First Of All Try To Find A Book Called How To Be An Interesting Person And Then See Whether There Were Any Courses Available.

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've Never Really Liked The Yanks. ... You Can't Trust People Who Pick Up The Ball All The Time When They Play Football.

If Words Had Weight, A Single Sentence From Death Would Have Anchored A Ship.

A Duke Couldn't Have The Arse Hanging Out Of His Trousers When Meeting Foreign Diplomats. Actually Even Plain Old Sam Vimes Never Had The Arse Hanging Out Of His Trousers, Either, But No One Would Have Actually Started A War If He Had.

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

He Felt As If He Had Been Shipwrecked On The Titanic, But In The Nick Of Time Had Been Rescued. By The Lusitania

There Is No Doubt That Being Human Is Incredibly Difficult And Cannot Be Mastered In One Lifetime.

I May Be Daft But I'm No' Stupid!

If There Were Such A Thing As An Inter-city Thieving Contest, Ankh-morpork Would Bring Home The Trophy And Probably Everyone’s Wallets.

Go On, Prove Me Wrong. Destroy The Fabric Of The Universe. See If I Care.

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

Demons Were Like Genies Or Philosophy Professors - If You Didn't Word Things Exactly Right, They Delighted In Giving You Absolutely Accurate And Completely Misleading Answers.

Cheery Was Aware That Commander Vimes Didn't Like The Phrase 'the Innocent Have Nothing To Fear', Believing The Innocent Had Everything To Fear, Mostly From The Guilty But In The Longer Term Even More From Those Who Say Things Like 'the Innocent Have Nothing To Fear'.

The Kind Of Accidents You Prefer To Call...accidents.

Unseen University Was Much Bigger On The Inside. Thousands Of Years As The Leading Establishment Of Practical Magic In A World Where Dimensions Were Largely A Matter Of Chance In Any Case Had Left It Bulging In Places Where It Shouldn't Have Places. There Were Rooms Containing Rooms Which, If You Entered Them, Turned Out To Contain The Room You'd Started With, Which Can Be A Problem If You Are In A Conga Line.

"there's A Door," He Whispered. "where Does It Go?" "it Stays Where It Is, I Think," Said Rincewind.

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

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.

Why Not? If Enough People Believe, You Can Be God Of Anything.

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?

Granddad Was Superstitious About Books. He Thought That If You Had Enough Of Them Around, Education Leaked Out, Like Radioactivity.

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

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.]

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.

Rings Try To Find Their Way Back To Their Owner. Someone Ought To Write A Book About It.

He Was Determined To Discover The Underlying Logic Behind The Universe. Which Was Going To Be Hard, Because There Wasn't One.

The Conflict Is Not Between Christianity And Islam Or Between East And West - Instead, It Is Between Stupid People And Other Stupid People.

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

The Reason That Clichés Become Clichés Is That They Are The Hammers And Screwdrivers In The Toolbox Of Communication.

Look, He Said To His Imagination, If This Is How You're Going To Behave, I Shan't Bring You Again.

In Fact, The Mere Act Of Opening The Box Will Determine The State Of The Cat, Although In This Case There Were Three Determinate States The Cat Could Be In: These Being Alive, Dead, And Bloody Furious.

Lords And Ladies

"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?"

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.

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

Christ Managed To Boil Down An Awful Lot Of Commandments To A Few Very Simple Rules For Living. It's When You Go Backwards Through The 'begats' And The Garden Of Eden, And You Start Thinking, 'hang On, That's A Big Punishment For Eating One Lousy Apple... There's A Human-rights Issue.'

Everywhere's Been Where It Is Ever Since It Was First Put There. It's Called Geography.

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.

When People Say Things Are A Lot More Complicated Than That, They Means They're Getting Worried That They Won't Like The Truth.

Just Because It's Not Nice Doesn't Mean It's Not Miraculous.

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

After You've Been Working Fairly Intensively On A Novel For Six Months You Never Want To See The Damn Thing Again.

Stand Before Your God, Bow Before Your King, Kneel Before Your Man.

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?

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.

I Discovered Fantasy And Science Fiction When I Was About 10, And Read Nothing Else For About Three Years. I Ran Out Of All The Books That There Were To Read In The Library. I Was Keen On Reading Stuff That Took Me To Other Places.

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 Would Seem That You Have No Useful Skill Or Talent Whatsoever" He Said. "have You Thought Of Going Into Teaching?"

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.

I'd Rather Be A Rising Ape Than A Falling Angel.

...it Is Well Known That A Vital Ingredient Of Success Is Not Knowing That What You're Attempting Can't Be Done.

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.

Goodness Is About What You Do. Not Who You Pray To.

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

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

Racism Was Not A Problem On The Discworld, Because - What With Trolls And Dwarfs And So On - Speciesism Was More Interesting. Black And White Lived In Perfect Harmony And Ganged Up On Green.

Black And White

She Had Heard It Said That, Before You Could Understand Anybody, You Needed To Walk A Mile In Their Shoes, Which Did Not Make A Whole Lot Of Sense, Because Probably After You Had Walked A Mile In Their Shoes, You Would Understand That They Were Chasing You And Accusing You Of The Theft Of A Pair Of Shoes--although, Of Course, You Could Probably Outrun Them, Owing To Their Lack Of Footwear.

Divers Alarums And Excursions', She Read, Uncertainly. 'that Means Lots Of Terrible Happenings, Said Magrat. 'you Always Put That In Plays.' Alarums And What?', Said Nanny Ogg, Who Hadn't Been Listening. Excursions', Said Magrat Patienly. Oh.' Nanny Ogg Brightened A Bit. 'the Seaside Would Be Nice,' She Said. Oh Do Shut Up, Gytha,' Said Granny Weatherwax. 'they're Not For You. They're Only For Divers, Like It Says. Probably So They Can Recover From All Them Alarums.

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.

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.

Consider The Situation. There You Are, Forehead Like A Set Of Balconies, Worrying About The Long-term Effects Of All This New 'fire' Stuff On The Environment, You're Being Chased And Eaten By Most Of The Planet's Large Animals, And Suddenly Tiny Versions Of One Of The Worst Of Them Wanders Into The Cave And Starts To Purr.

- I Notice You Didn't Laugh, Mr. Black! - No, Your Majesty. We Are Forbidden To Laugh At The Things Kings Say, Sire, Because Otherwise We Would Be At It All Day.

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

Whatever Happens, They Say Afterwards, It Must Have Been Fate. People Are Always A Little Confused About This, As They Are In The Case Of Miracles. When Someone Is Saved From Certain Death By A Strange Concatenation Of Circumstances, They Say That's A Miracle. But Of Course If Someone Is Killed By A Freak Chain Of Events -- The Oil Spilled Just There, The Safety Fence Broken Just There -- That Must Also Be A Miracle. Just Because It's Not Nice Doesn't Mean It's Not Miraculous.

I Try To Make Computers Say Things Like You Have 60 Seconds To Achieve Safe Distance.

He'd Been An Angel Once. He Hadn't Meant To Fall. He'd Just Hung Around With The Wrong People.

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

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

Fantasy Stories

Shoes, Men, Coffins; Never Accept The First One You See.

The People Who Really Run Organizations Are Usually Found Several Levels Down, Where It Is Still Possible To Get Things Done.

Colon Has Always Thought That Heroes Had Some Special Kind Of Clockwork That Made Them Go Out And Die Famously For God, Country And Apple Pie, Or Whatever Particular Delicacy Their Mother Made. It Had Never Occurred To Him That They Might Do It Because They'd Get Yelled At If They Didn't.

I Think It's Impossible For Anyone Famous To Come From Here, Because Everyone Around Here Is Insane.

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.

It’s Quite Easy To Accidentally Overhear People Talking Downstairs If You Hold An Upturned Glass To The Floorboards And Accidentally Put Your Ear To It.

I Imagine That Fish Have No Word For Water.

People Needed To Believe In Gods, If Only Because It Was So Hard To Believe In People.

I Thought Unicorns Were More . . . Fluffy.

Certainly The Americans Want To Buy Rights, But Have No Idea What To Do With Them.

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

Now He Knew: They Were Real. Who’d Make Up A Thing Like This? Okay, One Of Them Was A Cheese That Rolled Around Of Its Own Accord, But Nobody Was Perfect.

He Said It Was Better To Belong Where You Don't Belong Than Not To Belong Where You Used To Belong, Remembering When You Used To Belong There.

You Just Put That Sword Away, Sir, Please," Said The Voice Of Lance-constable Vimes. "you Will Not Shoot Me, You Young Idiot. That Would Be Murder," Said The Captain Calmly. "not Where I'm Aiming, Sir.

It's The Expression On Their Little Faces I Like, Said The Hogfather. "you Mean Sort Of Fear And Awe And Not Knowing Whether To Laugh Or Cry Or Wet Their Pants?" Yes. Now That Is What I Call Belief.

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.

Wizards Don't Believe In Gods In The Same Way That Most People Don't Find It Necessary To Believe In, Say, Tables. They Know They're There, They Know They're There For A Purpose, They'd Probably Agree That They Have A Place In A Well-organised Universe, But They Wouldn't See The Point Of Believing, Of Going Around Saying "o Great Table, Without Whom We Are As Naught." Anyway, Either The Gods Are There Whether You Believe In Them Or Not, Or Exist Only As A Function Of The Belief, So Either Way You Might As Well Ignore The Whole Business And, As It Were, Eat Off Your Knees.

Creatures Which, Lacking Mankind's Superior Brain Power, Did Not Concern Themselves With Finding Someone To Blame, And Instead Tried To Find Someone To Eat.

Finding Someone

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

In The Beginning There Was Nothing, Which Exploded.

Lords And Ladies

What Did They Feed The Lions And Tigers With In The Ark, Sir?

Nanny Ogg Could See The Future In The Froth On A Beer Mug. It Invariably Showed That She Was Going To Enjoy A Refreshing Drink Which She Almost Certainly Was Not Going To Pay For.

It's Not Morbid To Talk About Death. Most People Don't Worry About Death, They Worry About A Bad Death.

Vimes Struggled To His Feet, Shook His Head And Set Off After It. No Thought Was Involved. It Is The Ancient Instinct Of Terriers And Policemen To Chase Anything That Runs Away.

I've Often Felt Depressed; Everyone Feels Depressed.

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

Books Bend Space And Time. One Reason The Owners Of Those Aforesaid Little Rambling, Poky Secondhand Bookshops Always Seem Slightly Unearthly Is That Many Of Them Really Are, Having Strayed Into This World After Taking A Wrong Turning In Their Own Bookshops In Worlds Where It Is Considered Commendable Business Practice To Wear Carpet Slippers All The Time And Open Your Shop Only When You Feel Like It.

The First Draft Is Just You Telling Yourself The Story.

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

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.

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

Good Or Bad, Do It As You. Too Many Lies And There's No Truth To Go Back To.

No, I Happen To Be One Of Those People Whose Memory Shuts Down Under Pressure. The Answers Would Come To Me In The Middle Of The Night In My Sleep! Besides, I Am A Millionaire.

Sometimes The Crime Follows The Punishment, Which Only Serves To Prove The Foresight Of The Great God." "that's What My Grandmother Used To Say," Said Brutha Automatically. "indeed? I Would Like To Know More About This Formidable Lady." "she Used To Give Me A Thrashing Every Morning Because I Would Certainly Do Something To Deserve It During The Day," Said Brutha. "a Most Complete Understanding Of The Nature Of Mankind.

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

Lords And Ladies

The Reaper Does Not Listen To The Harvest.

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.

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.

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.

Yes, But People Have Got To Believe That, Or What's The Point My Point Exactly.

I Would Rather Stare At The Wall For Half An Hour Than Watch An Episode Of Any Of The 53,801 Australian Soap Operas Now Cluttering Up Uk Tv.

In An Instant He Became Aware That The Tourist Was About To Try His Own Peculiar Brand Of Linguistics, Which Meant That He Would Speak Loudly And Slowly In His Own Language.

I Believe In Reincarnation,” [bjorn] Said. I Know. “i Tried To Live A Good Life. Does That Help?” That’s Not Up To Me. Death Coughed. Of Course... Since You Believe In Reincarnation... You’ll Be Bjorn Again.

No One Thinks That Young Adults Read Hooks For Young Adults, Books For Young Adults Are Read By Kids.

We Who Think We Are About To Die Will Laugh At Anything.

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

The Thing About Witchcraft," Said Mistress Weatherwax, "is That It's Not Like School At All. First You Get The Test, And Then Afterward You Spend Years Findin' Out How You Passed It. It's A Bit Like Life In That Respect

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

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

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

...the Proliferation Of Luminous Fungi Or Iridescent Crystals In Deep Caves Where The Torchlessly Improvident Hero Needs To See Is One Of The Most Obvious Intrusions Of Narrative Causality Into The Physical Universe.

No Clowns Were Funny. That Was The Whole Purpose Of A Clown. People Laughed At Clowns, But Only Out Of Nervousness. The Point Of Clowns Was That, After Watching Them, Anything Else That Happened Seemed Enjoyable

Juliet's Version Of Cleanliness Was Next To Godliness, Which Was To Say It Was Erratic, Past All Understanding And Was Seldom Seen.

My Dream Holiday Would Be A) A Ticket To Amsterdam B) Immunity From Prosecution And C) A Baseball Bat.

It's Still Magic Even If You Know How It's Done.

I Don't Really Plan. I'm Almost Intuitive About Things.

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.

No One's Policing Their Own Minds More Than An Author. You Spend A Lot Of Time In Your Own Head Analysing What You Think About Things, And A Philosophy Comes.

Most People Who Have Found That They Are More Intelligent Than Most Around Them, Have Yet To Learn That One Of The Most Intelligent Things They Can Do Is Prevent Said People Ever Finding This Out.

The Entire Universe Has Been Neatly Divided Into Things To (a) Mate With, (b) Eat, (c) Run Away From, And (d) Rocks.

When Much Is Taken, Something Is Returned.

Nothing Has To Be True Forever. Just For Long Enough, To Tell You The Truth.

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.

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.

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

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

I Tell You, Commander, It's True That Some Of The Most Terrible Things In The World Are Done By People Who Think, Genuinely Think, That They're Doing It For The Best, Especially If There Is Some God Involved.

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.

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.

Walter Plinge Said: "you Know She Asked Me A Very Silly Question Mrs Ogg! It Was A Silly Question Any Fool Knows The Answer!" "oh, Yes," Said Nanny. "about Houses On Fire, I Expect..." "yes! What Would I Take Out Of Our House If It Was On Fire!" "i Expect You Were A Good Boy And Said You'd Take Your Mum," Said Nanny. "no! My Mum Would Take Herself!" "what Would You Take Out Then, Walter?" Nanny Said. "the Fire!

This Is Space. It's Sometimes Called The Final Frontier. (except That Of Course You Can't Have A Final Frontier, Because There'd Be Nothing For It To Be A Frontier To, But As Frontiers Go, It's Pretty Penultimate . . .)

Who Knows What The Future Holds.

In Ancient Times Cats Were Worshiped As Gods; They Have Not Forgotten This.

I Don't See What's So Triffic About Creating People As People And Then Gettin' Upset Cos' They Act Like People", Said Adam Severely. "anyway, If You Stopped Tellin' People It's All Sorted Out After They're Dead, They Might Try Sorting It All Out While They're Alive.

It Must Be Powerful Language If You Canna Make Oout What The Heel It’s Goin’ On Aboot!

As We All Know, The Discworld Is A Flat Planet - Like A Geological Pizza, But Without The Anchovies.

Trending Author

Category