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It Seems Sensible To Me That We Should Look To The Medical Profession, That Over The Centuries Has Helped Us To Live Longer And Healthier Lives, To Help Us Die Peacefully Among Our Loved Ones In Our Own Home Without A Long Stay In God's Waiting Room.

-Terry Pratchett

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It Seems Sensible To

Terry Pratchett

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It Seems Sensible To Me That We Should Look To The Medical Profession, That Over The Centuries Has Helped Us To Live Longer And Healthier Lives, To Help Us Die Peacefully Among Our Loved Ones In Our Own Home Without A Long Stay In God's Waiting Room.

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

I Staggered Into A Manchester Bar Late One Night On A Tour And The Waitress Said "you Look As If You Need A Screaming Orgasm". At The Time This Was The Last Thing On My Mind.

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

I Think You Should Be Proud Of Not Being Worse Than Just Deeply Introverted And Socially Maladjusted.

I Would Like You To Teach [the Orcs] Civilised Behaviour," Said Ladyship Coldly. He Appeared To Consider This. "yes Of Course, I Think That Would Be Quite Possible," He Said. "and Who Would You Send To Teach The Humans?

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

Night Poured Over The Desert. It Came Suddenly, In Purple. In The Clear Air, The Stars Drilled Down Out Of The Sky, Reminding Any Thoughtful Watcher That It Is In The Deserts And High Places That Religions Are Generated. When Men See Nothing But Bottomless Infinity Over Their Heads They Have Always Had A Driving And Desperate Urge To Find Someone To Put In The Way.

It's Not Worth Doing Something Unless You Were Doing Something That Someone, Somewere, Would Much Rather You Weren't Doing.

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

Particles Of Raw Inspiration Sleet Through The Universe All The Time. Every Once In A While One Of Them Hits A Receptive Mind, Which Then Invents Dna Or The Flute Sonata Form Or A Way Of Making Light Bulbs Wear Out In Half The Time. But Most Of Them Miss. Most People Go Through Their Lives Without Being Hit By Even One.

Speak Softly And Employ A Huge Man With A Crowbar.

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?

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.

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

You Get A Wonderful View From The Point Of No Return.

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.

Other People Salted Away Money For Their Old Age, But Nanny Preferred To Accumulate Memories.

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.

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

What Is Magic? There Is The Wizard's Explanation... Wizards Talk About Candles, Circles, Planets, Stars, Bananas, Chants, Runes And The Importance Of Having At Least Four Good Meals Every Day.

I Was Once A Journalist. And I Think Of Myself As A Journalist, And That's It. You Tell The Truth. I Even Wrote A Book Called 'the Truth'.

Telling The Truth

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

But What Should We Do When The Highborn And Wealthy Take To Crime? Indeed, If A Poor Man Will Spend A Year In Prison For Stealing Out Of Hunger, How High Would The Gallows Need To Be To Hang The Rich Man Who Breaks The Law Out Of Greed?

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

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

I'd Like To Stand Up For The Rights Of People Who Put Everything On Their Burger - Chutney, Mustard, Pickle, Mustard Pickle, Tomato Sauce... It Is Common Knowledge In My Family That I Can't Tell The Difference Between A Veggie Burger And A Meat One, Because The Ratio Of Burger To Pickles Is So High.

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.

Things That Try To Look Like Things Often Do Look More Like Things Than Things.

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.]

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.

She Was, In Fact, Quite A Pleasant Looking Girl, Even If Her Bosom Had Clearly Been Intended For A Girl Two Feet Taller; But She Was Not Her. The Egregious Professor Of Grammar And Usage Would Have Corrected This To "she Was Not She," Which Would Have Caused The Professor Of Logic To Spit Out His Drink.

You Can't Inspire People With Facts. They Need A Cause. They Need A Symbol.

Chain-mail Isn't Much Defence Against An Arrow. It Certainly Isn't When The Arrow Is Being Aimed Between Your Eyes.

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

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.

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.

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.

Rincewind Gave His Fingers A Long Shocked Stare, As One Might Regard A Gun That Has Been Hanging On The Wall For Decades And Has Suddenly Gone Off And Perforated The Cat.

Winners Never Talk About Glorious Victories. Thats Because They're The Ones Who See What The Battle Field Looks Like Afterwards. Its Only The Losers Who Have Glorious Victories.

The Whole Of Life Is Just Like Watching A Film. Only It's As Though You Always Get In Ten Minutes After The Big Picture Has Started, And No-one Will Tell You The Plot, So You Have To Work It Out All Yourself From The Clues.

Inside Every Lump Of Coal There's A Diamond Waiting To Get Out.

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

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.

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."

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.

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.

It Was The Heart Of Any Scam Or Fiddle -- Keep The Punter Uncertain, Or, If He Is Certain, Make Him Certain Of The Wrong Thing.

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.

Vampires Have Risen From The Dead, The Grave, And The Crypt, But Have Never Managed It From The Cat.

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.

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

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

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.

Time Is A Drug. Too Much Of It Kills You.

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

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.

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

You're Not Going To Tell Me They Built Fifty-foot-high Killer Golems, Are You?" "only A Man Would Think Of That. It's Our Job," Said Moist. "if You Don't Think Of Fifty-foot-high Killer Golems First, Someone Else Will.

Some People Are Heroes. And Some People Jot Down Notes.

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.

Oh. I See. People Don't Want To See What Can't Possibly Exist.

I Meant," Said Ipslore Bitterly, "what Is There In This World That Truly Makes Living Worthwhile?" Death Thought About It. Cats, He Said Eventually. Cats Are Nice.

There Were Two Ways Of Looking At The World, But Only One When You Are Starving.

Ingenuity And Incongruity Always Cheer Me Up.

The Consensus Seemed To Be That If Really Large Numbers Of Men Were Sent To Storm The Mountain, Then Enough Might Survive The Rocks To Take The Citadel. This Is Essentially The Basis Of All Military Thinking.

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

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've Lost Both Parents In The Last Two Years, So You Pick Up On That Stuff. That's The Most Terrible Thing About Being An Author - Standing There At Your Mother's Funeral, But You Don't Switch The Author Off. So Your Own Innermost Thoughts Are Grist For The Mill.

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

This Is A Lovely Party," Said The Bursar To A Chair, "i Wish I Was Here.

The Iq Of A Mob Is The Iq Of Its Dumbest Member Divided By The Number Of Mobsters.

She Was Convinced That She Was Anorexic, Because Every Time She Looked In The Mirror She Did Indeed See A Fat Person.

These People Were Not Only Cheering, They Were Throwing Flowers And Hats. The Hats Were Made Of Stone, But The Thought Was There.

It Is Possible To Live Well With Dementia And Write Best-sellers 'like Wot I Do.

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.

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.

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.

The Nice Thing About Your Police Procedural As Opposed To Your Classic Murder Mystery Is That In A Murder Mystery You Don't Know Who Did It. Whereas In A Police Procedural You Know, You Know Everything Often And You're Watching The Police Home In.

Murder Mysteries

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.

The More You Think About It, The More Amazing The Everyday World Of Human Beings Becomes: Most Of It Doesn't Actually Exist At All.

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.

The Thing About Football - The Important Thing About Football - Is That It Is Not Just About Football.

Legends Don't Have To Make Sense. They Just Have To Be Beautiful. Or At Least Interesting.

(about Sweeping).... What He Was In Fact Doing Was Moving The Dirt Around With A Broom, To Give It A Change Of Scenery And A Chance To Make New Friends.

Cutangle: While I'm Still Confused And Uncertain, It's On A Much Higher Plane, D'you See, And At Least I Know I'm Bewildered About The Really Fundamental And Important Facts Of The Universe. Treatle: I Hadn't Looked At It Like That, But You're Absolutely Right. He's Really Pushed Back The Boundaries Of Ignorance. They Both Savoured The Strange Warm Glow Of Being Much More Ignorant Than Ordinary People, Who Were Only Ignorant Of Ordinary Things.

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.

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

Unseen University Had Never Admitted Women, Muttering Something About Problems With The Plumbing, But The Real Reason Was An Unspoken Dread That If Women Were Allowed To Mess Around With Magic They Would Probably Be Embarrassingly Good At It.

The Labyrinth Of Ephebe Is Ancient And Full Of One Hundred And One Amazing Things You Can Do With Hidden Springs, Razor-sharp Knives, And Falling Rocks.

… People Didn't Seem To Be Able To Remember What It Was Like With The Elves Around. Life Was Certainly More Interesting Then, But Usually Because It Was Shorter. And It Was More Colorful, If You Liked The Color Of Blood.

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

I Do Not In Fact Use Many Puns. Certainly There Are Far Fewer Than People Believe. But I Suspect The Ones I Do Occasionally Use Tend To Hang Around In People's Memories For A While.

A Number Of Religions In Ankh-morpork Still Practiced Human Sacrifice, Except That They Didn't Really Need To Practice Any More Because They Had Got So Good At It.

For Example, The Dwarfs Found Out How To Turn Lead Into Gold By Doing It The Hard Way. The Difference Between That And The Easy Way Is That The Hard Way Works.

You Were Safe On A Troll. Anyone Wanting To Mug A Troll Would Have To Use A Building On A Stick.

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.

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)

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.

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

Only Ron's Dog Was Watching William. He Considered That It Had, For A Dog, A Very Offensive And Knowing Look. A Couple Of Months Ago Someaone Had Tried To Hand William The Old Story About There Being A Dog In The City That Could Talk. (...) The Dog In Front Of William Didn't Look As If It Could Talk, But It Did Look As If It Would Swear.

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.

And Then Jack Chopped Down What Was The World's Last Beanstalk, Adding Murder And Ecological Terrorism To The Theft, Enticement, And Trespass Charges Already Mentioned, And All The Giant's Children Didn't Have A Daddy Anymore. But He Got Away With It And Lived Happily Ever After, Without So Much As A Guilty Twinge About What He Had Done...which Proves That You Can Be Excused For Just About Anything If You Are A Hero, Because No One Asks Inconvenient Questions.

History Always Has A Few Tricks Up Its Frayed Sleeve. It's Been Around A Long Time.

When Much Is Taken, Something Is Returned.

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

The Only Really Sane Person In There Is Igor, And Possibly The Turnip. And I'm Not Sure About The Turnip.

All Tapes Left In A Car For More Than About A Fortnight Metamorphose Into Best Of Queen Albums.

Unlike Wizards, Who Like Nothing Better Than A Complicated Hierarchy, Witches Don't Go In Much For The Structured Approach To Career Progression. It's Up To Each Individual Witch To Take On A Girl To Hand The Area Over To When She Dies. Witches Are Not By Nature Gregarious, At Least With Other Witches, And They Certainly Don't Have Leaders. Granny Weatherwax Was The Most Highly-regarded Of The Leaders They Didn't Have.

Behind Him The Master Of Ceremonies Cleared His Throat. His Eyes Took On A Distant, Glazed Look.the Stealer Of Souls, He Said In The Faraway Voice Of One Whose Ears Aren't Hearing What His Mouth Is Saying, Defeater Of Empires, Swallower Of Oceans, Thief Of Years, The Ultimate Reality, Harvester Of Mankind, The-all Right, All Right. I Can See Myself In.

Aziraphale. The Enemy, Of Course. But An Enemy For Six Thousand Years Now, Which Made Him A Sort Of Friend.

Around It Are Those Countries Which, According To History, Constitute The Civilised World Ie, A World That Can Support Historians

The First Draft Is Just You Telling Yourself The Story.

I’ve Seen Excitement, And I’ve Seen Boredom. And Boredom Was Best.

Tiffany Knew What The Problem Was Immediately. She'd Seen It Before, At Birthday Parties. Her Brother Was Suffering From Tragic Sweet Deprivation. Yes, He Was Surrounded By Sweets. But The Moment He Took Any Sweet At All, Said His Sugar-addled Brain, That Meant He Was Not Taking All The Rest. And There Were So Many Sweets He'd Never Be Able To Eat Them All. It Was Too Much To Cope With. The Only Solution Was To Burst Into Tears.

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.

Studies Have Shown That An Ant Can Carry One Hundred Times Its Own Weight, But There Is No Known Limit To The Lifting Power Of The Average Tiny Eighty-year-old Spanish Peasant Grandmother.

Nigel Gave The Lamp A Cautious Buff And Small Smoking Red Letters Appeared In The Air. "hi," Nigel Read Aloud, "do Not Put Down The Lamp Because Your Custom Is Important To Us. Please Leave A Wish After The Tone And, Very Shortly, It Will Be Our Command. In The Meantime, Have A Nice Eternity."

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.

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.

It Is A Popular Fact That Nine-tenths Of The Brain Is Not Used And, Like Most Popular Facts, It Is Wrong. Not Even The Most Stupid Creator Would Go To The Trouble Of Making The Human Head Carry Around Several Pounds Of Unnecessary Gray Goo If Its Only Real Purpose Was, For Example, To Serve As A Delicacy For Certain Remote Tribesmen In Unexplored Valleys.

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

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

He Hated Games They Made The World Look Too Simple. Chess, In Particular, Had Always Annoyed Him. It Was The Dumb Way The Pawns Went Off And Slaughtered Their Fellow Pawns While The King Lounged About Doing Nothing. If Only The Pawns Would've United ... The Whole Board Could've Been A Republic In About A Dozen Moves.

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.

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

Tragic Heroes Always Moan When The Gods Take An Interest In Them, But It's The People The Gods Ignore Who Get The Really Tough Deals

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

Belief Is One Of The Most Powerful Organic Forces In The Multiverse. It May Not Be Able To Move Mountains, Exactly. But It Can Create Someone Who Can. People Get Exactly The Wrong Idea About Belief. They Think It Works Back To Front. They Think The Sequence Is, First Object, Then Belief. In Fact, It Works The Other Way.

They Say A Little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing, But It's Not One Half So Bad As A Lot Of Ignorance.

First Thoughts Are The Everyday Thoughts. Everyone Has Those. Second Thoughts Are The Thoughts You Think About The Way You Think. People Who Enjoy Thinking Have Those. Third Thoughts Are Thoughts That Watch The World And Think All By Themselves. They’re Rare, And Often Troublesome. Listening To Them Is Part Of Witchcraft.

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

I Wouldn't Trust You With A Bucket Of Water If My Knickers Were On Fire!

You Have To Have Really Wide Reading Habits And Pay Attention To The News And Just Everything That's Going On In The World: You Need To. If You Get This Right, Then The Writing Is A Piece Of Cake.

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.

People Like That Don't Need A Reason Apart From "because I Can". They Have A Nightmare And Try To Make It Happen.

I Think," He Said, "i Think, If You Want Thousands, You Have To Fight For One.

I Am A Technophile, So There Is No Such Thing As A First Draft. The First Draft Plunges On, And About A Quarter Of The Way Through It I Realise I'm Doing Things Wrong, So I Start Rewriting It. What You Call The First Draft Becomes Rather Like A Caterpillar; It Is Progressing Fairly Slowly, But There Is Movement Up And Down Its Whole Length, The Whole Story Is Being Changed. I Call This Draft Zero, Telling Myself How The Story Is Supposed To Go.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

The Sun Rose Slowly, As If It Wasn't Sure It Was Worth All The Effort.

Just Because You've Got A Mind Like A Hammer Doesn't Mean You Have To Treat Everyone Else Like A Nail

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

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.

That's One Form Of Magic, Of Course." "what, Just Knowing Things?" "knowing Things That Other People Don't Know.

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.

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.

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.

Voodoo Is A Very Interesting Religion For The Whole Family, Even Those Members Of It Who Are Dead.

No, What He Didn't Like About Heroes Was That They Were Usually Suicidally Gloomy When Sober And Homicidally Insane When Drunk.

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.

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

Someone Got Killed Up Here.... It Was Outside. A Tall Man. He Had One Leg Longer’n The Other. And A Beard. He Was Probably A Hunter." "how’d You Know All That?" "i Just Trod On ‘im.

It Doesn't Matter If Dragons Are Flying Overhead Or Whatever - A Lot Of Victoriana Is Still Cut In The Frame Of Fantasy.

I Like Being A Writer.

I Can't Stand Any Music That Requires Its Singers To Be So Dumb They Wear Their Baseball Caps Backwards.

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.

I Don't Think I've Ever Been Critical Of The Money Douglas Adams Makes, Especially Since, As Has Been Tactfully Pointed Out, I Myself Have Had To Change Banks Having Filled The First One Up.

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

The English Were Notoriously Unenthusiastic About Burning Witches. I Suppose Ours Were Too Soggy.

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

People Are Bound To Get Excited When They See A Ten-million-ton Starship Trying To Fly Down The Street.

It Must Be Hard For Humans, Forever Floundering Through Inconvenient Geography. Humans Are Always Lost. It's A Basic Characteristic. It Explains A Lot About Them.

Do You Not Know That A Man Is Not Dead While His Name Is Still Spoken?

Do You Think It's Possible For An Entire Nation To Be Insane?

Oh Dear Me, The Booker People Don't Like Me. I Don't Care. I Have Been Given An Award For Being Taken Not Seriously, And I Am Very, Very Pleased About That.

He Helped The Librarian Up. There Was A Red Glow In The Ape's Eyes. It Had Tried To Steal His Books. This Was Probably The Best Proof Any Wizard Could Require That The Trolleys Were Brainless.

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

The Singers All Loathe The Sight Of One Another, The Chorus Despises The Singers, They Both Hate The Orchestra, And Everyone Fears The Conductor; The Staff On One Prompt Side Won't Talk To The Staff On The Opposite Prompt Side, The Dancers Are All Crazed From Hunger In Any Case.

They've Got Something They Do It With, I Think It's Called A Mocracy, And It Means Everyone In The Whole Country Can Say Who The New Tyrant Is. One Man ... One Vet. ... Everyone Has ... The Vet. Except For Women, Of Course. And Children. And Criminals. And Slaves. And Stupid People. And People Of Foreign Extraction. And People Disapproved Of For, Er, Various Reasons. And Lots Of Other People. But Everyone Apart From Them. It's A Very Enlightened Civilization.

And All Those Exclamation Marks, You Notice? Five? A Sure Sign Of Someone Who Wears His Underpants On His Head.

Exclamation Marks

And It Came To Pass That In Time The Great God Om Spake Unto Brutha, The Chosen One: "psst!

Everything Happens For A Reason, Except Possibly Football. (in Thief Of Time)

Everything Happens For A Reason

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.

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.

You Can't Build A Plot Out Of Jokes. You Need Tragic Relief. And You Need To Let People Know That When A Lot Of Frightened People Are Running Around With Edged Weaponry, There Are Deaths. Stupid Deaths, Usually. I'm Not Writing 'the A-team' - If There's A Fight Going On, People Will Get Hurt. Not Letting This Happen Would Be A Betrayal.

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

Writing Is The Most Fun You Can Have By Yourself.

There Are Many Horrible Sights In The Multiverse. Somehow, Though, To A Soul Attuned To The Subtle Rhythms Of A Library, There Are Few Worse Sights Than A Hole Where A Book Ought To Be.

I Have, Before Now, Waited For A Pen To Perform A Macro.

Insanity Is Catching.

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.

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

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

No One Knew Where You Were Before You Were Born, But When You Were Born, It Wasn't Long Before You Found You'd Arrived With Your Return Ticket Already Punched.

I Don't Think I've Drunk Enough Beer To Understand That.

The Baby Boomers Are Getting Older, And Will Stay Older For Longer. And They Will Run Right Into The Dementia Firing Range. How Will A Society Cope? Especially A Society That Can't So Readily Rely On Those Stable Family Relationships That Traditionally Provided The Backbone Of Care?

It Was Said That Life Was Cheap In Ankh-morpork. This Was Of Course, Completely Wrong. Life Was Often Very Expensive; You Could Get Death For Free.

Appreciate Life

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

Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot.

All I Am Really Promoting In The Books Is The Golden Rule, Which I Hope Everybody Knows To Be "do As You Would Be Done By." It Has One Or 2 Flaws, But It Is A Good Soundbite. Evil Starts When You Treat Other People As Things. There Are Perhaps Worse Crimes, But They Begin When You Treat Other People As Things.

People Don't Alter History Any More Than Birds Alter The Sky, They Just Make Brief Patterns In It.

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.

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.

People Wanted The World To Be A Story, Because Stories Had To Sound Right And They Had To Make Sense. People Wanted The World To Make Sense.

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

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.

All Property Is Theft, Except Mine.

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