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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.

-Terry Pratchett

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Jeremy Tried To Be

Terry Pratchett

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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.

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

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.

I Would Advise Budding Writers Some Other Kind Of Job, Unless They Think They're Very, Very Lucky.

Build A Man A Fire, And He'll Be Warm For A Day. Set A Man On Fire, And He'll Be Warm For The Rest Of His Life.

The Presence Of Those Seeking The Truth Is Infinitely To Be Preferred To The Presence Of Those Who Think They've Found It.

Over The Centuries, Mankind Has Tried Many Ways Of Combating The Forces Of Evil... Prayer, Fasting, Good Works And So On. Up Until Doom, No One Seemed To Have Thought About The Double-barrel Shotgun. Eat Leaden Death, Demon...

Eight Years Involved With The Nuclear Industry Have Taught Me That When Nothing Can Possible Go Wrong And Every Avenue Has Been Covered, Then Is The Time To Buy A House On The Next Continent.

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.

Education Had Been Easy. Learning Things Had Been Harder.

...roland De Chumsfanleigh (it Wasn't His Fault).

Our Garden Was Debated Territory Between Five Local Cats, And We'd Heard That The Best Way To Keep Other Cats Out Of The Garden Was To Have One Yourself. A Moment's Rational Thought Here Will Spot The Slight Flaw In This Reasoning.

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

... When Your Name Is Really And Truly Percy Blakeney, Pronounced 'black-knee', And You Still Have Bad Acne In Your Twenties, You Accept Pimple As A Nickname And Are Grateful That It Wasn't Anything Worse.

The Thief, As Will Become Apparent, Was A Special Type Of Thief. This Thief Was An Artist Of Theft. Other Thieves Merely Stole Everything That Was Not Nailed Down, But This Thief Stole The Nails As Well.

They Felt, In Fact, Tremendously Bucked-up, Which Was How Lady Ramkin Would Almost Certainly Have Put It And Which Was Definitely Several Letters Of The Alphabet Away From How They Normally Felt.

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.

Contrary To Popular Belief And Hope, People Don't Usually Come Running When They Hear A Scream. That's Not How Humans Work. Humans Look At Other Humans And Say, 'did You Hear A Scream?' Because The First Scream Might Have Been You Screaming Inside Your Head, Or A Horse Backfiring.

You Can't Make People Happy By Law. If You Said To A Bunch Of Average People Two Hundred Years Ago "would You Be Happy In A World Where Medical Care Is Widely Available, Houses Are Clean, The World's Music And Sights And Foods Can Be Brought Into Your Home At Small Cost, Traveling Even 100 Miles Is Easy, Childbirth Is Generally Not Fatal To Mother Or Child, You Don't Have To Die Of Dental Abscesses And You Don't Have To Do What The Squire Tells You" They'd Think You Were Talking About The New Jerusalem And Say "yes."

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).

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

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

Its Useful To Go Out Of This World And See It From The Perspective Of Another One.

Stories Of Imagination Tend To Upset Those Without One.

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.

Tʜᴇʀᴇ's ɴᴏ ᴊᴜsᴛɪᴄᴇ, ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ's ᴊᴜsᴛ ᴍᴇ. —death

Wikipedia, Eh? Must Be Accurate Then.

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

You Had To Hand It To The Patrician, He Admitted Grudgingly. If You Didn't, He Sent Men To Come And Take It Away.

Little Crimes Breed Big Crimes. You Smile At Little Crimes And Then Big Crimes Blow Your Head Off.

It Was A Backwards Memory Of An Event In His Future So Terrifying That It Had Generated Harmonics Of Fear All The Way Along His Lifeline.

So Much Universe, And So Little Time.

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

Where's The Pleasure In Bein' The Winner If The Loser Ain't Alive To Know They've Lost?

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.

Matter Exploded Into Being, Apparently As Chaos, But In Fact As A Chord. The Ultimate Power Chord.

I Found While Driving In Wyoming That Wearing A Stetson And Driving A Beat-up Pickup Meant You Could Go As Fast As You Like, While The Police Picked Up Californian Winnebagos That Went One Mph Over 55. After All, They Wanted To Bring Money Into The State, Not Merely Circulate It.

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

Cake Is Not The Issue Here.

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

Nothing But Dust And Fundamentalists.

The Brain Works Fast When It Thinks It’s About To Be Cut In Half.

On The Disc The Gods Dealt Severely With Atheists.

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

The People Of Ankh-morpork Had A Straightforward, No-nonsense Approach To Entertainment, And While They Were Looking Forward To Seeing A Dragon Slain, They'd Be Happy To Settle Instead For Seeing Someone Being Baked Alive In His Own Armour. You Didn't Get The Chance Every Day To See Someone Baked Alive In Their Own Armour. It Would Be Something For The Children To Remember.

You're Allowed To Grant People Into The Darkness, But You Must Allow Them To Come Out Again.

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

But What's Worth More Than Gold?" "practically Everything. You, For Example. Gold Is Heavy. Your Weight In Gold Is Not Very Much Gold At All. Aren't You Worth More Than That?

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.

It's A God-eat-god World.

The Female Mind Is Certainly A Devious One, My Lord." Vetinari Looked At His Secretary In Surprise. "well, Of Course It Is. It Has To Deal With The Male One.

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.

That's The Ankh-morpork Instinct, Vimes Thought. Run Away, And Then Stop And See If Anything Interesting Is Going To Happen To Other People.

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

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.

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

This Is Art Holding A Mirror Up To Life. That’s Why Everything Is Exactly The Wrong Way Around.

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.

… 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.

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

The Thing About Stories Is You Have To Pick The Ones That Last.

It Was Raining In The Small, Mountainous Country Of Llamedos. It Was Always Raining In Llamedos. Rain Was The Country's Main Export. It Had Rain Mines.

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

Lords And Ladies

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

Gods Prefer Simple, Vicious Games, Where You Do Not Achieve Transcendence But Go Straight To Oblivion; A Key To The Understanding Of All Religion Is That A God's Idea Of Amusement Is Snakes And Ladders With Greased Rungs.

They Think Written Words Are Even More Powerful,’ Whispered The Toad. ‘they Think All Writing Is Magic. Words Worry Them. See Their Swords? They Glow Blue In The Presence Of Lawyers.

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?

Cats Gravitate To Kitchens Like Rocks Gravitate To Gravity.

Granny Was An Old-fashioned Witch. She Didn’t Do Good For People, She Did Right By Them.

Fate Can Be One Mean God At Times.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Occasionally He Would Very Nearly Swear.

The Intelligence Of The Creature Known As A Crowd, Is The Square Root Of The Number Of People In It.

Who Knows What The Future Holds.

Whole New Theories Of Money Were Growing Here Like Mushrooms: In The Dark And Based On Bullshit.

Imagination, Not Intelligence, Made Us Human.

Let Grammar, Punctuation, And Spelling Into Your Life! Even The Most Energetic And Wonderful Mess Has To Be Turned Into Sentences.

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."

Wisdom Is One Of The Few Things That Looks Bigger The Further Away It Is.

Horoscope: Today Is A Good Time For Making New Friends. A Good Deed May Have Unforeseen Consequences. Don’t Upset Any Druids. You Will Soon Be Going On A Very Strange Journey. Your Lucky Food Is Small Cucumbers. People Pointing Knives At You Are Probably Up To No Good. Ps, We Really Mean It About The Druids.

People Don't Like To Say Horror So They Say Dark Fantasy Because That's Horror Wearing A Collar And Tie.

You Did What You Were Told Or You Didn't Get Paid, And If Things Went Wrong It Wasn't Your Problem. It Was The Fault Of Whatever Idiot Has Accepted This Message For Sending In The First Place. No One Cared About You, And Everyone At Headquarters Was An Idiot. It Wasn't Your Fault, No One Listened To You. Headquarters Had Even Started An Employee Of The Month Scheme To Show How Much They Cared. That Was How Much They Didn't Care.

People Couldn't Become Truly Holy, He Said, Unless They Also Had The Opportunity To Be Definitively Wicked.

He'd Heard That Writers Spent All Day In Their Dressing Gowns Drinking Champagne. This Is, Of Course, Absolutely True.

They Say That The Prospect Of Being Hanged In The Morning Concentrates A Man's Mind Wonderfully; Unfortunately, What The Mind Inevitably Concentrates On Is That, In The Morning, It Will Be In A Body That Is Going To Be Hanged.

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.

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

Death Was Standing Behind A Lectern, Poring Over A Map. He Looked At Mort As If He Wasn’t Entirely There. You Haven't Heard Of The Bayof Mante, Have You? He Said. “no, Sir,” Said Mort. Famous Shipwreck There. “was There?” There Will Be, Said Death, If I Can Find The Damn Place.

Strength Enough To Build A Home, Time Enough To Hold A Child, Love Enough To Break A Heart

Knowing That You Are Going To Die Is, I Suspect, The Beginning Of Wisdom.

He Sighed. It Had Come To This. He Was A Responsible Authority, And People Could Use Terms Like "core Values" At Him With Impunity.

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.

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

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.

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

Learnin’ How Not To Do Things Is As Hard As Learning How To Do Them.

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.

Would A Minute Have Mattered? No, Probably Not, Although His Young Son Appeared To Have A Very Accurate Internal Clock. Possibly Even 2 Minutes Would Be Okay. Three Minutes, Even. You Could Go To Five Minutes, Perhaps. But That Was Just It. If You Could Go For Five Minutes, Then You'd Go To Ten, Then Half An Hour, A Couple Of Hours...and Not See Your Son All Evening. So That Was That. Six O'clock, Prompt. Every Day. Read To Young Sam. No Excuses. He'd Promised Himself That. No Excuses. No Excuses At All. Once You Had A Good Excuse, You Opened The Door To Bad Excuses.

Although The Scythe Isn't Pre-eminent Among The Weapons Of War, Anyone Who Has Been On The Wrong End Of, Say, A Peasants' Revolt Will Know That In Skilled Hands It Is Fearsome.

He Thought About How It Might Be To Be, Say, A Fox Confronted With An Angry Sheep. A Sheep Moreover, That Could Afford To Employ Wolves.

These Weren't Encouraged In The City, Since The Heft And Throw Of A Longbow's Arrow Could Send It Through An Innocent Bystander A Hundred Yards Away Instead Of The Innocent Bystander At Whom It Was Aimed.

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

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

Seeing, Contrary To Popular Wisdom, Isn't Believing. It's Where Belief Stops, Because It Isn't Needed Any More.

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

Thou Shalt Not Submit Thy God To Market Forces.

I Know It’s Not The Right Thing To Say To A Lady, Miss, But You Are Sweating Like A Pig!" "my Mother Always Said That Horses Sweat, Men Perspire, And Ladies Merely Glow…" "is That So? Well, Miss, You Are Glowing Like A Pig!

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.

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.

People Who Are Rather More Than Six Feet Tall And Nearly As Broad Across The Shoulders Often Have Uneventful Journeys. People Jump Out At Them From Behind Rocks Then Say Things Like, "oh. Sorry. I Thought You Were Someone Else.

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

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.

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

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.

Most Gods Throw Dice, But Fate Plays Chess, And You Don't Find Out Til Too Late That He's Been Playing With Two Queens All Along.

You Can Think And You Can Fight, But The World's Always Movin', And If You Wanna Stay Ahead You Gotta Dance.

I Stroll Along, Talk, I Sign Books, People Buy Me Drinks, I Forget Where My Hotel Is, I Get Lost And Fall Into Some Local Body Of Water... Done It Hundreds Of Times.

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.

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.

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

"out Of Print" Is Bookseller Speak For "we Can't Be Hedgehogged".

Their Families Cordially Detested One Another.

It's A Guilty Secret Of A Lot Of Writers, As You Get Older You Don't Read As Much Fiction As You Used To, Mainly Because It's Like You Are Deconstructing It All The Time.

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

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

Magicians And Scientists Are, On The Face Of It, Poles Apart. Certainly, A Group Of People Who Often Dress Strangely, Live In A World Of Their Own, Speak A Specialized Language And Frequently Make Statements That Appear To Be In Flagrant Breach Of Common Sense Have Nothing In Common With A Group Of People Who Often Dress Strangely, Speak A Specialized Language, Live In ... Er.

I Was Just A Kid Then. But I Won't Forget. Nor Will Others. There's Lots Of People With Reason To Hate The Church.

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.

Young Adults That Actually Read Are Reading Bodice Rippers And Best-sellers And Me. And Horror.

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.

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

One Thing That Writers Have In Common Is That They Are Readers First. They Have Read Lots And Lots Of Stuff, Because They're Just Infested With Lots Of Stuff.

Books Must Be Treated With Respect, We Feel That In Our Bones, Because Words Have Power. Bring Enough Words Together They Can Bend Space And Time.

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

There's Always A Story. It's All Stories, Really. The Sun Coming Up Every Day Is A Story. Everything's Got A Story In It. Change The Story, Change The World.

And What Are You Doing On It, I Would Like To Know? Running Away From Home, Yesno? If You Were A Boy I'd Say Are You Going To Seek Your Fortune?" "can't Girls Seek Their Fortune?" "i Think They're Supposed To Seek A Boy With A Fortune.

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

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

Last Night There Seemed To Be A Chance. Anything Was Possible Last Night. That Was The Trouble With Last Nights. They Were Always Followed By This Mornings.

Preston, I Don't Think This Creature Could Ever Find Its Way Into Your Head. Quite Apart From Anything Else, It Seems Pretty Crowded And Complicated To Me.

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.

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.

Peace?' Said Vetinari. 'ah, Yes, Defined As Period Of Time To Allow For Preparation For The Next War.

The Students Were Staring At Her In The Manner Of Those Who Have Heard Of The Species 'female' But Have Never Expected To Get This Close To One.

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.

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

He Moved On, In The Centre Of A Widening Circle. He Wasn't An Enemy, He Was A Nemesis.

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

Ninety Percent Of True Love Is Acute, Ear-burning Embarrassment.

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

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

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.

They Were Also Slightly Less Intelligent Than He Was. This Is A Quality You Should Always Pray For In Your Would-be Murderer.

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.

Everything Makes Sense A Bit At A Time. But When You Try To Think Of It All At Once, It Comes Out Wrong.

Getting An Education Was A Bit Like A Communicable Sexual Disease. It Made You Unsuitable For A Lot Of Jobs And Then You Had The Urge To Pass It On.

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

But Of Course, What The Eagle Does Not Realize Is That It Is Participating In A Very Crude Form Of Natural Selection.one Day A Tortoise Will Learn How To Fly.

Making Money Isn't Something To Be Ashamed Of. There's A Feeling Now That If You Have Money You Must Have Got It By Some Kind Of Shady Dealing Or Being An Mp.

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.

If You Trust In Yourself. . .and Believe In Your Dreams. . .and Follow Your Star. . . You'll Still Get Beaten By People Who Spent Their Time Working Hard And Learning Things And Weren't So Lazy.

It's A Sword. Said The Hogfather. They're Not Meant To Be Safe.

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'.

And When The Patrician Was Unhappy, He Became Very Democratic. He Found Intricate And Painful Ways Of Spreading That Unhappiness As Far As Possible.

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 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.

Be Careful What You Wish For. You Never Know Who Will Be Listening.

If He'd Been A Hero, He Would Have Taken The Opportunity To Say, "that's What I Call Sorted!" Since He Wasn't A Hero, He Threw Up.

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

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.

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

It Was Also A Room Full Of Books And Made Of Books. There Was No Actual Furniture; This Is To Say, The Desk And Chairs Were Shaped Out Of Books. It Looked As Though Many Of Them Were Frequently Referred To, Because They Lay Open With Other Books Used As Bookmarks.

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.

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.

And, While It Was Regarded As Pretty Good Evidence Of Criminality To Be Living In A Slum, For Some Reason Owning A Whole Street Of Them Merely Got You Invited To The Very Best Social Occasions.

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.

Even A Really Bad Creator Would At Least Have Started With Earth, Air, Fire, Water And Surprise.

Journalism Makes You Think Fast. You Have To Speak To People In All Walks Of Life. Especially Local Journalism.

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

No Matter What She Did With Her Hair It Took About Three Minutes For It To Tangle Itself Up Again, Like A Garden Hosepipe In A Shed [which, No Matter How Carefully Coiled, Will Always Uncoil Overnight And Tie The Lawnmower To The Bicycles].

It Was So Loud And So Deep, It Wasn't Really Sound At All, Just Something That Turned The Air Hard And Then Hit You With It.

You Did Something Because It Had Always Been Done, And The Explanation Was, ‘but We’ve Always Done It This Way.’ A Million Dead People Can’t Have Been Wrong, Can They?

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

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

He Stared At His Feet. “i’m Still Very Ignorant,” He Said, “but At Least I’m Ignorant About Really Important Things.

He Was Certain He Was Anorectic, Because Every Time He Looked In A Mirror He Saw A Fat Man. It Was The Archchancellor, Standing Behind Him And Shouting At Him.

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

I Know It's A Very Human Thing To Say 'is There Anything I Can Do', But In This Case I Would Only Entertain Offers From Very High-end Experts In Brain Chemistry.

You Can't Trust Folk Songs. They Always Sneak Up On You.

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

Truly, He Thought, The Way Of Enlightenment Is Like Unto Half A Mile Of Broken Glass.

One Of The Recurring Philosophical Questions Is: 'does A Falling Tree In The Forest Make A Sound When There Is No One To Hear?' Which Says Something About The Nature Of Philosophers , Because There Is Always Someone In A Forest. It May Only Be A Badger, Wondering What That Cracking Noise Was, Or A Squirrel A Bit Puzzled By All The Scenery Going Upwards, But Someone.

Your Whole Life Passes In Front Of Your Eyes Before You Die. This Is Called Living.

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.

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.

It's Actually True That I Keep Myself Going By Constantly Promising Myself That In Response For The Hard Work I Will Be Allowed To Do Some More Hard Work Later On.

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

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

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