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Little Fussy Otto, In His Red-lined Black Opera Cloak With Pockets For All His Gear, His Shiny Black Shoes, His Carefully Cut Widow's Peak And, Not Least, His Ridiculous Accent That Grew Thicker Or Thinner Depending On Who He Was Talking To, Did Not Look Like A Threat. He Looked Funny, A Joke, A Music-hall Vampire. It Had Never Previously Occurred To Vimes That, Just Possibly, The Joke Was On Other People.

-Terry Pratchett

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Little Fussy Otto, In

Terry Pratchett

...

Little Fussy Otto, In His Red-lined Black Opera Cloak With Pockets For All His Gear, His Shiny Black Shoes, His Carefully Cut Widow's Peak And, Not Least, His Ridiculous Accent That Grew Thicker Or Thinner Depending On Who He Was Talking To, Did Not Look Like A Threat. He Looked Funny, A Joke, A Music-hall Vampire. It Had Never Previously Occurred To Vimes That, Just Possibly, The Joke Was On Other People.

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Real Education Happens When You Pick Up A Fact Here, And Another Fact There, And Put Them Together And Get An Insight.

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

Some People Believe That When You Die, You Cross The River Of Death And Have To Pay The Ferryman. People Don’t Seem To Worry About That These Days. Perhaps There’s A Bridge Now.

Are You A Philosopher? Where's Your Sponge?

Seeing Things A Human Shouldn't Have To See Makes Us Human.

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).

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'.

Ponder Just Let It Happen. It's Because Their Minds Are So Often Involved With Deep And Problematic Matters, He Told Himself, That Their Mouths Are Allowed To Wander Around Making A Nuisance Of Themselves.

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

So Let's Not Get Frightened When The Children Read Fantasy. It's The Compost For A Healthy Mind. It Stimulate S The Inquisitive Nodes, And There Is Some Evidence That A Rich Internal Fantasy Life Is As Good And Necessary For A Child As Healthy Soil Is For A Plant, For Much The Same Reasons.

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.

And The People Next Door Oppress Me All Night Long. I Tell Them, I Work All Day, A Man's Got To Have Some Time To Learn To Play The Tuba. That's Oppression, That Is. If I'm Not Under The Heel Of The Oppressor, I Don't Know Who Is.

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.

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

I Have No Use For People Who Have Learned The Limits Of The Possible.

The Kappamaki, A Whaling Research Ship, Was Currently Researching The Question: How Many Whales Can You Catch In One Week?

Cats Don't Hunt Seals. They Would If They Knew What They Were And Where To Find Them. But They Don't, So That's All Right.

Whut's The Plan, Rob?" Said One Of Them. "okay, Lads, This Is What We'll Do. As Soon As We See Somethin', We'll Attack It. Right?" This Caused A Cheer. "ach, 'tis A Good Plan," Said Daft Wullie.

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.

But Then Science Is Nothing But A Series Of Questions That Lead To More Questions.

She Walked Quickly Through The Darkness With The Frank Stride Of Someone Who Was At Least Certain That The Forest, On This Damp And Windy Night, Contained Strange And Terrible Things And She Was 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.

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

The Yen Buddhists Are The Richest Religious Sect In The Universe. They Hold That The Accumulation Of Money Is A Great Evil And A Burden To The Soul. They Therefore, Regardless Of Personal Hazard, See It As Their Unpleasant Duty To Acquire As Much As Possible In Order To Reduce The Risk To Innocent People.

The Librarians Were Mysterious. It Was Said They Could Tell What Book You Needed Just By Looking At You, And They Could Take Your Voice Away With A Word.

I Dinna Trust Him," Said Slightly Mad Angus. "he Reads Books An' Such.

The Trouble Was That He Was Talking In Philosophy But They Were Listening In Gibberish.

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

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

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

Ordinary Fortune-tellers Tell You What You Want To Happen; Witches Tell You What’s Going To Happen Whether You Want It To Or Not. Strangely Enough, Witches Tend To Be More Accurate But Less Popular.

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.

No Real Sunrise Could Paint The Sky Surgical Appliance Pink.

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

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.

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

Lords And Ladies

Of Course, It Is Very Important To Be Sober When You Take An Exam. Many Worthwhile Careers In The Street-cleansing, Fruit-picking And Subway-guitar-playing Industries Have Been Founded On A Lack Of Understanding Of This Simple Fact.

"right!" "right!" "you Can Get There!" "i Can Get There!" "you're A Natural At Counting To Two!" "i'm A Nat'ral At Counting To Two!" "if You Can Count To Two, You Can Count To Anything!" "if I Can Count To Two, I Can Count To Anything!" "and Then The World Is Your Mollusc!" "my Mollusc! What's A Mollusc?

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

It Was Nice To Hear The Voices Of Little Children At Play, Provided You Took Care To Be Far Enough Away Not To Hear What They Were Actually Saying.

Soon To Come In Licorice, Orange, Cinnamon, And Banana, But Not Strawberry, Because I Hate Strawberries.

I Read Anything That’s Going To Be Interesting. But You Don’t Know What It Is Until You’ve Read It. Somewhere In A Book On The History Of False Teeth There’ll Be The Making Of A Novel.

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

...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.

Do Not Meddle In The Affairs Of Wizards Because A Refusal Often Offends, I Read Somewhere.

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

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

Interesting Thing, These Fellows Never Seem To Get The Idea Of Perspective-' The Bursar Thought, Or Received The Thought: That's Because Perspective Is A Lie. If I Know A Pond Is Round Then Why Should I Draw It Oval? I Will Draw It Round Because Round Is True. Why Should My Brush Lie To You Just Because My Eye Lies To Me?

The Trouble Is You Can Shut Your Eyes But You Can’t Shut Your Mind.

I'm Up To My Neck In The Real World, Every Day. Just You Try Doing Your Vat Return With A Head Full Of Goblins.

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.

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The Captain Of The Watch Says If You're Still In The City By Sunrise He Will Personally Have You Buried Alive.

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

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The Universe Was Bad Enough Without People Poking It.

In My Experience, What Every True Artist Wants, Really Wants, Is To Be Paid.

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It's Hard To Be Famous And Alive.

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

Light Died In The West. Night And Tears Took The Nation. The Star Of Water Drifted Among The Clouds Like A Murderer Softly Leaving The Scene Of The Crime.

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

Happiness Is Not The Natural State Of Mankind, And Is Never Achieved From The Outside In.

Even The Blind And Meek And Voiceless Have Gods.

Privilege (to The Privileged) Means Having Private Laws.

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

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Most Gods Find It Hard To Walk And Think At The Same Time.

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

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So, Mistletoe, In Fact, Symbolizes Mistletoe.

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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.

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

There Are Times When Phrases Such As 'totally Astonished' Just Don't Do The Job. I Am Of Course Delighted And Honoured And, Needless To Say, Flabbergasted.

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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.

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

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

The Trouble With Life Was That You Didn’t Get A Chance To Practice Before Doing It For Real.

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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

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

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

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.

You See The Lighted Windows And What You Want To Think Is That There May Be Many Interesting Stories Behind Them, But What You Know Is That Really There Are Just Dull, Dull Souls, Mere Consumers Of Food, Who Think Their Instincts Are Emotions And Their Tiny Lives Of More Account Than A Whisper Of Wind.

I Wrote Three Books, I Had Three Greenhouses. It Seemed To Me To Be Very Satisfactory.

Correct Observation Followed By Meticulous Deduction And The Precise Visualization Of Goals Is Vital To The Success Of Any Enterprise.

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

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

The Harder I Work, The Luckier I Become.

Inspirational Life

The Landscape Was Snow And Green Ice On Broken Mountains. These Weren't Old Mountains, Worn Down By Time And Weather And Full Of Gentle Ski Slopes, But Young, Sulky, Adolescent Mountains. They Held Secret Ravines And Merciless Crevices. One Yodel Out Of Place Would Attract, Not The Jolly Echo Of A Lonely Goatherd, But Fifty Tons Of Express-delivery Snow.

He’s Bound To Have Done Something,” Nobby Repeated. In This He Was Echoing The Patrician’s View Of Crime And Punishment. If There Was A Crime, There Should Be Punishment. If The Specific Criminal Should Be Involved In The Punishment Process Then This Was A Happy Accident, But If Not Then Any Criminal Would Do, And Since Everyone Was Undoubtedly Guilty Of Something, The Net Result Was That, In General Terms, Justice Was Done.

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

Life Is A Trick, And You Get One Chance To Learn It.

People's Whole Lives Do Pass In Front Of Their Eye Before They Die. The Process Is Called "living".

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.

Well, It Would Have To Be “the Man Who Was Thursday.” It’s A Damn Good Read That I Believe Should Be Read By Everyone In Politics.

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.

I Had A Deprived Childhood, You See. I Had Lots Of Other Kids To Play With And My Parents Bought Me Outdoor Toys And Refused To Ill-treat Me, So It Never Occurred To Me To Seek Solitary Consolation With A Good Book.

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.

That Was The Very Centre Of His Genius - He Invented Things That Anyone Could Have Thought Of, And Men Who Can Invent Things That Anyone Could Have Thought Of Are Very Rare Men.

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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.

All Property Is Theft, Except Mine.

We Sleepwalk Through Our Lives, Because How Could We Live If We Were Always This Awake?

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

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

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.

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

Magic Never Dies. It Merely Fades Away.

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?

He'd Been Wrong, There Was A Light At The End Of The Tunnel, And It Was A Flamethrower.

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

I Commend My Soul To Any God That Can Find It.

The Wages Of Sin Is Death But So Is The Salary Of Virtue, And At Least The Evil Get To Go Home Early On Fridays.

The First Draft Is Just You Telling Yourself The Story.

It's Vital To Remember Who You Really Are. It's Very Important. It Isn't A Good Idea To Rely On Other People Or Things To Do It For You, You See. They Always Get It Wrong.

Who Knows What The Future Holds.

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Evil Begins When You Begin To Treat People As Things.

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

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.

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.

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

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

... 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.

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

The Enemy Isn’t Men, Or Women, It’s Bloody Stupid People And No-one Has The Right To Be Stupid.

I Imagine That Fish Have No Word For Water.

It's An Old Magical Principle - It's Even Filtered Down Into Rpg Systems - That Magic, While Taking A Lot Of Effort, Can Be 'stored' - In A Staff, For Example. No Doubt A Wizard Spends A Little Time Each Day Charging Up His Staff, Although You Go Blind If You Do It Too Much, Of Course.

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

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

Thou Shalt Not Submit Thy God To Market Forces.

I See Evil When I Look In My Shaving Mirror. It Is, Philosophically, Present Everywhere In The Universe In Order, Apparently, To Highlight The Existence Of Good. I Think There Is More To This Theory, But I Tend To Burst Out Laughing At This Point.

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.

Winston Churchill Said 'in War Time, Truth Is So Precious That She Should Always Be Attended By A Bodyguard Of Lies'. Any Book Called The Truth Should Therefore Have One.

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

Granny Sighed. "you Have Learned Something," She Said, And Thought It Safe To Insert A Touch Of Sternness Into Her Voice. "they Say A Little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing, But It Is Not One Half So Bad As A Lot Of Ignorance.

I Have A Living Will And I Have Friends, And I Have Money And I Have Hope.

I'd Like To Walk On The Moon (and Return).

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.

They Know That People Need Witches; They Need The Unofficial People Who Understand The Difference Between Right And Wrong, And When Right Is Wrong And When Wrong Is Right. The World Needs The People Who Work Around The Edges. They Need The People Who Can Deal With The Little Bumps And Inconveniences. And Little Problems. After All, We Are Almost All Human. Almost All Of The Time.

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

Fear Is A Strange Soil. It Grows Obedience Like Corn, Which Grow In Straight Lines To Make Weeding Easier. But Sometimes It Grows The Potatoes Of Defiance, Which Flourish Underground.

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.

An Ancient Proverb Summed It Up When A Wizard Is Tired Of Looking For Broken Glass In His Dinner, It Ran, He Is Tired Of Life.

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

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

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.

Many An Ancient Lord's Last Words Have Been, 'you Can't Kill Me Because I've Got Magic Aaargh.'

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

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.

Writing Is The Most Fun You Can Have By Yourself.

I Like Being A Writer.

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

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

Don't You Understand?" Snarled Rincewind. "we Are Going Over The Edge, Godsdammit!" "can't We Do Anything About It?" "no!" "then I Can't See The Sense In Panicking," Said Twoflower Calmly.

Next Comes The Realist Phase ("after All, From A Purely Geometrical Point Of View A Cat Is Only A Tube With A Door At The Top.")

Anyway, Lots Of Warrior Tribes Think That When They Die, They Go To A Heavenly Land Somewhere," Said The Toad. "you Know, Where They Can Drink And Fight And Feast Forever? So Maybe This Is Theirs." "but This Is A Real Place!" "so? That's What They Believe. Besides, They're Only Small. Maybe The Universe Is A Bit Crowded And They Have To Put Heavens Anywhere There's Room? I'm A Toad, So You'll Appreciate That I'm Having To Guess A Lot Here.

Insanity Is Catching.

Fantasy Is An Exercise Bicycle For The Mind. It Might Not Take You Anywhere, But It Tones Up The Muscles That Can.

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.

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.

Vimes Had Got Around To A Clean Desk Policy. It Was A Clean Floor Strategy That Eluded Him At The Moment.

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.

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

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

When I Am Old I Shall Wear Midnight.

Heaven Has No Taste." "now-" "and Not One Single Sushi Restaurant." A Look Of Pain Crossed The Angel's Suddenly Very Serious Face.

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

That's What's So Stupid About The Whole Magic Thing, You Know. You Spend Twenty Years Learning The Spell That Makes Nude Virgins Appear In Your Bedroom, And Then You're So Poisoned By Quicksilver Fumes And Half-blind From Reading Old Grimoires That You Can't Remember What Happens Next.

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

You Know, I Never Imagined There Were He-dryads. Not Even In An Oak Tree." One Of The Giants Grinned At Him. Druellae Snorted. "stupid! Where Do You Think Acorns Come From?

Everyone Is Reading What They Like And That's A Good Thing.

They Called Themselves The Munrungs. It Meant The People, Or The True Human Beings. It's What Most People Call Themselves, To Begin With. And Then One Day The Tribe Meets Some Other People Or, If It's Not Been A Good Day, The Enemy. If Only They'd Think Up A Name Like Some More True Human Beings, It'd Save A Lot Of Trouble Later On

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.

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.

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

Because Some Stories End, But Old Stories Go On, And You Gotta Dance To The Music If You Want To Stay Ahead

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.

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