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Mum Had Done Everything You Need To Educate A Kid. She Made Me A Kid Who Likes Books And She Told Me About 'wind In The Willows' And Read It And I Thought This Is Weird, Rat, Mole, Toad And My First Ever Bolshie Thought - You Know About 'the Wind In The Willows.'

-Terry Pratchett

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Mum Had Done Everything

Terry Pratchett

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Mum Had Done Everything You Need To Educate A Kid. She Made Me A Kid Who Likes Books And She Told Me About 'wind In The Willows' And Read It And I Thought This Is Weird, Rat, Mole, Toad And My First Ever Bolshie Thought - You Know About 'the Wind In The Willows.'

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There Isn't A Way Things Should Be. There's Just What Happens, And What We Do.

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.

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

...no-one Is Finally Dead Until The Ripples They Cause In The World Die Away... The Span Of Someone's Life, They Say, Is Only The Core Of Their Actual Existence.

Some Things Are Fairly Obvious When It's A Seven-foot Skeleton With A Scythe Telling You Them.

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.

Credulous: Having Views About The World, The Universe And Humanity's Place In It That Are Shared Only By Very Unsophisticated People And The Most Intelligent And Advanced Mathematicians And Physicists.

If Failure Had No Penalty Success Would Not Be A Prize.

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

There Are No Medium-sized Trees In The Deep Forest. There Are Only The Towering Ones, Whose Canopy Spreads Across The Sky. Below, In The Gloom, There's Light For Nothing But Mosses And Ferns. But When A Giant Falls, Leaving A Little Space ... Then There's A Race - Between The Trees On Either Side, Who Want To Spread Out, And The Seedlings Below, Who Race To Grow Up. Sometimes, You Can Make Your Own Space.

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

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

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

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

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

Do Not Act Incautiously When Confronting A Little Bald Wrinkly Smiling Man!

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.

It's Amazing How Fast Gold Works.

The Days Followed One Another Patiently. Right Back At The Beginning Of The Multiverse They Had Tried All Passing At The Same Time, And It Hadn't Worked.

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

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

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

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

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.

Taxation, Gentlemen, Is Very Much Like Dairy Farming. The Task Is To Extract The Maximum Amount Of Milk With The Minimum Amount Of Moo.

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.

Some Humans Would Do Anything To See If It Was Possible To Do It. If You Put A Large Switch In Some Cave Somewhere, With A Sign On It Saying 'end-of-the-world Switch. Please Do Not Touch,' The Paint Wouldn't Even Have Time To Dry.

Oh, My Dear Vimes, History Changes All The Time. It Is Constantly Being Re-examined And Re-evaluated, Otherwise How Would We Be Able To Keep Historians Occupied? We Can't Possibly Allow People With Their Sort Of Minds To Walk Around With Time On Their Hands.

The Shortest Unit Of Time In The Multiverse Is The New York Second, Defined As The Period Of Time Between The Traffic Lights Turning Green And The Cab Behind You Honking.

There Is A Soak-the-rich Attitude In The Air, A Feeling That If You Have A Lot Of Money You Must Have Got It By Some Ghastly Means. I Can Quite Happily Say There Was Never Any Family Money. All The Money We Got Was Mine, Just From Writing Books.

If You Want To Change A Whole People, Then You Start With The Girls. It Stands To Reason: They Learn Faster, And They Pass On What They Learn To Their Children.

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

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

I’m A Witch. It’s What We Do. When It’s Nobody Else’s Business, It’s My Business.

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

... 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.

But…but You Can’t Treat Religion As A Sort Of Buffet, Can You? I Mean, You Can’t Say Yes Please, I’ll Have Some Of The Celestial Paradise And A Helping Of The Divine Plan But Go Easy On The Kneeling And None Of The Prohibition Of Images, They Give Me Wind. Its Table D´hôte Or Nothing, Otherwise…well, It Would Be Silly.

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.

Were You Proposing To Shoot These People In Cold Blood, Sergeant?" "nossir. Just A Warning Shot Inna Head, Sir.

A Horse's Skull Always Looks Scary, Even If Someone Has Put Lipstick On It.

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

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

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.

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."

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

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

Well, The Traveling Teachers Do Come Through Every Few Months," Said The Baron. "yes, Sir, I Know, Sir, And They're Useless, Sir. They Teach Facts, Not Understanding. It's Like Teaching People About Forests By Showing Them A Saw. I Want A Proper School, Sir, To Teach Reading And Writing, And Most Of All Thinking, Sir, So People Can Find What They're Good At, Because Someone Doing What They Really Like Is Always An Asset To Any Country, And Too Often People Never Find Out Until It's Too Late.

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

I Don't Want Unnecessary Violence, Sergeant," Said Blouse. "right You Are, Sir!" Said The Sergeant. "carborundum! First Man Comes Through That Door Runnin', I Want Him Nailed To The Wall!" He Caught The Lieutenant's Eye, And Added: "but Not Too Hard!

Privilege (to The Privileged) Means Having Private Laws.

The Universe, They Said, Depended For Its Operation On The Balance Of Four Forces Which They Identified As Charm, Persuasion, Uncertainty And Bloody-mindedness.

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

The Space Between The Young Reader’s Eyeballs And The Printed Page Is A Holy Place And Officialdom Should Trample All Over It At Their Peril.’

Colon Thought Carrot Was Simple. Carrot Often Struck People As Simple. And He Was. Where People Went Wrong Was Thinking That Simple Meant The Same Thing As Stupid.

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

All 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.

I Never Said Nothing..." "i Know You Never! I Could Hear You Not Saying Anything! You've Got The Loudest Silences I Ever Did Hear From Anyone Who Wasn't Dead!

The Sign, Which Says: "do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Open This Door!" - Of Course, I've Read It. Why Do You Think I Want It Opened?.. To See Why They Wanted It Shut, Of Course. This Exchange Contains Almost All You Need To Know About Human Civilization. At Least, Those Bits Of It That Are Now Under The Sea, Fenced Off Or Still Smoking.

If You Don't Know When To Be A Human Being, You Don't Know When To Be A Witch.

Watching A Dog Try To Chew A Large Piece Of Toffee Is A Pastime Fit For Gods. Mr. Fusspot's Mixed Ancestry Had Given Him A Dexterity Of Jaw That Was Truly Awesome. He Somersaulted Happily Around The Floor, Making Faces Like A Rubber Gargoyle In A Washing Machine.

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

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

Finding Yourself

Granny Weatherwax Was Not A Good Loser. From Her Point Of View, Losing Was Something That Happened To Other People.

The Disc, Being Flat, Has No Real Horizon. Any Adventurous Sailor Who Got Funny Ideas From Staring At Eggs And Oranges For Too Long And Set Out For The Antipodes Soon Learned That The Reason Why Distant Ships Sometimes Looked As Though They Were Disappearing Over The Edge Of The World Was That They Were Disappearing Over The Edge Of The World.

"and What Would Humans Be Without Love?" Rare, Said Death.

Don't Stick Your Nose Where Someone Can Pull It Off And Eat It.

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

Never F*!k With The Ineffable.

Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot.

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

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

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.

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.

Nac Mac Feegle! The Wee Free Men! Nae King! Nae Quin! Nae Laird! Nae Master! We Willna' Be Fooled Again!

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

It Was Sad, Like Those Businessmen Who Came To Work In Serious Clothes But Wore Colorful Ties In A Mad, Desperate Attempt To Show There Was A Free Spirit In There Somewhere.

The Book Is Not Completely Written Until Someone Else Has Read It.

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.

Fantasy Is Escapism, But Wait... Why Is This Wrong? What Are You Escaping From, And Where Are You Escaping To? Is The Story Opening Windows Or Slamming Doors? The British Author G.k. Chesterton Summarized The Role Of Fantasy Very Well. He Said Its Purpose Was To Take The Everyday, Commonplace World And Lift It Up And Turn It Around And Show It To Us From A Different Perspective, So That Once Again We See It For The First Time And Realize How Marvelous It Is. Fantasy - The Ability To Envisage The World In Many Different Ways - Is One Of The Skills That Make Us Human.

Generally I Start Writing When I Have Even The Smallest Idea Of How A Book Is Going To Go, Because The Physical Process Of Writing Itself Keeps The Mind Active And Focused On The Job At Hand. Usually I Write In About 5 Drafts, But That Simply Means There Are 5 Definite Times When I Go In A Linear Fashion From The Beginning To The End Of The Book.

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.

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

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.

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

People Flock In, Nevertheless, In Search Of Answers To Those Questions Only Librarians Are Considered To Be Able To Answer, Such As "is This The Laundry?" "how Do You Spell Surreptitious?" And, On A Regular Basis, "do You Have A Book I Remember Reading Once? It Had A Red Cover And It Turned Out They Were Twins.

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

He'd Noticed That Sex Bore Some Resemblance To Cookery: It Fascinated People, They Sometimes Bought Books Full Of Complicated Recipes And Interesting Pictures, And Sometimes When They Were Really Hungry They Created Vast Banquets In Their Imagination - But At The End Of The Day They'd Settle Quite Happily For Egg And Chips. If It Was Well Done And Maybe Had A Slice Of Tomato.

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

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

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

...and The Funny Thing Was That People Who Weren't Entirely Certain They Were Right Always Argued Much Louder Than Other People, As If The Main Person They Were Trying To Convince Were Themselves.

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

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

Lessee...he'd Gone Off After The Funeral And Gotten Drunk. No, Not Drunk, Another Word, Ended With "er." Drunker. That Was It.

There Are Plenty Of People Who Believe That Elvis Is Alive, Or That Aliens Occasionally Land Here To Do Highly Personal Things To People, Or That The Whole Idea Of Evolution Is A Conspiracy Of Godless Scientists. Almost All Of These People Can Vote And Some Of Them Have Got Guns.

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.

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.

In The Ramtops Village Where They Dance The Real Morris Dance, For Example, They Believe That No-one Is Finally Dead Until The Ripples They Cause In The World Die Away - Until The Clock He Wound Up Winds Down, Until The Wine She Made Has Finished Its Ferment, Until The Crop They Planted Is Harvested. The Span Of Someone's Life, They Say, Is Only The Core Of Their Actual Existence.

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

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

A European Says: I Can't Understand This, What's Wrong With Me? An American Says: I Can't Understand This, What's Wrong With Him? I Make No Suggestion That One Side Or Other Is Right, But Observation Over Many Years Leads Me To Believe It Is True.

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.

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

Knowledge Is Dangerous, Which Is Why Governments Often Clamp Down On People Who Can Think Thoughts Above A Certain Caliber.

My Experience In Amsterdam Is That Cyclists Ride Where The Hell They Like And Aim In A State Of Rage At All Pedestrians While Ringing Their Bell Loudly, The Concept Of Avoiding People Being Foreign To Them.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

One Day All Of Us Will Die But - And This Is The Important Thing - We Are Not Dead Yet.

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.

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].

One Of The Highlights Of The First Good Omens Tour Was Neil And I Walking Through New York Singing Shoehorn With Teeth. Well, We'd Had A Good Breakfast. And You Don't Get Mugged, Either.

There's That Lovely Thing For The First Month Or Two Of Writing A New Book: Ok, I Don't Know What That Character's Going To Do, But We'll Find Out Later. After About Three Or Four Months You Come To That Bit Where You've Got To Put Some Plot In Before It's Too Late, And You Have To Go Back And Start Inserting Plot, And, Ooh, I've Left Out The Literature, Ok, Lets Put Some In.

So, Mistletoe, In Fact, Symbolizes Mistletoe.

The Reaper Does Not Listen To The Harvest.

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

Picturesque Meant - He Decided After Careful Observation Of The Scenerey That Inspired Twoflower To Use The Word - That The Landscape Was Horribly Precipitous. Quaint, When Used To Describe The Occasional Village Through Which They Passed, Meant Fever-ridden And Tumbledown. Twoflower Was A Tourist, The First Ever Seen On The Discworld. Tourist, Rincewind Had Decided, Mean 'idiot'.

Everywhere I Look, I See Something Holy.

No. Men Should Die For Lies. But The Truth Is Too Precious To Die For.

And At The Other End Of The Bar The World Is Full Of The Other Type Of Person, Who Has A Broken Glass, Or A Glass That Has Been Carelessly Knocked Over (usually By One Of The People Calling For A Larger Glass) Or Who Had No Glass At All, Because He Was At The Back Of The Crowd And Had Failed To Catch The Barman's Eye.

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.

That, Lad," He Said Proudly, "was Some Of The Worst Poetry I Have Heard For A Long Time. It Was Offensive To The Ear And A Torrrture To The Soul....we'll Make A Gonnagle Out Of Ye Yet!

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

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

You Will Have To Look A Long Way Before You Find A Bunch Of Scum-suckers More Greedy, Humourless And Deserving Of Death Than The Suits In The Music Business.

Oh, A Very Useful Philosophical Animal, Your Average Tortoise. Outrunning Metaphorical Arrows, Beating Hares In Races... Very Handy.

The Stories Never Said Why She Was Wicked. It Was Enough To Be An Old Woman, Enough To Be All Alone, Enough To Look Strange Because You Have No Teeth. It Was Enough To Be Called A Witch. If It Came To That, The Book Never Gave You The Evidence Of Anything. It Talked About "a Handsome Prince"... Was He Really, Or Was It Just Because He Was A Prince That People Called Handsome? As For "a Girl Who Was As Beautiful As The Day Was Long"... Well, Which Day? In Midwinter It Hardly Ever Got Light! The Stories Don't Want You To Think, They Just Wanted You To Believe What You Were Told.

Banana Daiquiris Aren't Knock-'em-back-by-the-flagon.

Raise The Stakes! Always Push Your Luck Because No One Else Would Push It For You.

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.

Not For The First Time In The History Of The Universe, Someone For Whom Communication Normally Came As Effortlessly As A Dream Was Stuck For Inspiration When Faced With A Few Lines On The Back Of A Card.

On The Disc The Gods Dealt Severely With Atheists.

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.

I Should Have Learned This, She Thought. I Wanted To Learn Fire, And Pain, But I Should Have Learned People.

I Intend, Before The Endgame Looms, To Die Sitting In A Chair In My Own Garden With A Glass Of Brandy In My Hand And Thomas Tallis On The Ipod. Oh, And Since This Is England, I Had Better Add, "if Wet, In The Library." Who Could Say That This Is Bad?

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

Rumour Is Information Distilled So Finely That It Can Filter Through Anything. It Does Not Need Doors And Windows -- Sometimes It Does Not Need People. It Can Exist Free And Wild, Running From Ear To Ear Without Ever Touching Lips.

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.

Technically, The City Of Ankh-morpork Is A Tyranny, Which Is Not Always The Same Thing As A Monarchy, And In Fact Even The Post Of Tyrant Has Been Somewhat Redefined By The Incumbent, Lord Vetinari, As The Only Form Of Democracy That Works. Everyone Is Entitled To Vote, Unless Disqualified By Reason Of Age Or Not Being Lord Vetinari.

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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.

But, In Truth, It Had Not Exactly Been Gold, Or Even The Promise Of Gold, But More Like The Fantasy Of Gold, The Fairy Dream That The Gold Is There, At The End Of The Rainbow, And Will Continue To Be There Forever - Provided, Naturally, That You Don't Go And Look. This Is Known As Finance.

What I've Always Said Was, Hang In There, Let Me Write What I Want To Write, And You'll Probably Like It.

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.

I Am Certain No One Sets Out To Be Cruel, But Our Treatment Of The Elderly Ill Seems To Have No Philosophy To It. As A Society, We Should Establish Whether We Have A Policy Of Life At Any Cost.

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

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.

Cats Gravitate To Kitchens Like Rocks Gravitate To Gravity.

Bill Door Was Impressed. Miss Flitworth Could Actually Give The Word "revenue", Which Had Two Vowels And One Diphthong, All The Peremptoriness Of The Word "scum.

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

When In Doubt, Choose To Live.

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'.

Nature Abhors A Lot Of Things, Including Vacuums, Ships Called The Marie Celeste, And The Chuck Keys For Electric Drills.

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.

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

It's A God-eat-god World.

Dogs Are Not Like Cats, Who Amusingly Tolerate Humans Only Until Someone Comes Up With A Tin Opener That Can Be Operated With A Paw. Men Made Dogs, They Took Wolves And Gave Them Human Things - Unnecessary Intelligence, Names, A Desire To Belong, And A Twitching Inferiority Complex. All Dogs Dream Wolf Dreams, And Know They're Dreaming Of Biting Their Maker. Every Dog Knows, Deep In His Heart, That He Is A Bad Dog.

…we Were Born Vampires." "i Thought You Became –" "— Vampires By Being Bitten? Dear Me, No. Oh, We Can Turn People Into Vampires, It’s An Easy Technique, But What Would Be The Point? When You Eat… Now What Is It You Eat? Oh Yes, Chocolate… You Don’t Want To Turn It Into Another Agnes Nitt, Do You? Less Chocolate To Go Around." He Sighed. "oh Dear, Superstition, Superstition Everywhere We Turn.

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.

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

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.

It Doesn't Stop Being Magic Just Because You Know How It Works.

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

Don't You *ever* Let Go?" "i Haven't Yet." "why?" "i Suppose... Because In This World, After Everyone Panics, There's Always Got To Be Someone To Tip The Wee Out Of The Shoe.

I Have To Write Because If I Don't Get Something Down Then After A While I Feel It's Going To Bang The Side Of My Head Off.

Quick, Someone's Coming! Look Real!

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

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

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

I Think That Sick People In Ankh-morpork Generally Go To A Vet. It's Generally A Better Bet. There's More Pressure On A Vet To Get It Right. People Say "it Was God's Will" When Granny Dies, But They Get Angry When They Lose A Cow.

If You Get The Characters Right You've Done Sometimes Nearly Half The Work. I Sometimes Find I Get The Characters Right Then The Characters Will Often Help Me Write The Book - Not What They Look Like That's Not Very Important - What People Look Like Is Not About Their Character. You Have To Describe The Shape They Leave In The World, How They React To Things, What Effect They Have On People And You Do That By Telling Their Story.

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

Oh, There's Plenty Of Reasons. I Just Don't Know Which One.

Fresh Wounds," Said Angua. "but One Of Them Did Shoot One Of The Other In The Leg By Accident." "i Think You'd Better Put In Your Report As -self Inflicted- Wounds While Resisting Arrest," Said Vimes.

Sergeant Colon Of The Ankh-morpork City Guard Was On Duty. He Was Guarding The Brass Bridge, The Main Link Between Ankh And Morpork. From Theft. When It Came To Crime Prevention, Sergeant Colon Found It Safest To Think Big.

The Oldest Fan Letter I've Had Is From Someone Aged Eighty-five.

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.

Mere Animals Couldn’t Possibly Manage To Act Like This. You Need To Be A Human Being To Be Really Stupid.

This, Milord, Is My Family's Axe. We Have Owned It For Almost Nine Hundred Years, See. Of Course, Sometimes It Needed A New Blade. And Sometimes It Has Required A New Handle, New Designs On The Metalwork, A Little Refreshing Of The Ornamentation . . . But Is This Not The Nine Hundred-year-old Axe Of My Family? And Because It Has Changed Gently Over Time, It Is Still A Pretty Good Axe, Y'know. Pretty Good.

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.

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.

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.

Grinning Like A Necrophiliac In A Morgue.

What Can The Harvest Hope For...

Oh, He Did His Best To Make Their Short Lives Miserable, Because That Was His Job, But Nothing He Could Think Up Was Half As Bad As The Stuff They Thought Up Themselves.

One Day I'll Be Dead And Then You'll All Be Sorry.

The Assassin Moved Quietly From Roof To Roof Until He Was Well Away From The Excitement Around The Watch House. His Movements Could Be Called Cat-like, Except That He Did Not Stop To Spray Urine Up Against Things.

How Do You Get All Those Coins?" Asked Mort. In Pairs.

This Book Was Written Using 100% Recycled Words.

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