Background Image

...

Of Course, Like All The Informal Inhabitants Of The University The Roaches Were A Little Unusual, But There Was Something Particularly Unpleasant About The Sound Of Billions Of Very Small Feet Hitting The Stones In Perfect Time. Rincewind Stepped Gingerly Over The Marching Column. The Librarian Jumped It. The Luggage, Of Course, Followed Them With A Noise Like Someone Tapdancing Over A Bag Of Crisps.

-Terry Pratchett

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Of Course, Like All

Terry Pratchett

...

Of Course, Like All The Informal Inhabitants Of The University The Roaches Were A Little Unusual, But There Was Something Particularly Unpleasant About The Sound Of Billions Of Very Small Feet Hitting The Stones In Perfect Time. Rincewind Stepped Gingerly Over The Marching Column. The Librarian Jumped It. The Luggage, Of Course, Followed Them With A Noise Like Someone Tapdancing Over A Bag Of Crisps.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Terry Pratchett

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

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

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?

One Of The Things Forgotten About The Human Spirit Is That While It Is, In The Right Conditions, Noble And Brave And Wonderful, It Is Also, When You Get Right Down To It, Only Human.

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

A Good Man Will Kill You With Hardly A Word.

At Least I Know I'm Bewildered About The Really Fundamental And Important Facts Of The Universe.

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

First Sight Means You Can See What Really Is There, And Second Thoughts Mean Thinking About What You Are Thinking. And In Tiffany's Case, There Were Sometimes Third Thoughts And Fourth Thoughts Although These...sometimes Led Her To Walk Into Doors.

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.

They Say That There Can Never Be Two Snowflakes That Are Exactly Alike, But Has Anyone Checked Lately?

If I Were You, I'd Sue My Face For Slander.

The Universe Clearly Operates For The Benefit Of Humanity. This Can Be Readily Seen From The Convenient Way The Sun Comes Up In The Morning, When People Are Ready To Start The Day.

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

All Assassins Had A Full-length Mirror In Their Rooms, Because It Would Be A Terrible Insult To Anyone To Kill Them When You Were Badly Dressed.

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.

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

Humans Had Built A World Inside The World, Which Reflected It In Pretty Much The Same Way As A Drop Of Water Reflected The Landscape. And Yet ... And Yet ... Inside This Little World They Had Taken Pains To Put All The Things You Might Think They Would Want To Escape From - Hatred, Fear, Tyranny, And So Forth. Death Was Intrigued. They Thought They Wanted To Be Taken Out Of Themselves, And Every Art Humans Dreamt Up Took Them Further In. He Was Fascinated.

An Author Writes A Book, And That's The Book At That Point. And If The Author Writes The Book Again, Then Somehow Something Has Gone Wrong, If You See What I Mean.

All Property Is Theft, Except Mine.

I Used To Like Reading And You Read Enough Books And You Overflow And Then You Start Writing.

An Assassin, A Real Assassin Had To Look Like One-black Clothes, Hood, Boots, And All. If They Could Wear Any Clothes, Any Disguise, Then What Could Anyone Do But Spend All Day In A Small Room With A Loaded Crossbow Pointed At The Door?

I Have A Suspicion - I Have To Be Careful What I Say - That You Might Actually Find The Best Comics Actually Written By People Who Are Comics Writers And Who Aren't Setting Out To Do Graphic Novels.

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

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

Stupid Men Are Often Capable Of Things The Clever Would Not Dare To Contemplate.

That's What I Don't Like About Magic, It Does Everything By Magic!

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

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

I'm Not Really Good At Fun-to-know, Human Interest Stuff. We're Not 'celebrities', Whose Life Itself Is A Performance. Good Or Bad Or Ugly, We Are Our Words. They're What People Meet.

Smaller-than-medium-jock-but-bigger-than-wee-jock-jock

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

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

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.

It Was Possibly The Most Circumspect Advance In The History Of Military Maneuvers, Right Down At The Bottom End Of The Scale That Things Like The Charge Of The Light Brigade Are At The Top Of.

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

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: Human Beings Make Life So Interesting. Do You Know, That In A Universe So Full Of Wonders, They Have Managed To Invent Boredom.

People Were People, Even If They Had Four Legs And Had Called Themselves Names Like Dangerous Beans, Which Is The Kind Of Name You Gave Yourself If You Learned To Read Before You Understood What All The Words Actually Meant.

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.

Inside Every Sane Person There’s A Madman Struggling To Get Out.

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

Either Dragons Should Exist Completely Or Fail To Exist At All, He Felt. A Dragon Only Half-existing Was Worse Than The Extremes.

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

Coming Back To Where You Started Is Not The Same As Never Leaving.

Times Are Changing

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.

I Thought Unicorns Were More . . . Fluffy.

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.

And That's What I Don't Like About Magic, Captain. 'cos It's *magic*. You Can't Ask Questions, It's Magic. It Doesn't Explain Anything, It's Magic. You Don't Know Where It Comes From, It's Magic! That's What I Don't Like About Magic, It Does Everything By Magic!

However, You Do Need Rules. Driving On The Left (or The Right Or, In Parts Of Europe, On The Left And The Right As The Mood Takes You) Is A Rule Which Works, Since Following It Means You're More Likely To Reach Your Intended Rather Than Your Final Destination.

Mister Teatime Had A Truly Brilliant Mind, But It Was Brilliant Like A Fractured Mirror, All Marvellous Facets And Rainbows But, Ultimately, Also Something That Was Broken.

Sometimes, The Best Answer Is A More Interesting Question.

If You Really Want To Upset A Witch, Do Her A Favor Which She Has No Means Of Repaying. The Unfulfilled Obligation Will Nag At Her Like A Hangnail.

This Book Was Written Using 100% Recycled Words.

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

In The End The Problem Isn't That You Have The Wrong Sort Of Government For The People, But That You Have The Wrong Sort Of People.

It's Beautiful," Said Mort Softly. "what Is It?" The Sun Is Under The Disc, Said Death. "is It Like This Every Night?" Every Night, Said Death. Nature's Like That. "doesn't Anyone Know?" Me. You. The Gods. Good, Isn't It? "gosh!" Death Leaned Over The Saddle And Looked Down At The Kingdoms Of The World. I Don't Know About You, He Said, But I Could Murder A Curry.

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

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

Hat = Wizard, Wizard = Hat. Everything Else Is Frippery.

Questions Don't Have To Make Sense, Vincent," Said Miss Susan. "but Answers Do.

There Are, It Has Been Said, Two Types Of People In The World. There Are Those Who, When Presented With A Glass That Is Exactly Half Full, Say: This Glass Is Half Full. And Then There Are Those Who Say: This Glass Is Half Empty. The World Belongs, However, To Those Who Can Look At The Glass And Say: What's Up With This Glass? Excuse Me? Excuse Me? This Is My Glass? I Don't Think So. My Glass Was Full! And It Was A Bigger Glass! Who's Been Pinching My Beer?

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

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

"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?

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.

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

Thou Shalt Not Submit Thy God To Market Forces.

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.

Noble Dragons Don't Have Friends. The Nearest They Can Get To The Idea Is An Enemy Who Is Still Alive.

I Would Not Like It Thought That I Do Not Buy My Own Paperclips, Sir. I Enjoy Owning My Own Paperclips. It Means They Are Mine.

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

Granny Weatherwax Was Firmly Against Fiction. Life Was Hard Enough Without Lies Floating Around And Changing The Way People Thought.

Curiosity May Have Killed The Cat, But Her's Curiosity Could Have Massacred A Pride Of Lions.

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.

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

You Are Very Clever," Said The Old Man Shyly. "i Would Like To Eat Your Brains, One Day.

Historical Re-creation, He Thought Glumly, As They Picked Their Way Across, Under, Over Or Through The Boulders And Insect-buzzing Heaps Of Splintered Timber, With Streamlets Running Everywhere. Only We Do It With People Dressing Up And Running Around With Blunt Weapons, And People Selling Hot Dogs, And The Girls All Miserable Because They Can Only Dress Up As Wenches, Wenching Being The Only Job Available To Women In The Olden Days.

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

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.

We've Got A Lot Of Experience Of Not Having Any Experience

Someone Out There Was About To Find That Their Worst Nightmare Was A Maddened Librarian. With A Badge.

Worst Nightmares

I Became A Journalist At 17. A Few Hours Later, I Saw My First Dead Body, Which Was Somewhat... Colourful. That's When I Learned You Can Go On Throwing Up After You Run Out Of Things To Throw Up.

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?

Luck Is My Middle Name. Mind You, My First Name Is Bad.

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

Hello, Inner Child, I'm The Inner Babysitter!

Geography Is Just Physics Slowed Down, With A Couple Of Trees Stuck In It.

Every Procedure For Getting A Cat To Take A Pill Works Fine - Once. Like The Borg, They Learn.

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

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.

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

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

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

Just To Keep Bad Dreams At Bay, She Took A Swig Out Of A Bottle That Smelled Of Apples And Happy Brain-death.

Igor?' Said Moist. 'you Have An Igor?' Oh, Yes,' Said Hubert. 'that's How I Get This Wonderful Light. They Know The Secret Of Storing Lightning In Jars! But Don't Let That Worry You, Mr Lipspick. Just Because I'm Employing An Igor And Working In A Cellar Doesn't Mean I'm Some Sort Of Madman, Ha Ha Ha!' Ha Ha,' Agreed Moist. Ha Hah Hah!,' Said Hubert. 'hahahahahaha!! Ahahahahahahhhhh!!!!!-' Bent Slapped Him On The Back. Hubert Coughed. Sorry About That, It's The Air Down Here,' He Mumbled.

So Much Universe, And So Little Time.

The Chain Letter To The Ephebians. Forget Your Gods. Be Subjugated. Learn To Fear. Do Not Break The Chain -- The Last People Who Did Woke Up One Morning To Find Fifty Thousand Armed Men On Their Lawn.

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

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.

His Parents Called Him Youngster. They Did This In The Subconcious Hope That He Might Take The Hint. Wensleydale Gave The Impression Of Having Been Born With A Mental Age Of 47.

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

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

I Reckon That Stonehege Was Build By The Contemporary Equivalent Of Microsoft, Whereas Avebury Was Definitely An Apple Circle.

The Purpose Of This Lectchoor Is To Let You Know Where We Are. We Are In The Deep Cack. It Couldn't Be Worse If It Was Raining Arseholes. Any Questions?

I Don't Want To Hurt You, Mistress Weatherwax," Said Mrs Gogol. "that's Good," Said Granny. "i Don't Want You To Hurt Me Either.

Freedom Without Limits Is Just A Word.

I Reckon Responsible Behavior Is Something To Get When You Grow Older. Like Varicose Veins.

My Name Is Unpronounceable In Your Tongue, Woman,” It Said. “i’ll Be The Judge Of That,” Warned Granny, And Added, “don’t Call Me Woman.” “very Well. My Name Is Wxrthltl-jwlpklz,” Said The Demon Smugly.

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.

But In His Experience It Was Only A Matter Of Time Before The Normal Balance Of The Universe Restored Itself And Started Doing The Usual Terrible Things To Him.

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

The Universe Was Bad Enough Without People Poking It.

He Was The Sort Of Person Who Stood On Mountaintops During Thunderstorms In Wet Copper Armour Shouting 'all The Gods Are Bastards.'

Always Remember That The Crowd That Applauds Your Coronation Is The Same Crowd That Will Applaud Your Beheading. People Like A Show.

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.

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.

The Diplomatic Thing For Me To Say Is That If Publishers Are Dressing Up Other Authors As Terry Pratchett Clones Then They Are Doing A Disservice To Those Authors. If They Didn't Dress Them As Clones But Did Something Different, Then Those Authors Could Be Pioneering In A Different Sense.

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

It's A Terrible Thing For A Man When His Woman Gangs Up On Him Wi' A Toad

The Second Mouse Gets The Cheese!

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 Keep Vaguely Wondering What Macs Are Like, But The Ones I've Seen Spend Too Much Time Being Friendly.

...william Wondered Why He Always Disliked People Who Said 'no Offense Meant.' Maybe It Was Because They Found It Easier To To Say 'no Offense Meant' Than Actually To Refrain From Giving Offense.

Evil Begins When You Begin To Treat People As Things.

The Rising Sun Managed To Peek Around The Vast Column Of Smoke That Forever Rose From Ankh-morpork, City Of Cities, Illustrating Almost Up To The Edge Of Space That Smoke Means Progress Or, At Least, People Setting Fire To Things.

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

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.

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

She Was Not, Herself, Hugely In Favour Of Motherhood In General. Obviously It Was Necessary, But It Wasn't Exactly Difficult. Even Cats Managed It. But Women Acted As If They'd Been Given A Medal That Entitled Them To Boss People Around. It Was As If, Just Because They'd Got The Label Which Said "mother," Everyone Else Got A Tiny Part Of The Label That Said "child".

I Can No Longer Type, So I Use Talkingpoint And Dragon Dictate. It's A Speech-to-text Program, And There's An Add-on For Talking Which Some Guys Came Up With.

People Think That Stories Are Shaped By People. In Fact, It's The Other Way Around.

I Thought It Very Strange, And Very Sad, That The Fairy Kingdom Largely Appears To Be English. I Thought It Was Time For Some Regional Representation. And The Nac Mac Feegle Are, Well, They're Like Tiny Little Scottish Smurfs Who Have Seen Braveheart Altogether Too Many Times.

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

[y]ou Weren't Born With A Talent For Witchcraft: It Didn't Come Easily; You Worked Hard At It Because You Wanted It. You Forced The World To Give It To You, No Matter The Price, And The Price Is And Always Will Be High... People Say You Don't Find Witchcraft; Witchcraft Finds You. But You've Found It, Even If At The Time You Didn't Know What It Was You Were Finding, And You Grabbed It By Its Scrawny Neck And Made It Work For You.

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

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).

People Who Didn't Need People Needed People Around To Know That They Were The Kind Of People Who Didn't Need People.

Lord Vetinari Lifted An Eyebrow With The Care Of One Who, Having Found A Piece Of Caterpillar In His Salad, Raises The Rest Of The Lettuce.

It's Always Surprising To Be Reminded That While You're Watching And Thinking About People, All Knowing And Superior, They're Watching And Thinking About You, Right Back At You.

Thinking About You

Scientists Have Calculated That The Chances Of Something So Patently Absurd Actually Existing Are Millions To One. But Magicians Have Calculated That Million-to-one Chances Crop Up Nine Times Out Of Ten.

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

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.

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.

The Trouble With Having An Open Mind, Of Course, Is That People Will Insist On Coming Along And Trying To Put Things In It.

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.

Just Because Things Are Obvious Doesn't Mean They're True.

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

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.

It Was Like Being In A Jane Austen Novel, But One With Far Less Clothing.

You Can't Kill Me, I've Got A Magic... Aaaargh !

There Are Some People Who Hate My Guts. But That Goes With The Territory.

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

Gravity Is A Habit That Is Hard To Shake Off.

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

Who'd Want A Pony When You Could Have The Whole Universe? It Was Far More Interesting And You Didn't Have To Muck It Out Once A Week.

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

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.

There Are All Kinds Of Darkness, And All Kinds Of Things Can Be Found In Them, Imprisoned, Banished, Lost Or Hidden. Sometimes They Escape. Sometimes They Simply Fall Out. Sometimes They Just Can't Take It Any More.

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

You Have Reached The End Of Cake

Everybody Thinks The Government Should Be Doing More About Everything But Just Think How Many Of The Bonuses Which Are Quite Rightly Being Dragged Off Certain People, Just Think To What Good Causes They Could Be Put - Wouldn't That Be A Lovely Thought'?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

What Was Supposed To Be So Special About A Full Moon? It Was Only A Big Circle Of Light. And The Dark Of The Moon Was Only Darkness. But Halfway Between The Two, When The Moon Was Between The Worlds Of Light And Dark, When Even The Moon Lived On The Edge...maybe Then A Witch Could Believe In The Moon.

This Wasn't Food - It Was What Food Became If It Had Been Good And Gone To Food Heaven.

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

Please Give Us A Simple Answer, So That We Don't Have To Think, Because If We Think, We Might Find Answers That Don't Fit The Way We Want The World To Be

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."

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.

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

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

It's A God-eat-god World.

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.

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

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

Lords And Ladies

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

You Were The Kind Of Kid Who Couldn't See The Difference Between Throwing Rocks At A Cat And Setting It On Fire.

Things Have No Power That Humans Don't Put There.

Tiffany Has Been Apprenticing As A Witch By Visiting People In Need With Her Mentor. After Meeting With One Particularly Sad Case, She Tells Her Mentor, "it Shouldn't Be Like This." Her Mentor Replies, "there Isn't A Way Things Should Be. There's Just What Happens, And What We Do.

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.

I'm Mean And Turf And I'm Mean And Turf And I'm Mean And Turf And I'm Mean And Turf, And Me An' My Friends Can Walk Towards You With Our Hats On Backwards In A Menacing Way, Yo!

I Know Loads Of Coppers And Dealt With Them A Lot When I Was A Journalist - Coppers Are Easy To Write For; They Tend To Run On Rails.

Guilt Was The Grease In Which The Wheels Of The Authority Turned.

You Need To Believe In Things That Aren't True. How Else Can They Become?

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

Maybe The Only Significant Difference Between A Really Smart Simulation And A Human Being Was The Noise They Made When You Punched Them.

History Has A Habit Of Changing The People Who Think They Are Changing It

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

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

Wikipedia, Eh? Must Be Accurate Then.

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

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

It Is Said That Whomsoever The Gods Wish To Destroy, They First Make Mad. In Fact, Whomsoever The Gods Wish To Destroy, They First Hand The Equivalent Of A Stick With A Fizzing Fuse And Acme Dynamite Company Written On The Side. It's More Interesting, And Doesn't Take So Long.

Trending Author

Yusef Komunyakaa

Lisa Scottoline

Dizzy Gillespie

Category