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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.

-Terry Pratchett

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Sam Vimes Could Parallel

Terry Pratchett

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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.

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Ridcully Was To Management What King Herod Was To The Bethlehem Playgroup Association.

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‎no One Remembers The Singer. The Song Remains.

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The First Draft Is Just You Telling Yourself The Story.

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

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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.

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Once Upon A Time

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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.

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

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

She Was Beautiful, But She Was Beautiful In The Way A Forest Fire Was Beautiful: Something To Be Admired From A Distance, Not Up Close.

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Often I Sort Of Work Up And Down The Manuscript. I Sometimes Used To Go Ahead Of Myself To See What Was Going To Happen Next, To Make Certain It Fits What Was Going To Be Happening Soon.

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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.

The Kraken Stirs. And Ten Billion Sushi Dinners Cry Out For Vengeance.

Rincewind Could Scream For Mercy In Nineteen Languages, And Just Scream In Another Forty-four.

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

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

Granny Weatherwas Was Not A Jouster In The Lists Of Love, But, As An Intelligent Onlooker, She Knew How The Game Was Played.

The Truth Is That Even Big Collections Of Ordinary Books Distort Space, As Can Readily Be Proved By Anyone Who Has Been Around A Really Old-fashioned Secondhand Bookshop, One That Looks As Though They Were Designed By M. Escher On A Bad Day And Has More Stairways Than Storeys And Those Rows Of Shelves Which End In Little Doors That Are Surely Too Small For A Full-sized Human To Enter. The Relevant Equation Is: Knowledge = Power = Energy = Matter = Mass; A Good Bookshop Is Just A Genteel Black Hole That Knows How To Read.

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

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

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.

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.

This I Choose To Do. If There Is A Price, This I Choose To Pay. If It Is My Death, Then I Choose To Die. Where This Takes Me, There I Choose To Go. I Choose. This I Choose To Do.

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

There's No Point In Killing An Opponent... There's No Triumph Over A Corpse, But A Beaten Opponent, Who Will Remain Beaten Every Day Of The Remainder Of Their Sad And Wretched Life, Is Something To Treasure.

He Talks Pretty Big For A Gutter Wizard," He Muttered. "you Don't Understand At All," Said The Wizard Wearily. "i'm So Scared Of You My Spine Has Turned To Jelly, It's Just That I'm Suffering From An Overdose Of Terror Right Now. I Mean, When I've Got Over That Then I'll Have Time To Be Decently Frightened Of You.

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

Sometimes You Had To Take A Look At Yourself And Then Look Away.

Look At Yourself

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

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

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

He'd Always Known That The World Was An Interesting Place, And His Imagination Had Peopled It With Pirates And Bandits And Spies And Astronauts And Similar. But He'd Also Had A Nagging Suspicion That, When You Seriously Got Right Down To It, They Were All Just Things In Books And Didn't Properly Exist Anymore.

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

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

That’s Mortals For You, Death Continued. They’ve Only Got A Few Years In This World And They Spend Them All In Making Things Complicated For Themselves. Fascinating.

I Know That I Am A Small, Weak Man, But I Have Amassed A Large Library; I Dream Of Dangerous Places.

Nanny Ogg Knew How To Start Spelling 'banana', But Didn't Know How You Stopped.

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

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

The Trouble With Being A God Is That You've Got No One To Pray To.

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!

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...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.

"multiple Exclamation Marks," He Went On, Shaking His Head, "are A Sure Sign Of A Diseased Mind."

Exclamation Marks

You Say That You People Don’t Burn Folk And Sacrifice People Anymore, But That’s What True Faith Would Mean, Y’see? Sacrificin’ Your Own Life, One Day At A Time, To The Flame, Declarin’ The Truth Of It, Workin’ For It, Breathin’ The Soul Of It. That’s Religion. Anything Else Is Just . . . Is Just Bein’ Nice. And A Way Of Keepin’ In Touch With The Neighbors.

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

The Second Mouse Gets The Cheese!

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

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

The Significant Owl Hoots In The Night.

There Were No Lies Here. All Fancies Fled Away. That's What Happened In All Deserts. It Was Just You, And What You Believed.

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 Death Was Aware, The Sole Reason For Any Human Association With Pigs And Lambs Was As A Prelude To Chops And Sausages. Quite Why They Should Dress Up For Children’s Wallpaper As Well Was A Mystery. Hello, Little Folk, This Is What You’re Going To Eat… He Felt That If Only He Could Find The Key To It, He’d Know A Lot More About Human Beings.

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

It Doesn't Matter How You Live And Die, It's How The Bards Wrote It Down.

It Takes A Special Kind Of Person To Fight Back.

They May Be Called The Palace Guard, The City Guard, Or The Patrol. Whatever The Name, Their Purpose In Any Work Of Heroic Fantasy Is Identical: It Is, Round About Chapter Three (or Ten Minutes Into The Film) To Rush Into The Room, Attack The Hero One At A Time, And Be Slaughtered. No One Ever Asks Them If They Want To. This Book Is Dedicated To Those Fine Men.

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.

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