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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!

-Terry Pratchett

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That, Lad," He Said

Terry Pratchett

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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!

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Things Just Happen. What The Hell.

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.

No Real Sunrise Could Paint The Sky Surgical Appliance Pink.

Juliet's Version Of Cleanliness Was Next To Godliness, Which Was To Say It Was Erratic, Past All Understanding And Was Seldom Seen.

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

And What Do You Really Do? Asked Tiffany. The Thin Witch Hesitatied For A Moment, And Then: We Look To ... The Edges, Said Mistress Weatherwax. There's A Lot Of Edges, More Than People Know. Between Life And Death, This World And The Next, Night And Day, Right And Wrong ... An' They Need Watchin'. We Watch 'em, We Guard The Sum Of Things. And We Never Ask For Any Reward. That's Important.

And Then You Bit Onto Them, And Learned Once Again That Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler Could Find A Use For Bits Of An Animal That The Animal Didn't Know It Had Got. Dibbler Had Worked Out That With Enough Fried Onions And Mustard People Would Eat Anything.

Their Families Cordially Detested One Another.

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

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."

…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.

Witches Aren’t Like That. We Live In Harmony With The Great Cycles Of Nature, And Do No Harm To Anyone, And It’s Wicked Of Them To Say We Don’t. We Ought To Fill Their Bones With Hot Lead.

What Was The Point Of Education, He Thought, If People Went Out Afterward And Used It?

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.

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!

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

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

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

It's Hard To Be Famous And Alive.

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

Magic Never Dies. It Merely Fades Away.

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

When They're Standing Right In Front Of You, Kings Are A Kind Of Speech Impediment.

And, As Always Happens, And Happens Far Too Soon, The Strange And Wonderful Becomes A Memory And A Memory Becomes A Dream. Tomorrow It's Gone.

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.

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.'

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.

Why Not? If Enough People Believe, You Can Be God Of Anything.

Granny Knew All About Bad Fortune-telling. It Was Harder Than The Real Thing. You Needed A Good Imagination.

Fortune Telling

One Of The Hardest Lessons In Young Sam's Life Had Been Finding Out That The People In Charge Weren't In Charge. It Had Been Finding Out That Governments Were Not, On The Whole, Staffed By People Who Had A Grip, And That Plans Were What People Made Instead Of Thinking.

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

While A Book Has Got To Be Worthwhile From The Point Of View Of The Reader It's Got To Be Worthwhile From The Point Of View Of The Writer As Well.

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.

Most Of The Great Triumphs And Tragedies Of History Are Caused Not By People Being Fundamentally Good Or Fundamentally Evil, But By People Being Fundamentally People.

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.

You Can't Remember The Plot Of The Dr Who Movie Because It Didn't Have One, Just A Lot Of Plot Holes Strung Together. It Did Have A Lot Of Flashing Lights, Though.

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.

If Complete And Utter Chaos Was Lightning, Then He'd Be The Sort To Stand On A Hilltop In A Thunderstorm Wearing Wet Copper Armour And Shouting 'all Gods Are Bastards!

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

Fascism May Be Good At Making The Trains Run On Time, But You Wouldn't Like Some Of The Destinations.

Granny Weatherwax Was Not Lost. She Wasn't The Kind Of Person Who Ever Became Lost. It Was Just That, At The Moment, While She Knew Exactly Where She Was, She Didn't Know The Position Of Anywhere Else.

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

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.

Aliens Don't Get Stuck In Air Ducts. It's Practically A Well-known 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?

Always Be Wary Of Any Helpful Item That Weighs Less Than Its Operating Manual.

Humans Can Think Inhuman Thoughts.

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

The Jurisdiction Of A Good Man Extends To The End Of The World.

End Of The World

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

You'll See! We're Going To The Palace. Fetch Angua. We Might Need Her. And Bring The Search Warrant. You Mean The Sledgehammer, Sir? Yes.

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.

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.

The Librarian Considered Matters For A While. So…a Dwarf And A Troll. He Preferred Both Species To Humans. For One Thing, Neither Of Them Were Great Readers. The Librarian Was, Of Course, Very Much In Favor Of Reading In General, But Readers In Particular Got On His Nerves. There Was Something, Well, Sacrilegious About The Way They Kept Taking Books Off The Shelves And Wearing Out The Words By Reading Them. He Liked People Who Loved And Respected Books, And The Best Way To Do That, In The Librarian’s Opinion, Was To Leave Them On The Shelves Where Nature Intended Them To Be.

Imagination Is Only Intelligence Having Fun. A Healthy Mind Knows How To Switch Between Worlds, And Which One You Need To Eat And Sleep In.

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?

Let's See, Now... In Hogfather There Are A Number Of Stabbings, Someone's Killed By A Man Made Of Knives, Someone's Killed By The Dark, And Someone Just Been Killed By A Wardrobe. It's A Book About The Magic Of Childhood. You Can Tell.

Science: A Way Of Finding Things Out And Then Making Them Work. Science Explains What Is Happening Around Us The Whole Time. So Does Religion, But Science Is Better Because It Comes Up With More Understandable Excuses When It's Wrong.

Who Shall I Shoot? You Choose. Now, Listen Very Carefully: Where's Your Coffee? You've Got Coffee, Haven't You? C'mon, Everyone's Got Coffee! Spill The Beans!

If My Father Could Have Sat Up In Bed And Said Goodbye, I'd Have Pressed The Button. I Wouldn't Have Been Able To See For Crying, But I Would Have Considered That A Duty.

What're Quantum Mechanics?" "i Don't Know. People Who Repair Quantums, I Suppose.

Of Course, Just Because We've Heard A Spine-chilling, Blood-curdling Scream Of The Sort To Make Your Very Marrow Freeze In Your Bones Doesn't Automatically Mean There's Anything Wrong.

Sam Vimes Could Parallel Process. Most Husbands Can. They Learn To Follow Their Own Line Of Thought While At The Same Time Listening To What Their Wives Say. And The Listening Is Important, Because At Any Time They Could Be Challenged And Must Be Ready To Quote The Last Sentence In Full. A Vital Additional Skill Is Being Able To Scan The Dialogue For Telltale Phrases Such As "and They Can Deliver It Tomorrow" Or "so I've Invited Them For Dinner?" Or "they Can Do It In Blue, Really Quite Cheaply.

I Don't Think About The End Game. I've Got Lots To Occupy My Mind. It's The Rage That Keeps Me Going.

My Name Is Immaterial,' She Said. That's A Pretty Name,' Said Rincewind.

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.

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.

They Were Small, Brightly Coloured, Happy Little Creatures Who Secreted Some Of The Nastiest Toxins In The World, Which Is Why The Job Of Looking After The Large Vivarium Where They Happily Passed Their Days Was Given To First-year Students, On The Basis That If They Got Things Wrong There Wouldn't Be Too Much Education Wasted.

I Can't Stand Any Music That Requires Its Singers To Be So Dumb They Wear Their Baseball Caps Backwards.

When I Was A Kid, I Read The Science-fiction Shelves, And I Read The Fantasy Shelves.

You’d Better Tell Me What You Know, Toad,” Said Tiffany. “miss Tick Isn’t Here. I Am.” “another World Is Colliding With This One,” Said The Toad. “there. Happy Now? That’s What Miss Tick Thinks. But It’s Happening Faster Than She Expected. All The Monsters Are Coming Back.” “why?” “there’s No One To Stop Them.” There Was Silence For A Moment. “there’s Me,” Said Tiffany.

Where's My Cow? Are You My Cow?

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.

Gods Don't Like People Not Doing Much Work. People Who Aren't Busy All The Time Might Start To Think.

Your Average Witch Is Not, By Nature, A Social Animal As Far As Other Witches Are Concerned. There's A Conflict Of Dominant Personalities. There's A Group Of Ringleaders Without A Ring. There's The Basic Unwritten Rule Of Witchcraft, Which Is 'don't Do What You Will, Do What I Say.' The Natural Size Of A Coven Is One. Witches Only Get Together When They Can't Avoid It.

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.’

Humans Need Fantasy To Be Human. To Be The Place Where The Falling Angel Meets The Rising Ape.

It Was Amazing How Many Friends You Could Make By Being Bad At Things, Provided You Were Bad Enough To Be Funny.

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

Ankh-morpork Had Dallied With Many Forms Of Government And Had Ended Up With That Form Of Democracy Known As One Man, One Vote. The Patrician Was The Man; He Had The Vote.

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

Don't Be Smart. Smart Is Only A Polished Version Of Dumb. Try Intelligence. It Will Surely See You Through.

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

You've Got A Lot Of Time For Abstract Thought When You've Got Your Hand Stuck Up A Dead Badger.

Escapism Isn't Good Or Bad In Itself. What Is Important Is What You Are Escaping From And Where You Are Escaping To.

This Looks Like A Job For Inadvisably Applied Magic If Ever I Saw One.

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

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.

Christ Managed To Boil Down An Awful Lot Of Commandments To A Few Very Simple Rules For Living. It's When You Go Backwards Through The 'begats' And The Garden Of Eden, And You Start Thinking, 'hang On, That's A Big Punishment For Eating One Lousy Apple... There's A Human-rights Issue.'

[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.

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

...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.

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.

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

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

Winners Never Talk About Glorious Victories. Thats Because They're The Ones Who See What The Battle Field Looks Like Afterwards. Its Only The Losers Who Have Glorious Victories.

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

Thats How We Survive Infinity - We Kill It By Breaking It Up Into Small Bits.

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

Most Species Do Their Own Evolving, Making It Up As They Go Along, Which Is The Way Nature Intended.

Evolution Of Man

Trial And Error

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

It's Still Magic Even If You Know How It's Done.

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.

Are You A Devious, Plotting, Unreliable Madman? Ah, Good, Then You Can Be My Most Trusted Advisor.

Interesting Times

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.

It Is A Mistake Trying To Cheer Up Camels. You May As Well Drop Meringues Into A Black Hole.

The Senior Wizard In A World Of Magic Had The Same Prospects Of Long-term Employment As A Pogo Stick Tester In A Minefield.

They Looked At One Another In Incomprehension, Two Minds Driving Opposite Ways Up A Narrow Street And Waiting For The Other Man To Reverse First.

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

Coffee Is A Way Of Stealing Time That Should By Rights Belong To Your Older Self.

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

Good And Bad Is Tricky," She Said. "i Ain't Too Certain About Where People Stand. P'raps What Matters Is Which Way You Face." (pp. 348-349)

I Was Merely Endeavoring To Indicate That If We Do Not Grab Events By The Collar They Will Have Us By The Throat. -lord Vetinari

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

The Worst Thing You Can Do Is Nothing.

Do I Detect A Note Of Unseasonal Grumpiness? Said Death. No Sugar Piggywiggy For You, Albert.

My Programming Language Was Solder.

Programming Languages

I Am A Technophile, So There Is No Such Thing As A First Draft. The First Draft Plunges On, And About A Quarter Of The Way Through It I Realise I'm Doing Things Wrong, So I Start Rewriting It. What You Call The First Draft Becomes Rather Like A Caterpillar; It Is Progressing Fairly Slowly, But There Is Movement Up And Down Its Whole Length, The Whole Story Is Being Changed. I Call This Draft Zero, Telling Myself How The Story Is Supposed To Go.

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.

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

This Is Morbidia," Said Vlad. "although She's Been Calling Herself Tracy Lately, To Be Cool.

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

We Are Monkeys. We Like To Chatter. Chattering Doesn't Cost Us Anything.

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.

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

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.

Most Modern Fantasy Just Rearranges The Furniture In Tolkien's Attic.

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

I Am Death, Not Taxes. I Turn Up Only Once.

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

The Gods Of The Disc Have Never Bothered Much About Judging The Souls Of The Dead, And So People Only Go To Hell If That's Where They Believe, In Their Deepest Heart, That They Deserve To Go. Which They Won't Do If They Don't Know About It. This Explains Why It Is So Important To Shoot Missionaries On Sight.

There Are Many Horrible Sights In The Multiverse. Somehow, Though, To A Soul Attuned To The Subtle Rhythms Of A Library, There Are Few Worse Sights Than A Hole Where A Book Ought To Be.

You Fear To Die? "it's Not That I Don't Want... I Mean, I've Always...it's Just That Life Is A Habit That's Hard To Break.

Granny Bit Her Lip. She Was Never Quite Certain About Children, Thinking Of Them-when She Thought About Them At All-as Coming Somewhere Between Animals And People. She Understood Babies. You Put Milk In One End And Kept The Other As Clean As Possible. Adults Were Even Easier, Because They Did The Feeding And Cleaning Themselves. But In Between Was A World Of Experience That She Had Never Really Inquired About. As Far As She Was Aware, You Just Tried To Stop Them Catching Anything Fatal And Hoped That It Would All Turn Out All Right.

Tv People In The Uk... I'm Getting On A Lot Better With Them.

I'd Rather Be A Rising Ape Than A Falling Angel.

It Is A Long-cherished Tradition Among A Certain Type Of Military Thinker That Huge Casualties Are The Main Thing. If They Are On The Other Side Then This Is A Valuable Bonus.

What Have I Always Believed? That On The Whole, And By And Large, If A Man Lived Properly, Not According To What Any Priests Said, But According To What Seemed Decent And Honest Inside, Then It Would, At The End, More Or Less, Turn Out All Right.

Vimes Struggled To His Feet, Shook His Head And Set Off After It. No Thought Was Involved. It Is The Ancient Instinct Of Terriers And Policemen To Chase Anything That Runs Away.

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

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.

When People Say "clearly" Something That Means There's A Huge Crack In Their Argument And They Know Things Aren't Clear At All.

It Takes Forty Men With Their Feet On The Ground To Keep One Man With His Head In The Air.

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!

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.

I Think You Should Be Proud Of Not Being Worse Than Just Deeply Introverted And Socially Maladjusted.

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.

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

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

Mr Lipwig, There's A Lady In The Hall To See You And We've Thanked Her For Not Smoking Three Times And She's Still Doing It!

Any Fool Could Be A Witch With A Runic Knife, But It Took Skill To Be One With An Apple Corer.

Previous Generations Understood About Death, And Undoubtedly Would Have Seen A Reasonable Amount Of Death. Once You Get Into The Victorian Era, You Might Well Have Seen The Funerals Of Many Of Your Siblings Before You Were Very Old.

Writing, For Me, Is A Little Like Wood Carving. You Find The Lump Of Tree (the Big Central Theme That Gets You Started), And You Start Cutting The Shape That You Think You Want It To Be. But You Find, If You Do It Right, That The Wood Has A Grain Of Its Own (characters Develop And Present New Insights, Concentrated Thinking About The Story Opens New Avenues). If You're Sensible, You Work With The Grain And, If You Come Across A Knot Hole, You Incorporate That Into The Design. This Is Not The Same As 'making It Up As You Go Along'; It's A Very Careful Process Of Control.

You Know, You're Rather Amusingly Wrong.

She Heard Him Mutter, 'can You Take Away This Grief?' 'i'm Sorry,' She Replied. 'everyone Asks Me. And I Would Not Do So Even If I Knew How. It Belongs To You. Only Time And Tears Take Away Grief; That Is What They Are For.

The Best Research Is The Research That You Don't Know That You Are Doing.

It's The Expression On Their Little Faces I Like, Said The Hogfather. "you Mean Sort Of Fear And Awe And Not Knowing Whether To Laugh Or Cry Or Wet Their Pants?" Yes. Now That Is What I Call Belief.

Even Our Fears Make Us Feel Important, Because We Fear We Might Not Be.

Everywhere's Been Where It Is Ever Since It Was First Put There. It's Called Geography.

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

Progress Just Means Bad Things Happen Faster.

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

All Property Is Theft, Except Mine.

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.

Unlike Wizards, Who Like Nothing Better Than A Complicated Hierarchy, Witches Don't Go In Much For The Structured Approach To Career Progression. It's Up To Each Individual Witch To Take On A Girl To Hand The Area Over To When She Dies. Witches Are Not By Nature Gregarious, At Least With Other Witches, And They Certainly Don't Have Leaders. Granny Weatherwax Was The Most Highly-regarded Of The Leaders They Didn't Have.

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.

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.")

I'm Not Cruel, Sir, I Won't Shoot You In The Guts, But I Will Make You Realize How Much You Took Your Toes For Granted.

You Can't Second-guess Ineffability, I Always Say.

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.

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.

When You're All Singing Together, It Brings Things Together. I Know The Songs That My Grandfather And My Father Sang.

Many People, Meeting Aziraphale For The First Time, Formed Three Impressions: That He Was English, That He Was Intelligent, And That He Was Gayer Than A Treeful Of Monkeys On Nitrous Oxide.

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.

Take It From Me, Whenever You See A Bunch Of Buggers Puttering Around Talking About Truth And Beauty And The Best Way Of Attacking Ethics, You Can Bet Your Sandals It's All Because Dozens Of Other Poor Buggers Are Doing All The Real Work Around The Place.

Wikipedia, Eh? Must Be Accurate Then.

Or -- And This She Knew Was A Far More Accurate Way Of Looking At It -- The Book Was True And Reality Was Lying.

My Idea Of A Good Novel Was One You Made Enough Money Out Of To Buy A Greenhouse.

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

Quit While You're A Head, That's What I Say.

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

We're Philosophers. We Think, Therefore We Am.

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.

It Was One Of Those Problematic Occasions With Long Silences, Sporadic Coughs, And People Saying Isolated Things Like, "well, Isn't This Nice.

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.

There Can Be No Better Grounding For A Lifetime As An Author Than To See Humanity In All Its Various Guises Through The Lens Of The Reporter For The Town.

Once You've Ruled Out The Impossible Then Whatever Is Left, However Improbable, Must Be The Truth. The Problem Lay In Working Out What Was Impossible, Of Course. That Was The Trick, All Right. There Was Also The Curious Incident Of The Orangutan In The Night-time.

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.

But That Was Just It - Hate Was Exactly The Right Word. Hate Is A Force Of Attraction. Hate Is Just Love With Its Back Turned.

Jesus Won't Cut You Off Before You're Through With Him You Won't Never Get A Crossed Line, And When Your Bill Comes It'll All Be Properly Itemised He's The Telephone Repairman On The Switchboard Of My Life. The Phone Line To The Saviour's Always Free Of Interference He's In At Any Hour, Day Or Night And When You Call J-e-s-u-s You Always Call Toll-free He's The Telephone Repairman On The Switchboard Of My Life.

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

I Like Being A Writer.

But The Helmet Had Gold Decoration, And The Bespoke Armorers Had Made A New Gleaming Breastplate With Useless Gold Ornamentation On It. Sam Vimes Felt Like A Class Traitor Every Time He Wore It. He Hated Being Thought Of As One Of Those People That Wore Stupid Ornamental Armor. It Was Gilt By Association.

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