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The Labyrinth Of Ephebe Is Ancient And Full Of One Hundred And One Amazing Things You Can Do With Hidden Springs, Razor-sharp Knives, And Falling Rocks.

-Terry Pratchett

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The Labyrinth Of Ephebe

Terry Pratchett

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The Labyrinth Of Ephebe Is Ancient And Full Of One Hundred And One Amazing Things You Can Do With Hidden Springs, Razor-sharp Knives, And Falling Rocks.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Just Because You've Got A Mind Like A Hammer Doesn't Mean You Have To Treat Everyone Else Like A Nail

He Was Certain He Was Anorectic, Because Every Time He Looked In A Mirror He Saw A Fat Man. It Was The Archchancellor, Standing Behind Him And Shouting At Him.

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

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.

In Genua, Someone Set Out To Make Dreams Come True. Remember Some Of Your Dreams?

Dreams Come True

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

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.

Silverfish Looked Down. "oh. Are You A Dwarf?" Cuddy Gave Him A Blank Stare. "are You A Giant?" He Said. "me? Of Course Not!" "ah. Then I Must Be A Dwarf, Yes."

You Can't Make People Happy By Law. If You Said To A Bunch Of Average People Two Hundred Years Ago "would You Be Happy In A World Where Medical Care Is Widely Available, Houses Are Clean, The World's Music And Sights And Foods Can Be Brought Into Your Home At Small Cost, Traveling Even 100 Miles Is Easy, Childbirth Is Generally Not Fatal To Mother Or Child, You Don't Have To Die Of Dental Abscesses And You Don't Have To Do What The Squire Tells You" They'd Think You Were Talking About The New Jerusalem And Say "yes."

Modesty Is Only Arrogance By Stealth.

Do You Know How Wizards Like To Be Buried?" "yes!" "well, How?" Granny Weatherwax Paused At The Bottom Of The Stairs. "reluctantly.

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.

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.

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.

I Found While Driving In Wyoming That Wearing A Stetson And Driving A Beat-up Pickup Meant You Could Go As Fast As You Like, While The Police Picked Up Californian Winnebagos That Went One Mph Over 55. After All, They Wanted To Bring Money Into The State, Not Merely Circulate It.

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

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

Either All Days Are Holy Or None Are.

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

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

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

People Who Used Magic Without Knowing What They Were Doing Usually Came To A Sticky End. All Over The Entire Room, Sometimes.

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.

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.

Only Ron's Dog Was Watching William. He Considered That It Had, For A Dog, A Very Offensive And Knowing Look. A Couple Of Months Ago Someaone Had Tried To Hand William The Old Story About There Being A Dog In The City That Could Talk. (...) The Dog In Front Of William Didn't Look As If It Could Talk, But It Did Look As If It Would Swear.

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

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

You Have Reached The End Of Cake

And Sam Vimes Thought: Why Is Young Sam's Nursery Full Of Farmyard Animals Anyway? Why Are His Books Full Of Moo-cows And Baa-lambs? He Is Growing Up In The City. He Will Only See Them On A Plate! They Go Sizzle!

And We Don't Often Get Any Wading Birds In The River Ankh, Mainly Because The Pollution Would Eat Their Legs Away And Anyway, It's Easier For Them To Walk On The Surface.

I Like Being A Writer.

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.

And It Came To Pass That In Time The Great God Om Spake Unto Brutha, The Chosen One: "psst!

The Worst Thing You Can Do Is Nothing.

When All Else Failed, She Tried Being Reasonable.

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

Insanity Is Catching.

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.

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.

So, Mistletoe, In Fact, Symbolizes Mistletoe.

They Can Ta'k Our Lives But They Can Never Ta'k Our Freedom!' Now There's A Battle Cry Not Designed By A Clear Thinker

People Don't Like To Say Comic So They Say Graphic Novel, Despite The Fact That I Don't Think The True Graphic Novel Has Been Written Anywhere.

You're Not Allowed To Call Them Dinosaurs Any More," Said Yo-less. "it's Speciesist. You Have To Call Them Pre-petroleum Persons.

Political Correctness

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

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.

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

I Don't Hold With Paddlin' With The Occult," Said Granny Firmly. "once You Start Paddlin' With The Occult You Start Believing In Spirits, And When You Start Believing In Spirits You Start Believing In Demons, And Then Before You Know Where You Are You're Believing In Gods. And Then You're In Trouble." "but All Them Things Exist," Said Nanny Ogg. "that's No Call To Go Around Believing In Them. It Only Encourages 'em.

Who Knows What The Future Holds.

The Merest Accident Of Microgeography Had Meant That The First Man To Hear The Voice Of Om, And Who Gave Om His View Of Humans, Was A Shepherd And Not A Goatherd. They Have Quite Different Ways Of Looking At The World, And The Whole Of History Might Have Been Different. For Sheep Are Stupid, And Have To Be Driven. But Goats Are Intelligent, And Need To Be Led.

A Good Banana Daiquiri Is Hard To Come By. I've Only Ever Found One Place In This Country That Makes A Proper One, And That's In Leeds.

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

Just Because Someone's A Member Of An Ethnic Minority Doesn't Mean They're Not A Nasty Small-minded Little Jerk [...]

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.

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

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

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

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

She Folded Her Arms And Then Shouted, "right You Thieving Scunners! How Dare You Steal Miss Treason's Funeral Meats!" "oh, Waily, Waily, It's The Foldin' O' The Arms, The Foooldin' O' The Aaaarmss!" Cried Daft Wullie, Dropping To The Ground And Trying To Cover Himself With Leaves. Around Him Feegles Started To Wail And Cower And Big Yan Began To Bang His Head On The Rear Wall Of The Dairy.

The Whole Of Life Is Just Like Watching A Film. Only It's As Though You Always Get In Ten Minutes After The Big Picture Has Started, And No-one Will Tell You The Plot, So You Have To Work It Out All Yourself From The Clues.

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

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

Tourist, Rincewind Decided, Meant ‘idiot.

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

Cats Gravitate To Kitchens Like Rocks Gravitate To Gravity.

I Don't See What's So Triffic About Creating People As People And Then Gettin' Upset 'cos They Act Like People.

Everyone's Heard Of Erwin Schrodinger's Famous Thought Experiment. You Put A Cat In A Box With A Bottle Of Poison, Which Many People Would Suggest Is About As Far As You Need To Go.

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.

The Presence Of Those Seeking The Truth Is Infinitely To Be Preferred To The Presence Of Those Who Think They've Found It.

Granny Weatherwaz Was A Witch. That Was Quite Acceptable In The Ramtops, And No One Had A Bad Word To Say About Witches. At Least, Not If He Wanted To Wake Up In The Morning The Same Shape As He Went To Bed.

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

I'm Fairy Godmothering A Girl Who Sounds Like Something You Put Up In The Rain.

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

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.

It Was, According To The History Books, The Fastest Coronation Since Bubric The Saxon Crowned Himself With A Very Pointy Crown On A Hill During A Thunderstorm, And Reigned For One And A Half Seconds.

Somewhere Around The Place I've Got An Unfinished Short Story About Schrodinger's Dog; It Was Mostly Moaning About All The Attention The Cat Was Getting.

I [...] Vowed That Rather Than Let Alzheimer's Take Me, I Would Take It. I Would Live My Life As Ever To The Full And Die, before The Disease Mounted Its Last attack, In My Own Home, In A Chair On The Lawn, With A Brandy In My Hand To Wash Down Whatever Modern version Of The "brompton Cocktail" Some helpful Medic Could Supply. And With thomas Tallis On My Ipod, I Would Shake Hands With Death.

It Is Possible To Live Well With Dementia And Write Best-sellers 'like Wot I Do.

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.

I Would Rather Stare At The Wall For Half An Hour Than Watch An Episode Of Any Of The 53,801 Australian Soap Operas Now Cluttering Up Uk Tv.

Magic Never Dies. It Merely Fades Away.

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

The Iq Of A Mob Is The Iq Of Its Dumbest Member Divided By The Number Of Mobsters.

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

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.

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.

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

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

I Could Be Wrong. Not Being Certain Is What Being A Philosopher Is All About.

And All Those Exclamation Marks, You Notice? Five? A Sure Sign Of Someone Who Wears His Underpants On His Head.

Exclamation Marks

It Takes A Special Kind Of Person To Fight Back.

You Were Safe On A Troll. Anyone Wanting To Mug A Troll Would Have To Use A Building On A Stick.

I Hate Cats." Death's Face Became A Little Stiffer, If That Were Possible. The Blue Glow In His Eye Sockets Flickered Red For An Instant. "i See," He Said. The Tone Suggested That Death Was Too Good For Cat Haters.

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.

In An Instant He Became Aware That The Tourist Was About To Try His Own Peculiar Brand Of Linguistics, Which Meant That He Would Speak Loudly And Slowly In His Own Language.

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.

Too Much Magic Could Wrap Time And Space Around Itself, And That Wasn't Good News For The Kind Of Person Who Had Grown Used To Things Like Effects Following Things Like Causes.

Your Whole Life Passes In Front Of Your Eyes Before You Die. This Is Called Living.

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

Interesting Times

You Can't Go Around Building A Better World For People. Only People Can Build A Better World For People. Otherwise It's Just A Cage. Besides You Don't Build A Better World By Choppin' Heads Off And Giving Decent Girls Away To Frogs.

Evolution Was Far More Thrilling To Me Than The Biblical Account. Who Would Not Rather Be A Rising Ape Than A Falling Angel? To My Juvenile Eyes, Darwin Was Proved True Every Day. It Doesn't Take Much To Make Us Flip Back Into Monkeys Again.

The Three Rules Of The Librarians Of Time And Space Are: 1) Silence; 2) Books Must Be Returned By No Later Than The Date Shown; And 3) Do Not Interfere With The Nature Of Causality.

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.

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

Did I Do Anything Last Night That Suggested I Was Sane?

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

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.

The Point Is That If A Book That Had Been Published Three Years Ago Started To Sell Twice As Many All Of A Sudden It Probably Wouldn't Even Get Noticed. People Wouldn't Be Tracking It. The System Has Cleaned Up Its Act An Awful Lot But The Best-seller List System Is Not An Entirely Foolproof Thing.

All He Knew Was That You Couldn't Hope To Try For The Big Stuff, Like World Peace And Happiness, But You Might Just About Be Able To Achieve Some Tiny Deed That'd Make The World, In A Small Way, A Better Place. Like Shooting Someone.

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.

They May Have Been Ugly. They May Have Been Evil. But When It Came To Poetry In Motion, The Things Had All The Grace And Coordination Of A Deck-chair.

This Book Had Two Authors, And They Were Both The Same Person.

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.

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

There's One Thing You Can Say For Air Pollution, You Get Utterly Amazing Sunrises.

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.’

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

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.

There Are No Inconsistencies In The Discworld Books; Ocassionally, However, There Are Alternate Pasts.

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

I’ve Seen Excitement, And I’ve Seen Boredom. And Boredom Was Best.

He Felt That The Darkness Was Full Of Unimaginable Horrors - And The Trouble With Unimaginable Horrors Was That They Were Only Too Easy To Imagine.

Speak Softly And Employ A Huge Man With A Crowbar.

The Power Of Prayer And Faith Can Heal And Bring Happiness. The Real Tragedy Is That The People That Are Helped By This Don't Realize That This Power Is Really Coming From Within.

One Of The Recurring Philosophical Questions Is: 'does A Falling Tree In The Forest Make A Sound When There Is No One To Hear?' Which Says Something About The Nature Of Philosophers , Because There Is Always Someone In A Forest. It May Only Be A Badger, Wondering What That Cracking Noise Was, Or A Squirrel A Bit Puzzled By All The Scenery Going Upwards, But Someone.

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

Anyway, Just Because You're Sworn Enemies Doesn't Mean You Can't Be Friends, Does It?

Opera Happens Because A Large Number Of Things Amazingly Fail To Go Wrong.

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.

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

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.

Everyone Knew There Were Wolves In The Mountains, But They Seldom Came Near The Village-the Modern Wolves Were The Offspring Of Ancestors That Had Survived Because They Had Learned That Human Meat Had Sharp Edges.

The Singers All Loathe The Sight Of One Another, The Chorus Despises The Singers, They Both Hate The Orchestra, And Everyone Fears The Conductor; The Staff On One Prompt Side Won't Talk To The Staff On The Opposite Prompt Side, The Dancers Are All Crazed From Hunger In Any Case.

And Sin, Young Man, Is When You Treat People Like Things.

Stop Stealing The Funeral Meats Right Now, You Wee Scuggers!" She Shouted. The Feegles Stopped And Stared At Her. Then Rob Anybody Said: "socks Wi'oot Feets?

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

Seeing, Contrary To Popular Wisdom, Isn't Believing. It's Where Belief Stops, Because It Isn't Needed Any More.

Susan Says, Don't Get Afraid, Get Angry.

All Was Black, Gloomy And Awful. There Was No Light At The End Of The Tunnel - Or If There Was, It Was An Oncoming Train.

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

In My Early Teens, I Read Every Bound Volume Of The Magazine Punch. Every Writer Of Any Distinction In The English Language, And I Mean Including America And England, At Some Time Wrote For Punch. Jerome K. Jerome, Who Wrote Three Men In A Boat, I Loved. I Was Very Impressed When I Read A Piece By Mark Twain In Punch, And Realized That Despite The Fact That They Were On Different Continents, Jerome K. Jerome And Mark Twain Had The Same Kind Of Laconic, Laid-back, "the Human Race Is Damn Stupid, But Quite Interesting" Attitude. They Were Almost Talking With The Same Voice.

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

The Truth May Be Out There, But Lies Are Inside Your Head.

Most Armies Are In Fact Run By Their Sergeants - The Officers Are There Just To Give Things A Bit Of Tone And Prevent Warfare Becoming A Mere Lower-class Brawl.

The Monks Of Cool, Whose Tiny And Exclusive Monastery Is Hidden In A Really Cool And Laid-back Valley In The Lower Ramtops, Have A Passing-out Test For A Novice. He Is Taken Into A Room Full Of All Types Of Clothing And Asked: Yo, My Son, Which Of These Is The Most Stylish Thing To Wear? And The Correct Answer Is: Hey, Whatever I Select.

Rings Try To Find Their Way Back To Their Owner. Someone Ought To Write A Book About It.

It Is Possibly Worth Mentioning At This Point That Mr. Young Thought That Paparazzi Was A Kind Of Italian Linoleum.

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

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

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.

Sheep Are Stupid, And Have To Be Driven. But Goats Are Intelligent, And Need To Be Led.

I'm Interested In Mythology Generally, But India Has No Special Place In My Heart - Although Hindu Gods Seem A Lot More Fun.

London Was Not Designed For Cars. Come To That, It Wasn't Designed For People. It Just Sort Of Happened. This Created Problems, And The Solutions That Were Implemented Became The Next Problems, Five Or Ten Or A Hundred Years Down The Line.

The Thing With Crowns Is, It Isn't The Putting Them On That's The Problem, It's The Taking Them Off.

When You Look Into The Abyss, It’s Not Supposed To Wave Back.

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

The Best Research You Can Do Is To Talk To People.

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

It's Hard To Be Famous And Alive.

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

Just Erotic. Nothing Kinky. It's The Difference Between Using A Feather And Using A Chicken.

Oh Dear Me, The Booker People Don't Like Me. I Don't Care. I Have Been Given An Award For Being Taken Not Seriously, And I Am Very, Very Pleased About That.

Sometimes It Is Better To Light A Flamethrower Than Curse The Darkness.

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.

Rincewind Shivered. He Was Not, Of Course, An Atheist; On The Disc The Gods Dealt Severely With Atheists. On The Few Occasions When He Had Some Spare Change He Had Always Made A Point Of Dropping A Few Coppers Into A Temple Coffer, Somewhere, On The Principle That A Man Needed All The Friends He Could Get. But Usually He Didn't Bother The Gods, And He Hoped The Gods Wouldn't Bother Him. Life Was Quite Complicated Enough.

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.

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

Humans Can Think Inhuman Thoughts.

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

She Was Also, By The Standards Of Other People, Lost. She Would Not See It Like That. She Knew Where She Was, It Was Just That Everywhere Else Didn't.

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.

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

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

Once Upon A Time The Plural Of 'wizard' Was 'war'.

Once Upon A Time

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].

See A Pin And Pick It Up, And, All Day Long, You'll Have A Pin.

...it Is Well Known That A Vital Ingredient Of Success Is Not Knowing That What You're Attempting Can't Be Done.

This Was The Definition Of Eternity; It Was The Space Of Time Devised By The Great God Om To Ensure That Everyone Got The Punishment That Was Due To Them.

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

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

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.

People Don't Like To Say Fantasy They Say Magic Realism Which Means Fantasy Written By Somebody I Went To University With.

He Found That He Had This Sudden Desperate Longing For The Fuming, Smoky Streets Of Ankh-morpork, Which Was Always At Its Best In The Spring, When The Gummy Sheen On The Turbid Waters Of The Ankh River Had A Special Iridescence And The Eaves Were Full Of Birdsong, Or At Least Birds Coughing Rhythmically

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.

The Dwarfs Can Turn Lead Into Gold... It Reached The Pointy Ears Of The Dwarfs. -can We? -damned If I Know. I Can't. -yeah, But If You Could, You Wouldn't Say. I Wouldn't Say, If I Could. -can You? -no! -ah-ha!

Humans! They Lived In A World Where The Grass Continued To Be Green And The Sun Rose Every Day And Flowers Regularly Turned Into Fruit, And What Impressed Them? Weeping Statues. And Wine Made Out Of Water! A Mere Quantum-mechanistic Tunnel Effect, That'd Happen Anyway If You Were Prepared To Wait Zillions Of Years. As If The Turning Of Sunlight Into Wine, By Means Of Vines And Grapes And Time And Enzymes, Wasn't A Thousand Times More Impressive And Happened All The Time.

When A Man Is Tired Of Ankh-morpork, He Is Tired Of Ankle-deep Slurry.

The Auditors Fluttered Anxiously. And, As Always Happens In Their Species When Something Goes Radically Wrong And Needs Fixing Instantly, They Settled Down To Try To Work How Who Was To Blame.

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

That's One Form Of Magic, Of Course." "what, Just Knowing Things?" "knowing Things That Other People Don't Know.

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

I've Never Really Liked The Yanks. ... You Can't Trust People Who Pick Up The Ball All The Time When They Play Football.

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.

Assassins Did Have A Certain Code, After All. It Was Dishonorable To Kill Someone If You Weren't Being Paid.

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

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