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The Library Didn't Only Contain Magical Books, The Ones Which Are Chained To Their Shelves And Are Very Dangerous. It Also Contained Perfectly Ordinary Books, Printed On Commonplace Paper In Mundane Ink. It Would Be A Mistake To Think That They Weren't Also Dangerous, Just Because Reading Them Didn't Make Fireworks Go Off In The Sky. Reading Them Sometimes Did The More Dangeous Trick Of Making Fireworks Go Off In The Privacy Of The Reader's Brain.

-Terry Pratchett

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The Library Didn't Only

Terry Pratchett

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The Library Didn't Only Contain Magical Books, The Ones Which Are Chained To Their Shelves And Are Very Dangerous. It Also Contained Perfectly Ordinary Books, Printed On Commonplace Paper In Mundane Ink. It Would Be A Mistake To Think That They Weren't Also Dangerous, Just Because Reading Them Didn't Make Fireworks Go Off In The Sky. Reading Them Sometimes Did The More Dangeous Trick Of Making Fireworks Go Off In The Privacy Of The Reader's Brain.

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Needless To Say, They Refused To Submit To The Empire, Conducting Such A Persistent Guerrilla War That The Romans Gave Up Hope Of Conquering Scotland, And The Wee Free Men Remained Both Wee And Free.

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

What Kind Of Man Would Put A Known Criminal In Charge Of A Major Branch Of Government? Apart From, Say, The Average Voter.

They Didn't Know Why These Things Were Funny. Sometimes You Laugh Because You've Got No More Room For Crying. Sometimes You Laugh Because Table Manners On A Beach Are Funny. And Sometimes You Laugh Because You're Alive, When You Really Shouldn't Be.

Sometimes, The Best Answer Is A More Interesting Question.

History Isn't Like That. History Unravels Gently, Like An Old Sweater. It Has Been Patched And Darned Many Times, Reknitted To Suit Different People, Shoved In A Box Under The Sink Of Censorship To Be Cut Up For The Dusters Of Propaganda, Yet It Always - Eventually - Manages To Spring Back Into Its Old Familar Shape. History Has A Habit Of Changing The People Who Think They Are Changing It. History Always Has A Few Tricks Up Its Frayed Sleeve. It's Been Around A Long Time.

Reality Is Not Digital, An On-off State, But Analog. Something Gradual. In Other Words, Reality Is A Quality That Things Possess In The Same Way That They Possess, Say, Weight. Some People Are More Real Than Others, For Example. It Has Been Estimated That There Are Only About Five Hundred Real People On Any Given Planet, Which Is Why They Keep Unexpectedly Running Into One Another All The Time.

They Felt, In Fact, Tremendously Bucked-up, Which Was How Lady Ramkin Would Almost Certainly Have Put It And Which Was Definitely Several Letters Of The Alphabet Away From How They Normally Felt.

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

Gods Prefer Simple, Vicious Games, Where You Do Not Achieve Transcendence But Go Straight To Oblivion; A Key To The Understanding Of All Religion Is That A God's Idea Of Amusement Is Snakes And Ladders With Greased Rungs.

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

What's The Good Of Having Mastery Over Cosmic Balance And Knowing The Secrets Of Fate If You Can't Blow Something Up?

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

No One Thinks That Young Adults Read Hooks For Young Adults, Books For Young Adults Are Read By Kids.

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

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

Fortune Telling

Poets Have Tried To Describe Ankh-morpork. They Have Failed. Perhaps It's The Sheer Zestful Vitality Of The Place, Or Maybe It's Just That A City With A Million Inhabitants And No Sewers Is Rather Robust For Poets, Who Prefer Daffodils And No Wonder. So Let's Just Say That Ankh-morpork Is As Full Of Life As An Old Cheese On A Hot Day, As Loud As A Curse In A Cathedral, As Bright As An Oil Slick, As Colourful As A Bruise And As Full Of Activity, Industry, Bustle And Sheer Exuberant Busyness As A Dead Dog On A Termite Mound.

As We All Know, The Discworld Is A Flat Planet - Like A Geological Pizza, But Without The Anchovies.

Go On, Prove Me Wrong. Destroy The Fabric Of The Universe. See If I Care.

I Imagine That Fish Have No Word For Water.

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.

What's The Orbital Velocity Of The Moon?

Belief Is One Of The Most Powerful Organic Forces In The Multiverse. It May Not Be Able To Move Mountains, Exactly. But It Can Create Someone Who Can. People Get Exactly The Wrong Idea About Belief. They Think It Works Back To Front. They Think The Sequence Is, First Object, Then Belief. In Fact, It Works The Other Way.

He Was, He Would Be The First To Admit, A Coward, An Incompetent, And Not Even Very Good At Being A Failure.

I Read Anything That’s Going To Be Interesting. But You Don’t Know What It Is Until You’ve Read It. Somewhere In A Book On The History Of False Teeth There’ll Be The Making Of A Novel.

The Students Were Staring At Her In The Manner Of Those Who Have Heard Of The Species 'female' But Have Never Expected To Get This Close To One.

Despite Rumor, Death Isn't Cruel--merely Terribly, Terribly Good At His Job.

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

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

"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?

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.

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

I'll Be More Enthusiastic About Encouraging Thinking Outside The Box When There's Evidence Of Any Thinking Going On Inside It.

Sham Harga Had Run A Successful Eatery For Many Years By Always Smiling, Never Extending Credit, And Realizing That Most Of His Customers Wanted Meals Properly Balanced Between The Four Food Groups: Sugar, Starch, Grease, And Burnt Crunchy Bits.

Cake Is Not The Issue Here.

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

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.

These Weren't Cheap Modern Books; These Were Books Bound In Leather, And Not Just Leather, But Leather From Clever Cows Who Had Given Their Lives For Literature After A Happy Existence In The Very Best Pastures.

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

William: "i'm Sure We Can All Pull Together, Sir." Vetinari: "oh, I Do Hope Not. Pulling Together Is The Aim Of Despotism And Tyranny. Free Men Pull In All Kinds Of Directions.

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

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

I Have No Fear Of Death Whatsoever. I Suspect That Few People Do, What They All Fear Is What Might Happen In The Years Or Months Before Death.

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

Natural Selection Saw To It That Professional Heroes Who At A Crucial Moment Tended To Ask Themselves Questions Like 'what Is My Purpose In Life?' Very Quickly Lacked Both.

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In Ancient Times Cats Were Worshiped As Gods; They Have Not Forgotten This.

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

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.

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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.

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Asking Someone To Repeat A Phrase You'd Not Only Heard Very Clearly But Were Also Exceedingly Angry About Was Around Defcon Ii In The Lexicon Of Squabble.

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5.buggre Alle This For A Larke I Amme Sick To Mye Hart Of Typefetinge. Master Biltonn If No Gentelmann, And Master Scagges Now More That A Tighte Fisted Southwarke Knobbefticke. I Telle You, Onne A Daye Laike Thif Ennywone Withe Half And Oz Of Sense Shoulde Bee Oute In The Suneshain, Ane Nott Stucke Here Alle The Lielong Dale Inn Thif Mowldey Olde By-our-lady Workefhoppe *ae@;i*

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

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.

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All Property Is Theft, Except Mine.

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

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By The Time You Write The Last Page You Have Done Half The Book. The Other Half Tends To Get Done In About Five Weeks; I Do Several Drafts, Very, Very Furiously Rewriting. I Literally Do More Or Less Nothing Else And I Stick With It And Go Through It And I Begin To Hate It.

He’s Bound To Have Done Something,” Nobby Repeated. In This He Was Echoing The Patrician’s View Of Crime And Punishment. If There Was A Crime, There Should Be Punishment. If The Specific Criminal Should Be Involved In The Punishment Process Then This Was A Happy Accident, But If Not Then Any Criminal Would Do, And Since Everyone Was Undoubtedly Guilty Of Something, The Net Result Was That, In General Terms, Justice Was Done.

Bringing About Armageddon Can Be Dangerous. Do Not Attempt It In Your Own Home.

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.

If Women Were As Good As Men They'd Be A Lot Better!

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.

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.

The Librarians Were Mysterious. It Was Said They Could Tell What Book You Needed Just By Looking At You, And They Could Take Your Voice Away With A Word.

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.

Pets Are Always A Great Help In Times Of Stress. And In Times Of Starvation Too, O'course.

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.

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

Poetic Simile Was Strictly Limited To Statements Like 'his Mighty Steed Was As Fleet As The Wind On A Fairly Calm Day, Say About Force Three,' And Any Loose Talk About A Beloved Having A Face That Launched A Thousand Ships Would Have To Be Backed By Evidence That The Object Of Desire Did Indeed Look Like A Bottle Of Champagne.

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

Raising The Flag And Singing The Anthem Are, While Somewhat Suspicious, Not In Themselves Acts Of Treason.

Over The Centuries, Mankind Has Tried Many Ways Of Combating The Forces Of Evil... Prayer, Fasting, Good Works And So On. Up Until Doom, No One Seemed To Have Thought About The Double-barrel Shotgun. Eat Leaden Death, Demon...

When All Else Failed, She Tried Being Reasonable.

A Police Procedural Novel Can Be Even Funnier If The Police Include Trolls And Dwarves And Things Like That. You Start Looking At The Whole Basis Of The Cop Novel. You Get The Cop Moving In A Different Way When You've Actually Set It In A Fantasy City.

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

Studies Have Shown That An Ant Can Carry One Hundred Times Its Own Weight, But There Is No Known Limit To The Lifting Power Of The Average Tiny Eighty-year-old Spanish Peasant Grandmother.

You Can’t Say ‘if This Didn’t Happen Then That Would Have Happened’ Because You Don’t Know Everything That Might Have Happened. You Might Think Something’d Be Good, But For All You Know It Could Have Turned Out Horrible. You Can’t Say ‘if Only I’d…’ Because You Could Be Wishing For Anything. The Point Is, You’ll Never Know. You’ve Gone Past. So There’s No Use Thinking About It.

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

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?

It Was Said That Life Was Cheap In Ankh-morpork. This Was Of Course, Completely Wrong. Life Was Often Very Expensive; You Could Get Death For Free.

Appreciate Life

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.

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

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

No One Is Actually Dead Until The Ripples They Cause In The World Die Away.

Probably The Last Man Who Knew How It Worked Had Been Tortured To Death Years Before. Or As Soon As It Was Installed. Killing The Creator Was A Traditional Method Of Patent-protection.

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

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

Why Do You Go Away? So That You Can Come Back. So That You Can See The Place You Came From With New Eyes And Extra Colors. And The People There See You Differently, Too. Coming Back To Where You Started Is Not The Same As Never Leaving.

My Agent Pointed Out One Day That I Had Been Quoted By A Columnist In Some American Newspaper, And He Noted With Some Glee That They Simply Identified Me By Name Without Reminding People Who I Was, Apparently In The Clear Expectation That Their Readers Would Know Who I Am.

I Read The 'old Testament' All The Way Through When I Was About 13 And Was Horrified. A Few Months Afterwards I Read 'the Origin Of Species', Hallucinating Very Mildly Because I Was In Bed With Flu At The Time. Despite That, Or Because Of That, It All Made Perfect Sense.

These People Were Not Only Cheering, They Were Throwing Flowers And Hats. The Hats Were Made Of Stone, But The Thought Was There.

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

So Much Universe, And So Little Time.

Never Trust A Species That Grins All The Time. It’s Up To Something.

Veil, You See, If I Vas To Say Something Portentous Like "zer Dark Eyes Of Zer Mind" Back Home In Uberwald, Zer Would Be A Sudden Crash Of Thunder,' Said Otto. 'and If I Vas To Point At A Castle On A Towering Crag And Say "yonder Is . . . Zer Castle" A Volf Would Be Bound To Howl Mournfully.' He Sighed. 'in Zer Old Country, Zer Scenery Is Psychotropic And Knows Vot Is Expected Of It. Here, Alas, People Just Look At You In A Funny Vay.

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

It Was Also A Room Full Of Books And Made Of Books. There Was No Actual Furniture; This Is To Say, The Desk And Chairs Were Shaped Out Of Books. It Looked As Though Many Of Them Were Frequently Referred To, Because They Lay Open With Other Books Used As Bookmarks.

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.

Pride Is All Very Well, But A Sausage Is A Sausage.

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

He's Out Of His Depth On A Wet Pavement.

Two Types Of People Laugh At The Law: Those That Break It And Those That Make It.

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.

The Mountains Of Madness Have Many Little Plateau Of Sanity.

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.

Consider The Situation. There You Are, Forehead Like A Set Of Balconies, Worrying About The Long-term Effects Of All This New 'fire' Stuff On The Environment, You're Being Chased And Eaten By Most Of The Planet's Large Animals, And Suddenly Tiny Versions Of One Of The Worst Of Them Wanders Into The Cave And Starts To Purr.

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

The Ideal Death, I Think, Is What Was The Ideal Victorian Death, You Know, With Your Grandchildren Around You, A Bit Of Sobbing. And You Say Goodbye To Your Loved Ones, Making Certain That One Of Them Has Been Left Behind To Look After The Shop.

It's Amazing How Fast Gold Works.

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.

That's Why It's Always Worth Having A Few Philosophers Around The Place. One Minute It's All Is Truth Beauty And Is Beauty Truth, And Does A Falling Tree In The Forest Make A Sound If There's No One There To Hear It, And Then Just When You Think They're Going To Start Dribbling One Of 'em Says, Incidentally, Putting A Thirty-foot Parabolic Reflector On A High Place To Shoot The Rays Of The Sun At An Enemy's Ships Would Be A Very Interesting Demonstration Of Optical Principles.

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!

Magicians And Scientists Are, On The Face Of It, Poles Apart. Certainly, A Group Of People Who Often Dress Strangely, Live In A World Of Their Own, Speak A Specialized Language And Frequently Make Statements That Appear To Be In Flagrant Breach Of Common Sense Have Nothing In Common With A Group Of People Who Often Dress Strangely, Speak A Specialized Language, Live In ... Er.

I'm Trying To Have A Moment O' Existential Dreed Here, Right? Crivens, It's A Puir Lookout If A Man Canna Feel The Chilly Winds O' Fate Lashing Aroound His Netheres Wi'out Folks Telling Him He's Deid, Eh?

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.

Balance. It Was All About Balance. That Had Been One Of The First Things That She Had Learned: The Centre Of The Seesaw Has Neither Up Nor Down, But Upness And Downness Flow Through It While It Remains Unmoved. You Had To Be The Centre Of The Seesaw So The Pain Flowed Through You, Not Into You. It Was Very Hard. But She Could Do It!

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

I Would Like Permission To Fetch A Note From My Mother, Sir' Ridcully Sighed. 'rincewind, You Once Informed Me, To My Everlasting Puzzlement, That You Never Knew Your Mother Because She Ran Away Before You Were Born. Distinctly Remember Writing It Down In My Diary. Would You Like Another Try?' 'permission To Go And Find My Mother?'

If Not You, Who Else?

Our Garden Was Debated Territory Between Five Local Cats, And We'd Heard That The Best Way To Keep Other Cats Out Of The Garden Was To Have One Yourself. A Moment's Rational Thought Here Will Spot The Slight Flaw In This Reasoning.

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

Open Your Eyes And Then Open Your Eyes Again.

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.

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

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

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?

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

He’sh Mad?’ ‘sort Of Mad. But Mad With Lots Of Money.’ ‘ah, Then He Can’t Be Mad. I’ve Been Around; If A Man Hash Lotsh Of Money He’sh Just Ecshentric.

Ingenuity And Incongruity Always Cheer Me Up.

And He Dreamed The Dream Of All Those Who Publish Books, Which Was To Have So Much Gold In Your Pockets That You Would Have To Employ Two People Just To Hold Your Trousers Up.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

'don't Think Of It As Dying,' Said Death. 'just Think Of It As Leaving Early To Avoid The Rush.'

Everything Makes Sense A Bit At A Time. But When You Try To Think Of It All At Once, It Comes Out Wrong.

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

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.

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

...inside Every Old Person Is A Young Person Wondering What Happened.

People Wanted The World To Be A Story, Because Stories Had To Sound Right And They Had To Make Sense. People Wanted The World To Make Sense.

That Was Always The Dream, Wasn't It? 'i Wish I'd Known Then What I Know Now'? But When You Got Older You Found Out That You Now Wasn't You Then. You Then Was A Twerp. You Then Was What You Had To Be To Start Out On The Rocky Road Of Becoming You Now, And One Of The Rocky Patches On That Road Was Being A Twerp.

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

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

The World Is A Globe — The Farther You Sail, The Closer To Home You Are.

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.

Other People Salted Away Money For Their Old Age, But Nanny Preferred To Accumulate Memories.

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.

First Draft: Let It Run. Turn All The Knobs Up To 11. Second Draft: Hell. Cut It Down And Cut It Into Shape. Third Draft: Comb Its Nose And Blow Its Hair. I Usually Find That Most Of The Book Will Have Handed Itself To Me On That First Draft.

Drinks Like This Tend To Get Called Traffic Lights Or Rainbow's Revenge Or, In Places Where Truth Is More Highly Valued, Hello And Good-bye, Mr. Brain Cell.

The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword ... If The Sword Is Very Short, And The Pen Is Very Sharp.

The Worst Thing You Can Do Is Nothing.

Would A Minute Have Mattered? No, Probably Not, Although His Young Son Appeared To Have A Very Accurate Internal Clock. Possibly Even 2 Minutes Would Be Okay. Three Minutes, Even. You Could Go To Five Minutes, Perhaps. But That Was Just It. If You Could Go For Five Minutes, Then You'd Go To Ten, Then Half An Hour, A Couple Of Hours...and Not See Your Son All Evening. So That Was That. Six O'clock, Prompt. Every Day. Read To Young Sam. No Excuses. He'd Promised Himself That. No Excuses. No Excuses At All. Once You Had A Good Excuse, You Opened The Door To Bad Excuses.

People Are Bound To Get Excited When They See A Ten-million-ton Starship Trying To Fly Down The Street.

If There Were Such A Thing As An Inter-city Thieving Contest, Ankh-morpork Would Bring Home The Trophy And Probably Everyone’s Wallets.

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

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

You Can't Trample Infidels When You're A Tortoise. I Mean, All You Could Do Is Give Them A Meaningful Look.

His Movements Could Be Called Cat-like, Except That He Did Not Stop To Spray Urine Up Against Things.

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.

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.

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 Did I Tell You About Mister Safety Catch?' Said Vimes Weakly. When Mister Safety Catch Is Not On, Mister Crossbow Is Not Your Friend,' Recited Detritus, Saluting.

There's Some Things That You Wouldn't Tackle In A Children's Book Because It Would Be Beyond, Not The Mental Capabilities, But The Experience Of Someone Under The Age Of Say Ten Or Eleven To Encompass. But That Field Is Smaller Than You Might Think. They Can Easily Cope With Death And Things Like That; They Know About It And It's A Subject That Often Preoccupies Them.

The Man Gave A Shrug Which Indicated That, Although The World Did Indeed Have Many Problems, This Was One Of Them That Was Not His.

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

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

The People Who Guard The Rainbow Don't Like Those Who Get In The Way Of The Sun.

Yes, But People Have Got To Believe That, Or What's The Point My Point Exactly.

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!

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.

There's No Such Thing As Writer's Block. That Was Invented By People In California Who Couldn't Write.

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.

I Think What Drove Me Away From Being A Reporter Was An Inability To Accept That The World Came In Neat Stories. Every Story You Have To Report Is Just Part Of Something Bigger. The News Isn't What Happened Last Night - It's Some Cumulative Thing That's Happened Over Centuries. I Found It Hard To Think Of One Event And Drag It Out Of A Bubbling Pot And Present It As The Story That Explains It All.

The Most Important Thing Was That Time Had Passed, Pouring Thousands Of Soothing Seconds Across The Island. People Need Time To Deal With The Now Before It Runs Away And Becomes The Then.

Any Wizard Bright Enough To Survive For Five Minutes Was Also Bright Enough To Realize That If There Was Any Power In Demonology, Then It Lay With The Demons. Using It For Your Own Purposes Would Be Like Trying To Beat Mice To Death With A Rattlesnake.

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.

Most Gods Throw Dice, But Fate Plays Chess, And You Don't Find Out Til Too Late That He's Been Playing With Two Queens All Along.

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.

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.

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

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

If I Knew That I Could Die, I Would Live. My Life, My Death, My Choice.

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.'

It's Hard To Be Famous And Alive.

Well, Basically There Are Two Sorts Of Opera," Said Nanny, Who Also Had The True Witch's Ability To Be Confidently Expert On The Basis Of No Experience Whatsoever. "there's Your Heavy Opera, Where Basically People Sing Foreign And It Goes Like "oh Oh Oh, I Am Dyin', Oh I Am Dyin', Oh Oh Oh, That's What I'm Doin'", And There's Your Light Opera, Where They Sing In Foreign And It Basically Goes "beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I Like To Drink Lots Of Beer!", Although Sometimes They Drink Champagne Instead. That's Basically All Of Opera, Reely.

I Dare Say That Quite A Few People Have Contemplated Death For Reasons That Much Later Seemed To Them To Be Quite Minor.

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

Sybil's Female Forebears Had Valiantly Backed Up Their Husbands As Distant Embassies Were Besieged, Had Given Birth On A Camel Or In The Shade Of A Stricken Elephant, Had Handed Around The Little Gold Chocolates While Trolls Were Trying To Break Into The Compound, Or Had Merely Stayed At Home And Nursed Such Bits Of Husbands And Sons As Made It Back From Endless Little Wars. The Result Was A Species Of Woman Who, When Duty Called, Turned Into Solid Steel.

Every Step Is A First Step If It's A Step In The Right Direction.

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

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Harold MacMillan

Carl Clinton Van Doren

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