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Their Families Cordially Detested One Another.

-Terry Pratchett

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Their Families Cordially Detested

Terry Pratchett

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Their Families Cordially Detested One Another.

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He Was Determined To Discover The Underlying Logic Behind The Universe. Which Was Going To Be Hard, Because There Wasn't One.

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

Esk Felt That Bravery Was Called For, But On A Night Like This Bravery Lasted Only As Long As A Candle Stayed Alight.

...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.

Got To Be Worth A Try, I Suppose," Said Crowley. "it's Not As If I Haven't Got Lots Of Other Work To Do, God Knows." His Forehead Creased For A Moment, And Then He Slapped The Steering Wheel Triumphantly. "ducks!" He Shouted. "what?" "that's What Water Slides Off!" Aziraphale Took A Deep Breath. "just Drive The Car, Please," He Said Wearily.

You Must Learn The Compassion Proper To Your Trade" "and What's That?" "a Sharp Edge.

Any True Wizard, Faced With A Sign Like 'do Not Open This Door. Really. We Mean It. We're Not Kidding. Opening This Door Will Mean The End Of The Universe,' Would Automatically Open The Door In Order To See What All The Fuss Is About. This Made Signs Rather A Waste Of Time, But At Least It Meant That When You Handed What Was Left Of The Wizard To His Grieving Relatives You Could Say, As They Grasped The Jar, 'we Told Him Not To."

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.

If You Had Enough Money, You Could Hardly Commit Crimes At All. You Just Perpetrated Amusing Little Peccadilloes.

Anyway, It's Like With Bikes,' Said The First Speaker Authoritatively. 'i Thought I Was Going To Get This Bike With Seven Gears And One Of Them Razorblade Saddles And Purple Paint And Everything, And They Gave Me This Light Blue One. With A Basket. A Girl's Bike.' 'well. You're A Girl,' Said One Of The Others. 'that's Sexism, That Is. Going Around Giving People Girly Presents Just Because They're A Girl.

It Was Quite Impossible To Describe. Here Is What It Looked Like. It Looked Like A Piano Sounds Shortly After Being Dropped Down A Well. It Tasted Yellow, And It Felt Paisley. It Smelled Like The Total Eclipse Of The Moon.

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

She Was Convinced That She Was Anorexic, Because Every Time She Looked In The Mirror She Did Indeed See A Fat Person.

These Weren't Encouraged In The City, Since The Heft And Throw Of A Longbow's Arrow Could Send It Through An Innocent Bystander A Hundred Yards Away Instead Of The Innocent Bystander At Whom It Was Aimed.

There Are, Almost By Definition, An Unlimited Number Of Hells - Potentially At Least A Personal One For Every Living Sapient Being.

She Had Heard It Said That, Before You Could Understand Anybody, You Needed To Walk A Mile In Their Shoes, Which Did Not Make A Whole Lot Of Sense, Because Probably After You Had Walked A Mile In Their Shoes, You Would Understand That They Were Chasing You And Accusing You Of The Theft Of A Pair Of Shoes--although, Of Course, You Could Probably Outrun Them, Owing To Their Lack Of Footwear.

Watching A Dog Try To Chew A Large Piece Of Toffee Is A Pastime Fit For Gods. Mr. Fusspot's Mixed Ancestry Had Given Him A Dexterity Of Jaw That Was Truly Awesome. He Somersaulted Happily Around The Floor, Making Faces Like A Rubber Gargoyle In A Washing Machine.

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

All Tapes Left In A Car For More Than About A Fortnight Metamorphose Into Best Of Queen Albums.

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

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

Look, That's Why There's Rules, Understand? So That You Think Before You Break 'em.

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

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

It Was So Much Easier To Blame It On Them. It Was Bleakly Depressing To Think That They Were Us. If It Was Them, Then Nothing Was Anyone's Fault. If It Was Us, What Did That Make Me? After All, I'm One Of Us. I Must Be. I've Certainly Never Thought Of Myself As One Of Them. No One Ever Thinks Of Themselves As One Of Them. We're Always One Of Us. It's Them That Do The Bad Things.

In Defiance Of Miss Maccalariat I'd Like To Commit Hanky-panky With You, Miss Adora Belle Dearheart... Well, Certainly Hanky, And Possibly Panky When We Get To Know One Another Better.

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.

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

What Is Magic? There Is The Wizard's Explanation... Wizards Talk About Candles, Circles, Planets, Stars, Bananas, Chants, Runes And The Importance Of Having At Least Four Good Meals Every Day.

Demons Were Like Genies Or Philosophy Professors - If You Didn't Word Things Exactly Right, They Delighted In Giving You Absolutely Accurate And Completely Misleading Answers.

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

Some Of My Best Sources Are Ex-policemen, Just To Get A Feeling Of What It's Like To Be One. And It's Quite Different From Being A Civilian - Except, Of Course, That I Believe That Policemen Are Just Special Sorts Of Civilians. Things Like How Hard It Is To Hold Someone That Doesn't Want To Be Held. This Is The Kind Of Thing That Is Worth Knowing.

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

Speak Softly And Employ A Huge Man With A Crowbar.

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

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.

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

Once Upon A Time

Sometimes The Only Thing You Could Do For People Was To Be There.

It Was Then That Marvin Got Religion. Not The Quiet, Personal Kind, That Involves Doing Good Deeds And Living A Better Life; Not Even The Kind That Involves Putting On A Suit And Ringing People's Doorbells; But The Kind That Involves Having Your Own Tv Network And Getting People To Send You Money.

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.

But What Should We Do When The Highborn And Wealthy Take To Crime? Indeed, If A Poor Man Will Spend A Year In Prison For Stealing Out Of Hunger, How High Would The Gallows Need To Be To Hang The Rich Man Who Breaks The Law Out Of Greed?

It's Very Rare That I Ever Go And Research A Particular Subject. Mostly I Do Serendipitous Research, I Read Stuff, Things Spinning Out Of The Page.

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

I Don’t See Why It Matters What Is Written. Not When It’s About People. It Can Always Be Crossed Out.

I Didn't Go To University. Didn't Even Finish A-levels. But I Have Sympathy For Those Who Did.

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

Lords And Ladies

In Order To Have A Change Of Fortune At The Last Minute, You Have To Take Your Fortune To The Last Minute.

I've Always Felt That What I Have Going For Me Is Not My Imagination, Because Everyone Has An Imagination. What I Have Is A Relentlessly Controlled Imagination. What Looks Like Wild Invention Is Actually Quite Carefully Calculated.

For The First Time In Her Life Granny Wondered Whether There Might Be Something Important In All These Books People Were Setting Store By These Days, Although She Was Opposed To Books On Strict Moral Grounds, Since She Had Heard That Many Of Them Were Written By Dead People And Therefore It Stood To Reason Reading Them Would Be As Bad As Necromancy. Among The Many Things In The Infinitely Varied Universe With Which Granny Did Not Hold Was Talking To Dead People, Who By All Accounts Had Enough Troubles Of Their Own.

There Was Once A Caustic Comment From Someone Suggesting I Was Breeding A New Race. Fans From Different Countries Have Married, Amazing Things Like That. I've Been To Some Of The Weddings. I Went To One Here The Other Day, A Pagan Ceremony.

It Wasn't That Nanny Ogg Sang Badly. It Was Just That She Could Hit Notes Which, When Amplified By A Tin Bath Half Full Of Water, Ceased To Be Sound And Became Some Sort Of Invasive Presence.

What Is A Fantasy Map But A Space Beyond Which There Be Dragons?

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

Wisdom Comes From Experience. Experience Is Often A Result Of Lack Of Wisdom.

Wisdom Experience

Wisdom And Experience

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

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

I Saved A Man's Life Once," Said Granny. "special Medicine, Twice A Day. Boiled Water With A Bit Of Berry Juice In It. Told Him I'd Bought It From The Dwarves. That's The Biggest Part Of Doct'rin, Really. Most People'll Get Over Most Things If They Put Their Minds To It, You Just Have To Give Them An Interest.

Blessings Be On This House," Granny Said, Perfunctorily. It Was Always A Good Opening Remark For A Witch. It Concentrated People's Minds On What Other Things Might Be On This House.

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.

You Know I've Never Agreed With Baths. Sittin' Around In Your Own Dirt Like That.

You Have Reached The End Of Cake

After A While, Another Voice Said: One, Two, Three, Four- And The Universe Came Into Being. It Was Wrong To Call It A Big Bang. That Would Just Be Noise, And All That Noise Could Create Is More Noise And A Cosmos Full Of Random Particles. Matter Exploded Into Being, Apparently As Chaos, But In Fact As A Chord. The Ultimate Power Chord.

Students, Eh? Love 'em Or Hate 'em, You Can't Hit Them With A Shovel!

Taxation, Gentlemen, Is Very Much Like Dairy Farming. The Task Is To Extract The Maximum Amount Of Milk With The Minimum Amount Of Moo.

The Figures Looked More Or Less Human. And They Were Engaged In Religion. You Could Tell By The Knives (it's Not Murder If You Do It For A God).

I Really Wish That Peoplewould Just Say, 'yes, It's A Comic. Yes, This Is Fantasy. Yes, This Is Science Fiction,' And Defend The Genre Instead Of Saying, 'horror Is A Bit Passe So This Is Dark Fantasy,' And That' S Playing Someone Else's Game. So That's Why I Say I'm A Fantasy Writer And To Hell With 'it Doesn't Read Like What I Think Of As A Fantasy'. In That Case What You Think Of As A Fantasy Is Not A Fantasy. Or There Is More To It Than You Think.

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.

It Is Always Useful To Face An Enemy Who Is Prepared To Die For His Country," He Read. "this Means That Both You And He Have Exactly The Same Aim In Mind.

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 Are, Always And Only, The Bad People, But Some Of Them Are On Opposite Sides.

Funny Inspirational

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

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

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.

I Was A Very Keen Reader Of Science Fiction, And During The Time I Was Going To Libraries, It Was Good, Written By People Who Knew Their Science.

It Is Important That We Know Where We Come From, Because If You Do Not Know Where You Come From, Then You Don't Know Where You Are, And If You Don't Know Where You Are, You Don't Know Where You're Going. And If You Don't Know Where You're Going, You're Probably Going Wrong.

You Do Know You Could Find Yourself Charged With Being A Dominant Species While Under The Influence Of Impulse-driven Consumerism, Don't You?

Finding Yourself

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 Get A Wonderful View From The Point Of No Return.

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

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

There Are Times In Life When People Must Know When Not To Let Go. Balloons Are Designed To Teach Small Children This.

I Don't Think A Baker Reads An Awful Lot About Bread.

The Point Of Page One Is To Make People Turn To Page Two And If At The End Of The Book People Think That The Book Was Good Value For Money, You Have Achieved Something, Because If You Haven't Achieved Those Things You're Not Going To Achieve The Other Thing.

Just Because Something Is A Metaphor Doesn't Mean It Can't Be Real.

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.

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.

I Was Once A Journalist. And I Think Of Myself As A Journalist, And That's It. You Tell The Truth. I Even Wrote A Book Called 'the Truth'.

Telling The Truth

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

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.

There Are Some Things That Are More Appropriate To A Children's Than An Adult Book But There's A Huge Overlapping Area And Most Kids Read An Age Group Up Anyway.

Some People Think 'coven' Is A Word For A Group Of Witches, And It's True That's What The Dictionary Says. But The Real Word For A Group Of Witches Is 'an Argument'.

Gods Play Games With The Fates Of Men. But First They Have To Get All The Pieces On The Board And Look All Over The Place For The Dice.

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.

You Know How To Pray, Don’t You? Just Put Your Hands Together And Hope.

Every Intelligent Being, Whether It Breathes Or Not, Coughs Nervously At Some Time In Its Life.

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.

He Helped The Librarian Up. There Was A Red Glow In The Ape's Eyes. It Had Tried To Steal His Books. This Was Probably The Best Proof Any Wizard Could Require That The Trolleys Were Brainless.

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.

There Is No Doubt That Being Human Is Incredibly Difficult And Cannot Be Mastered In One Lifetime.

I Don't Think I've Drunk Enough Beer To Understand That.

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

Learnin’ How Not To Do Things Is As Hard As Learning How To Do Them.

Sometimes I Think A Man Could Wander Across The Disc All His Life And Not See Everything There Is To See,' Said Twoflower. 'and Now It Seems There Are Lots Of Other Worlds As Well. When I Think I Might Die Without Seeing A Hundredth Of All There Is To See It Makes Me Feel,' He Paused, Then Added, 'well, Humble, I Suppose. And Very Angry, Of Course.

His Mind Worked Fast, Flying In Emergency Supplies Of Common Sense, As Human Minds Do, To Construct A Huge Anchor In Sanity And Prove That What Happened Hadn't Really Happened And, If It Had Happened, Hadn't Happened Much.

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.

Life Doesn't Happen In Chapters - At Least, Not Regular Ones.

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.

Look At Satan. Created As An Angel, Grows Up To Be The Great Adversary. Hey, If You’re Going To Go On About Genetics, You Might As Well Say The Kid Will Grow Up To Be An Angel. After All, His Father Was Really Big In Heaven In The Old Days. Saying He’ll Grow Up To Be A Demon Just Because His Dad Became One Is Like Saying A Mouse With Its Tail Cut Off Will Give Birth To Tailless Mice. No. Upbringing Is Everything. Take It From Me.

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.

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

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

We Live In A Science Fiction Universe. We Have Done For A Long Time.

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

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.

Experience Has Taught Me That You Feel Better On A Flight If You Avoid Chicken Fat In Plastic Sauce.

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.

Tʜᴇʀᴇ's ɴᴏ ᴊᴜsᴛɪᴄᴇ, ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ's ᴊᴜsᴛ ᴍᴇ. —death

- Don’t Worry, It Won’t Be Forever. - Good. - It May Seem Like Forever.

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

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.

It's Amazing How Fast Gold Works.

The Most Prudent Thing Any Intelligent Animal Can Do, If It Would Prefer Its Descendents Not To Spend A Lot Of Time On A Slab With Electrodes Clamped To Their Brains Or Sticking Mines On The Bottom Of Ships, Or Being Patronised By Zoologists, Is To Make Bloody Certain Humans Don't Find Out About It.

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

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

I'm Not The World's Greatest Expert, But I Would Have Thought That The Wizards, Witches, Trolls, Unicorns, ... Broomsticks And Spells Would Have Given Her A Clue?' - When J.k. Rowling Insisted She Wasn't Writing Fantasy.

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

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.

If You Try To To Take My Bananas From Me, I Will Reclaim Them From Your Cold Dead Hands.

What Did They Feed The Lions And Tigers With In The Ark, Sir?

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.

As Large As Worlds. As Old As Time. As Patient As A Brick.

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

At Such Times The Universe Gets A Little Closer To Us. They Are Strange Times, Times Of Beginnings And Endings. Dangerous And Powerful. And We Feel It Even If We Don't Know What It Is. These Times Are Not Necessarily Good, And Not Necessarily Bad. In Fact, What They Are Depends On What *we* Are.

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.

You Know, I Never Imagined There Were He-dryads. Not Even In An Oak Tree." One Of The Giants Grinned At Him. Druellae Snorted. "stupid! Where Do You Think Acorns Come From?

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

Real Children Do Not Go Hoppity Skip Unless They Are On Drugs.

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.

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

This Is A Lovely Party," Said The Bursar To A Chair, "i Wish I Was Here.

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.

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

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

There Is Always A Choice." "you Mean I Could Choose Certain Death?" "a Choice Nevertheless, Or Perhaps An Alternative. You See I Believe In Freedom. Not Many People Do, Although They Will Of Course Protest Otherwise. And No Practical Definition Of Freedom Would Be Complete Without The Freedom To Take The Consequences. Indeed, It Is The Freedom Upon Which All The Others Are Based.

They Were Indeed What Was Known As 'old Money', Which Meant That It Had Been Made So Long Ago That The Black Deeds Which Had Originally Filled The Coffers Were Now Historically Irrelevant. Funny, That: A Brigand For A Father Was Something You Kept Quiet About, But A Slave-taking Pirate For A Great-great-great-grandfather Was Something To Boast Of Over The Port. Time Turned The Evil Bastards Into Rogues, And Rogue Was A Word With A Twinkle In Its Eye And Nothing To Be Ashamed Of.

The Battle Of Koom Valley Is The Only One Known To History Where Both Sides Ambushed Each Other.

Just Because It's Not Nice Doesn't Mean It's Not Miraculous.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Thing About Witchcraft," Said Mistress Weatherwax, "is That It's Not Like School At All. First You Get The Test, And Then Afterward You Spend Years Findin' Out How You Passed It. It's A Bit Like Life In That Respect

You Can't Die With An Unfinished Book.

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.

The Truth Isn't Easily Pinned To A Page. In The Bathtub Of History The Truth Is Harder To Hold Than The Soap And Much More Difficult To Find.

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

Most Gods Find It Hard To Walk And Think At The Same Time.

If Per Capita Was A Problem, Decapita Could Be Arranged.

"god Does Not Play Games With His Loyal Servants," Said The Metatron, But In A Worried Tone Of Voice. "whooo-eee," Said Crowley. "where Have You Been?"

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.

Real Stupidity Beats Artificial Intelligence Every Time.

I Tell You, Commander, It's True That Some Of The Most Terrible Things In The World Are Done By People Who Think, Genuinely Think, That They're Doing It For The Best, Especially If There Is Some God Involved.

Some Of Them Wanted To Sell Me Snake Oil And I'm Not Necessarily Going To Dismiss All Of These, As I Have Never Found A Rusty Snake.

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

Freedom Without Limits Is Just A Word.

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.

I Don't Read An Awful Lot Of Fiction And When I Do, It Tends To Be Lightweight Stuff.

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.

It Was All Very Well Going On About Pure Logic And How The Universe Was Ruled By Logic And The Harmony Of Numbers, But The Plain Fact Of The Matter Was That The Disc Was Manifestly Traversing Space On The Back Of A Giant Turtle And The Gods Had A Habit Of Going Round To Atheists' Houses And Smashing Their Windows.

The Theater Troubled Her. It Had A Magic Of Its Own, One That Didn’t Belong To Her, One That Wasn’t In Her Control. It Changed The World, And Said Things Were Otherwise Than They Were. And It Was Worse Than That. It Was Magic That Didn’t Belong To Magical People. It Was Commanded By Ordinary People, Who Didn’t Know The Rules. They Altered The World Because It Sounded Better.

There Are Millions Of Chords. There Are Millions Of Numbers. And Everyone Forgets The One That Is A Zero. But Without The Zero, Numbers Are Just Arithmetic. Without The Empty Chord, Music Is Just Noise.

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

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

The Reason That Clichés Become Clichés Is That They Are The Hammers And Screwdrivers In The Toolbox Of Communication.

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.

Progress Just Means Bad Things Happen Faster.

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.

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.

Good Or Bad, Do It As You. Too Many Lies And There's No Truth To Go Back To.

Words Are The Litmus Paper Of The Mind.

Animals Never Spend Time Dividing Experience Into Little Bits And Speculating About All The Bits They've Missed. The Whole Panoply Of The Universe Has Been Neatly Expressed To Them As Things To (a) Mate With, (b) Eat, (c) Run Away From, And (d) Rocks.

It's An Old Magical Principle - It's Even Filtered Down Into Rpg Systems - That Magic, While Taking A Lot Of Effort, Can Be 'stored' - In A Staff, For Example. No Doubt A Wizard Spends A Little Time Each Day Charging Up His Staff, Although You Go Blind If You Do It Too Much, Of Course.

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.

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

People's Whole Lives Do Pass In Front Of Their Eye Before They Die. The Process Is Called "living".

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

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.

It's Actually True That I Keep Myself Going By Constantly Promising Myself That In Response For The Hard Work I Will Be Allowed To Do Some More Hard Work Later On.

You Had To Deal Every Day With People Who Were Foolish And Lazy And Untruthful And Downright Unpleasant, And You Could Certainly End Up Thinking That The World Would Be Considerably Improved If You Gave Them A Slap.

Bishops Move Diagonally. That's Why They Often Turn Up Where The Kings Don't Expect Them To Be.

Perhaps It Would Be Simpler If You Just Did What You're Told And Didn't Try To Understand Things.

If You Put Butter And Salt On It, It Tastes Like Salty Butter.

Even The Blind And Meek And Voiceless Have Gods.

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.

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

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

Sister Mary Was A Nurse And Nurses, Whatever Their Creed, Are Primarily Nurses, Which Had A Lot To Do With Wearing Your Watch Upside Down, Keeping Calm In Emergencies, And Dying For A Cup Of Tea.

Some Pirates Achieved Immortality By Great Deeds Of Cruelty Or Derring-do. Some Achieved Immortality By Amassing Great Wealth. But The Captain Had Long Ago Decided That He Would, On The Whole, Prefer To Achieve Immortality By Not Dying.

I Don't Regret It, You Know. I Would Do It All Again. Children Are Our Hope For The Future." There Is No Hope For The Future, Said Death. "what Does It Contain, Then?" Me.

They Suffered From The Terrible Delusion That Something Could Be Done. They Seemed Prepared To Make The World The Way They Wanted It Or Die In The Attempt, And The Trouble With Dying In The Attempt Was That You Died In The Attempt.

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