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There Are, It Has Been Said, Two Types Of People In The World. There Are Those Who, When Presented With A Glass That Is Exactly Half Full, Say: This Glass Is Half Full. And Then There Are Those Who Say: This Glass Is Half Empty. The World Belongs, However, To Those Who Can Look At The Glass And Say: What's Up With This Glass? Excuse Me? Excuse Me? This Is My Glass? I Don't Think So. My Glass Was Full! And It Was A Bigger Glass! Who's Been Pinching My Beer?

-Terry Pratchett

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There Are, It Has

Terry Pratchett

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There Are, It Has Been Said, Two Types Of People In The World. There Are Those Who, When Presented With A Glass That Is Exactly Half Full, Say: This Glass Is Half Full. And Then There Are Those Who Say: This Glass Is Half Empty. The World Belongs, However, To Those Who Can Look At The Glass And Say: What's Up With This Glass? Excuse Me? Excuse Me? This Is My Glass? I Don't Think So. My Glass Was Full! And It Was A Bigger Glass! Who's Been Pinching My Beer?

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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.

It's Daft, Locking Us Up," Said Nanny. "i'd Have Had Us Killed." "that's Because You're Basically Good," Said Magrat. "the Good Are Innocent And Create Justice. The Bad Are Guilty, Which Is Why They Invent Mercy.

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

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Another Priest Said,"is It True You've Said You'll Believe In Any God Whose Existence Can Be Proved By Logical Debate?""yes."vimes Had A Feeling About The Immediate Future And Took A Few Steps Away From Dorfl."but The Gods Plainly Do Exist," Said A Priest."it Is Not Evident."a Bolt Of Lightning Lanced Down Through The Clouds And Hit Dorfl's Helmet. There Was A Sheet Of Flame And Then A Trickling Noise. Dorfl's Molten Armour Formed Puddles Around His White-hot Feet."i Don't Call That Much Of An Argument," Said Dorfl Calmly, From Somewhere In The Clouds Of Smoke.

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

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

I Ushered Souls Into The Next World. I Was The Grave Of All Hope. I Was The Ultimate Reality. I Was The Assassin Against Whom No Lock Would Hold. - "yes, Point Taken, But Do You Have Any Particular Skills?"

Plot Exposition That Can Be Gently Wound Out By The Authorial Voice And Internal Monologue Of A Character In The Length Of A Page Has To Be Delivered In A Matter Of Seconds On The Stage.

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

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I Just Rearrange Words Into A Pleasing Order For Money.

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Nothing But Dust And Fundamentalists.

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

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

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This Isn't Life In The Fast Lane, It's Life In The Oncoming Traffic.

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

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I Used To Think That I Was Stupid, And Then I Met Philosophers.

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Because No Man Wants To Be A Coward In Front Of A Cheese.

Cats Gravitate To Kitchens Like Rocks Gravitate To Gravity.

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

Letitia! What A Name. Halfway Between A Salad And A Sneeze.

Tomorrow Is The First Day Of The Rest Of Our Lives.

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

It's Either Because Of The Number Of Times The Scholar Puts The Boot Into Peter Jackson The Director Of The Lord Of The Rings Films Or Is Making A Point They Have Never Heard Of.

Things Just Happen. What The Hell.

A Witch Who Is Bored Might Do Anything. People Said Things Like 'we Had To Make Our Own Amusements In Those Days' As If This Signified Some Kind Of Moral Worth, And Perhaps It Did, But The Last Thing You Wanted A Witch To Do Was Get Bored And Start Making Her Own Amusements, Because Witches Sometimes Had Famously Erratic Ideas About What Was Amusing.

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.

The Enemy Isn’t Men, Or Women, It’s Bloody Stupid People And No-one Has The Right To Be Stupid.

Granddad Was Superstitious About Books. He Thought That If You Had Enough Of Them Around, Education Leaked Out, Like Radioactivity.

Writing Is The Most Fun You Can Have By Yourself.

The Shortest Unit Of Time In The Multiverse Is The New York Second, Defined As The Period Of Time Between The Traffic Lights Turning Green And The Cab Behind You Honking.

The Short Conversation That Follows Eventually Led To A Tree Religion. Its Tenet Of Faith Was This: A Tree That Was A Good Tree And Led A Clean Decent And Upstanding Life Could Be Assured Of A Future Life After Death. If It Was Very Good Indeed It Would Eventually Be Reincarnated As Five Thousand Rolls Of Lavatory Paper.

My Programming Language Was Solder.

Programming Languages

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

Ye Know Full Well That The Meaning Of Life Is To Find Your Gift. To Find Your Gift Is Happiness. Never Tae Find It Is Misery.

Meaning Of Life

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

I Stroll Along, Talk, I Sign Books, People Buy Me Drinks, I Forget Where My Hotel Is, I Get Lost And Fall Into Some Local Body Of Water... Done It Hundreds Of Times.

Their Families Cordially Detested One Another.

When You Stand Between Two Mirrors You're Spread Out Among The Images, Your Whole Soul Is Pulled Out Thin, And Somewhere In The Distant Images A Dark Part Of You Might Get Out And Come Looking For You, If You Aren't Careful.

Nature Abhors A Lot Of Things, Including Vacuums, Ships Called The Marie Celeste, And The Chuck Keys For Electric Drills.

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

You Are In Favour Of The Common People?” Said Dragon Mildly. The Common People?” Said Vimes. “they’re Nothing Special. They’re No Different From The Rich And Powerful Except They’ve Got No Money Or Power. But The Law Should Be There To Balance Things Up A Bit. So I Suppose I’ve Got To Be On Their Side.

I'd Like To Stand Up For The Rights Of People Who Put Everything On Their Burger - Chutney, Mustard, Pickle, Mustard Pickle, Tomato Sauce... It Is Common Knowledge In My Family That I Can't Tell The Difference Between A Veggie Burger And A Meat One, Because The Ratio Of Burger To Pickles Is So High.

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.

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

They Say That The Prospect Of Being Hanged In The Morning Concentrates A Man's Mind Wonderfully; Unfortunately, What The Mind Inevitably Concentrates On Is That, In The Morning, It Will Be In A Body That Is Going To Be Hanged.

This Is Art Holding A Mirror Up To Life. That’s Why Everything Is Exactly The Wrong Way Around.

Not All Questions Are Answered, But Fortunately Some Answers Are Questioned.

Most People Who Have Found That They Are More Intelligent Than Most Around Them, Have Yet To Learn That One Of The Most Intelligent Things They Can Do Is Prevent Said People Ever Finding This Out.

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.

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.

Any Sensible Ruler Would Have Killed Off Leonard, And Lord Vetinari Was Extremely Sensible And Often Wondered Why He Had Not Done So. He'd Decided That It Was Because, Imprisoned In The Priceless, Inquiring Amber Of Leonard's Massive Mind, Underneath That Bright Investigative Genius Was A Kind Of Willful Innocence That Might In Lesser Men Be Called Stupidity. It Was The Seat And Soul Of That Force Which, Down The Millennia, Had Caused Mankind To Stick Its Fingers In The Electric Light Socket Of The Universe And Play With The Switch To See What Happened - And Then Be Very Surprised When It Did.

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

Wisdom Experience

Wisdom And Experience

I've Often Felt Depressed; Everyone Feels Depressed.

There Is A Soak-the-rich Attitude In The Air, A Feeling That If You Have A Lot Of Money You Must Have Got It By Some Ghastly Means. I Can Quite Happily Say There Was Never Any Family Money. All The Money We Got Was Mine, Just From Writing Books.

Privilege (to The Privileged) Means Having Private Laws.

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

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.

There Has Been A Lot Of Bad Fantasy In The Past - I'm By No Means Saying That All Classic Fantasy Out There Is Bad - But There Has Been A Lot Of Bad Fantasy Written By People Who Read A Lot Of Fantasy And So All They Keep Doing Is Recycling It.

I Do Note With Interest That Old Women In My Books Become Young Women On The Covers... This Is Discrimination Against The Chronologically Gifted.

Light Died In The West. Night And Tears Took The Nation. The Star Of Water Drifted Among The Clouds Like A Murderer Softly Leaving The Scene Of The Crime.

Night Poured Over The Desert. It Came Suddenly, In Purple. In The Clear Air, The Stars Drilled Down Out Of The Sky, Reminding Any Thoughtful Watcher That It Is In The Deserts And High Places That Religions Are Generated. When Men See Nothing But Bottomless Infinity Over Their Heads They Have Always Had A Driving And Desperate Urge To Find Someone To Put In The Way.

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.

Time Was Something That Largely Happened To Other People; He Viewed It In The Same Way That People On The Shore Viewed The Sea. It Was Big And It Was Out There, And Sometimes It Was An Invigorating Thing To Dip A Toe Into, But You Couldn't Live In It All The Time. Besides, It Always Made His Skin Wrinkle.

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.

I Am Certain No One Sets Out To Be Cruel, But Our Treatment Of The Elderly Ill Seems To Have No Philosophy To It. As A Society, We Should Establish Whether We Have A Policy Of Life At Any Cost.

Bill Door Was Impressed. Miss Flitworth Could Actually Give The Word "revenue", Which Had Two Vowels And One Diphthong, All The Peremptoriness Of The Word "scum.

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

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

That's What's So Stupid About The Whole Magic Thing, You Know. You Spend Twenty Years Learning The Spell That Makes Nude Virgins Appear In Your Bedroom, And Then You're So Poisoned By Quicksilver Fumes And Half-blind From Reading Old Grimoires That You Can't Remember What Happens Next.

Eight Years Involved With The Nuclear Industry Have Taught Me That When Nothing Can Possible Go Wrong And Every Avenue Has Been Covered, Then Is The Time To Buy A House On The Next Continent.

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.

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.

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 Know It's A Very Human Thing To Say 'is There Anything I Can Do', But In This Case I Would Only Entertain Offers From Very High-end Experts In Brain Chemistry.

Are You A Philosopher? Where's Your Sponge?

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!

Why Bother With A Cunning Plan When A Simple One Will Do?

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.

I Used To Like Reading And You Read Enough Books And You Overflow And Then You Start Writing.

But In His Experience It Was Only A Matter Of Time Before The Normal Balance Of The Universe Restored Itself And Started Doing The Usual Terrible Things To Him.

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

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

But Of Course, What The Eagle Does Not Realize Is That It Is Participating In A Very Crude Form Of Natural Selection.one Day A Tortoise Will Learn How To Fly.

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.

The Secret Is Not To Dream," She Whispered. "the Secret Is To Wake Up. Waking Up Is Harder. I Have Woken Up And I Am Real. I Know Where I Come From And I Know Where I'm Going. You Cannot Fool Me Any More. Or Touch Me. Or Anything That Is Mine.

Sometimes I Really Think People Ought To Have To Pass A Proper Exam Before They're Allowed To Be Parents. Not Just The Practical, I Mean.

Just To Keep Bad Dreams At Bay, She Took A Swig Out Of A Bottle That Smelled Of Apples And Happy Brain-death.

The Rising Sun Managed To Peek Around The Vast Column Of Smoke That Forever Rose From Ankh-morpork, City Of Cities, Illustrating Almost Up To The Edge Of Space That Smoke Means Progress Or, At Least, People Setting Fire To Things.

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.

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.

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.

And Then There Were Cats, Thought Dog. He'd Surprised The Huge Ginger Cat From Next Door And Had Attempted To Reduce It To Cowering Jelly By Means Of The Usual Glowing Stare And Deep-throated Growl, Which Had Always Worked On The Damned In The Past. This Time They Had Earned Him A Whack On The Nose That Had Made His Eyes Water. Cats, Dog Considered, Were Clearly A Lot Tougher Than Lost Souls. He Was Looking Forward To A Further Cat Experiment, Which He Planned Would Consist Of Jumping Around And Yapping Excitedly At It. It Was A Long Shot, But It Just Might Work.

Where's The Pleasure In Bein' The Winner If The Loser Ain't Alive To Know They've Lost?

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

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

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