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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.

-Terry Pratchett

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There Is A Soak-the-rich

Terry Pratchett

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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.

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Truly, He Thought, The Way Of Enlightenment Is Like Unto Half A Mile Of Broken Glass.

There Is Always Time For Another Last Minute

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.

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.

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

Hat = Wizard, Wizard = Hat. Everything Else Is Frippery.

It's Lies. It's All Lies. Some Of Them Are Just Prettier Than Others, That's All. People See What They Think Is There.

Down There - He Said - Are People Who Will Follow Any Dragon, Worship Any God, Ignore Any Inequity. All Out Of A Kind Of Humdrum, Everyday Badness. Not The Really High, Creative Loathsomeness Of The Great Sinners, But A Sort Of Mass-produced Darkness Of The Soul. Sin, You Might Say, Without A Trace Of Originality. They Accept Evil Not Because They Say Yes, But Because They Don't Say No.

Vimes Had Got Around To A Clean Desk Policy. It Was A Clean Floor Strategy That Eluded Him At The Moment.

Everything Happens For A Reason, Except Possibly Football. (in Thief Of Time)

Everything Happens For A Reason

Magic Never Dies. It Merely Fades Away.

Once You Gave A Thing A Name, You Gave It Life.

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.

I Don't Think I've Ever Been Critical Of The Money Douglas Adams Makes, Especially Since, As Has Been Tactfully Pointed Out, I Myself Have Had To Change Banks Having Filled The First One Up.

And The New Day Was A Great Big Fish.

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

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

When Much Is Taken, Something Is Returned.

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.

Quick, Someone's Coming! Look Real!

It Was The Living Who Ignored The Strange And Wonderful, Because Life Was Too Full Of The Boring And Mundane.

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

The Entire Universe Has Been Neatly Divided Into Things To (a) Mate With, (b) Eat, (c) Run Away From, And (d) Rocks.

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

She Was, In Fact, Quite A Pleasant Looking Girl, Even If Her Bosom Had Clearly Been Intended For A Girl Two Feet Taller; But She Was Not Her. The Egregious Professor Of Grammar And Usage Would Have Corrected This To "she Was Not She," Which Would Have Caused The Professor Of Logic To Spit Out His Drink.

The Reaper Does Not Listen To The Harvest.

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.

A Witch Ought Never To Be Frightened In The Darkest Forest ... Because She Should Be Sure In Her Soul That The Most Terrifying Thing In The Forest Was Her.

...and The Funny Thing Was That People Who Weren't Entirely Certain They Were Right Always Argued Much Louder Than Other People, As If The Main Person They Were Trying To Convince Were Themselves.

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.

Sometimes Words Need Music Too. Sometimes The Descriptions Are Not Enough. Books Should Be Written With Soundtracks, Like Films.

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

Take The Universe And Grind It Down To The Finest Powder And Sieve It Through The Finest Sieve And Then Show Me One Atom Of Justice, One Molecule Of Mercy. And Yet... And Yet You Act As If There Is Some Ideal Order In The World, As If There Is Some... Some Rightness In The Universe By Which It May Be Judged.

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

It’s Quite Easy To Accidentally Overhear People Talking Downstairs If You Hold An Upturned Glass To The Floorboards And Accidentally Put Your Ear To It.

The City's Full Of People Who You Just See Around.

Actors, Said Granny, Witheringly. As If The World Weren't Full Of Enough History Without Inventing More.

Light Thinks It Travels Faster Than Anything But It Is Wrong. No Matter How Fast Light Travels, It Finds The Darkness Has Always Got There First, And Is Waiting For It.

Taxation Is Just A Sophisticated Way Of Demanding Money With Menaces.

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

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.

"there's A Door," He Whispered. "where Does It Go?" "it Stays Where It Is, I Think," Said Rincewind.

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?'

And Gears," Said Anathema. "my Bike Didn't Have Gears. I'm Sure My Bike Didn't Have Gears." Crowley Leaned Over To The Angel. "oh Lord, Heal This Bike," He Whispered Sarcastically. "i'm Sorry, I Just Got Carried Away," Hissed Aziraphale.

The Wages Of Sin Is Death But So Is The Salary Of Virtue, And At Least The Evil Get To Go Home Early On Fridays.

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

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."

There Have Been Better Attempts At Marching, And They Have Been Made By Penguins.

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

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.

[science Fiction Is] Out In The Mainstream Now. You Can Tell By The Way Mainstream Literary Authors Pillage Sf While Denying They're Writing It!

Walter Plinge Said: "you Know She Asked Me A Very Silly Question Mrs Ogg! It Was A Silly Question Any Fool Knows The Answer!" "oh, Yes," Said Nanny. "about Houses On Fire, I Expect..." "yes! What Would I Take Out Of Our House If It Was On Fire!" "i Expect You Were A Good Boy And Said You'd Take Your Mum," Said Nanny. "no! My Mum Would Take Herself!" "what Would You Take Out Then, Walter?" Nanny Said. "the Fire!

Some People Think This Is Paranoia, But It Isn't. Paranoids Only Think Everyone Is Out To Get Them. Wizards Know 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.

And, While It Was Regarded As Pretty Good Evidence Of Criminality To Be Living In A Slum, For Some Reason Owning A Whole Street Of Them Merely Got You Invited To The Very Best Social Occasions.

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.

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.

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.

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.

So Let's Not Get Frightened When The Children Read Fantasy. It's The Compost For A Healthy Mind. It Stimulate S The Inquisitive Nodes, And There Is Some Evidence That A Rich Internal Fantasy Life Is As Good And Necessary For A Child As Healthy Soil Is For A Plant, For Much The Same Reasons.

She'd Stopped Reading The Kind Of Women's Magazine That Talked About Romance And Knitting And Started Reading The Kind Of Women's Magazine That Talked About Orgasms, But Apart From Making A Mental Note To Have One If Ever The Occasion Presented Itsel

It Is A Popular Fact That Nine-tenths Of The Brain Is Not Used And, Like Most Popular Facts, It Is Wrong. Not Even The Most Stupid Creator Would Go To The Trouble Of Making The Human Head Carry Around Several Pounds Of Unnecessary Gray Goo If Its Only Real Purpose Was, For Example, To Serve As A Delicacy For Certain Remote Tribesmen In Unexplored Valleys.

Belief Sloshes Around In The Firmament Like Lumps Of Clay Spiralling Into A Potter's Wheel. That's How Gods Get Created, For Example. They Clearly Must Be Created By Their Own Believers, Because A Brief Resume Of The Lives Of Most Gods Suggests That Their Origins Certainly Couldn't Be Divine. They Tend To Do Exactly The Things People Would Do If Only They Could, Especially When It Comes To Nymphs, Golden Showers, And The Smiting Of Your Enemies.

I Believe It Should Be Possible For Someone Stricken With A Serious And Ultimately Fatal Illness To Choose To Die Peacefully With Medical Help, Rather Than Suffer.

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

I May Be Daft But I'm No' Stupid!

I Can't Be Talking To A Tree. If I Was Talking To A Tree I'd Be Mad, And I'm Not Mad, So Trees Can't Talk.

Theres No Stink More Sorrorful Than The Stink Of Wet, Burnt Paper. It Means: The End.

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

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

I Would Advise Budding Writers Some Other Kind Of Job, Unless They Think They're Very, Very Lucky.

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

And These Are Your Reasons, My Lord?" "do You Think I Have Others?" Said Lord Vetinari. "my Motives, As Ever, Are Entirely Transparent." Hughnon Reflected That 'entirely Transparent' Meant Either That You Could See Right Through Them Or That You Couldn't See Them At All.

"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?"

Lots Of Ingenuity Gets You Through Times With No Money Better Than Money Gets You Through Times Of No Ingenuity.

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.

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

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

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.

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 Was Sad, Like Those Businessmen Who Came To Work In Serious Clothes But Wore Colorful Ties In A Mad, Desperate Attempt To Show There Was A Free Spirit In There Somewhere.

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

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

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.

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.

You Get All Sorts Of People In The Library, And The Librarian Gets It All.

You Are Very Clever," Said The Old Man Shyly. "i Would Like To Eat Your Brains, One Day.

Perhaps The Magic Would Last, Perhaps It Wouldn't. But Then Again, What Does?

No! Please! I'll Tell You Whatever You Want To Know!" The Man Yelled. "really?" Said Vimes. "what's The Orbital Velocity Of The Moon?" "what?" "oh, You'd Like Something Simpler?

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

Occasionally He Would Very Nearly Swear.

Imagination, Not Intelligence, Made Us Human.

Neither Of My Parents Went To Church, But They Did Everything That You Needed To Do To Be Christian. That's Something A Quaker Would Call An Intimation Of The Divine.

But There Was More To It Than That. As The Amazing Maurice Said, It Was Just A Story About People And Rats. And The Difficult Part Of It Was Deciding Who The People Were, And Who Were The Rats.

I Never Said Nothing..." "i Know You Never! I Could Hear You Not Saying Anything! You've Got The Loudest Silences I Ever Did Hear From Anyone Who Wasn't Dead!

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.

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

Anger Is Wonderful. It Keeps You Going. I'm Angry About Bankers. About The Government.

One Day All Of Us Will Die But - And This Is The Important Thing - We Are Not Dead Yet.

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.

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.

First Of All You Are A Writer, A Writer Is What You Are, So It Doesn't Actually Stop The Moment You Leave Your Desk, Your Computer, Your Keyboard, Whatever. Something Is Operating The Back Of Your Mind.

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

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.

I Write Books Back To Back, And I Work Very Hard On Them.

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.

Million-to-one Chances...crop Up Nine Times Out Of Ten.

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.

So Much Paperwork To Read! So Much Paperwork To Push Away! So Much Paperwork To Pretend He Hadn't Received And That Might Have Been Eaten By Gargoyles.

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.

Never Build A Dungeon You Wouldn't Be Happy To Spend The Night In Yourself. The World Would Be A Happier Place If More People Remembered That.

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

Real Education Happens When You Pick Up A Fact Here, And Another Fact There, And Put Them Together And Get An Insight.

Picturesque Meant - He Decided After Careful Observation Of The Scenerey That Inspired Twoflower To Use The Word - That The Landscape Was Horribly Precipitous. Quaint, When Used To Describe The Occasional Village Through Which They Passed, Meant Fever-ridden And Tumbledown. Twoflower Was A Tourist, The First Ever Seen On The Discworld. Tourist, Rincewind Had Decided, Mean 'idiot'.

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

It Is Said That Whomsoever The Gods Wish To Destroy, They First Make Mad. In Fact, Whomsoever The Gods Wish To Destroy, They First Hand The Equivalent Of A Stick With A Fizzing Fuse And Acme Dynamite Company Written On The Side. It's More Interesting, And Doesn't Take So Long.

There Was A Man And He Had Eight Sons. Apart From That, He Was Nothing More Than A Comma On The Page Of History. It's Sad, But That's All You Can Say About Some People.

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.

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

A Good Bookshop Is Just A Genteel Black Hole That Knows How To Read.

Humans Can Think Inhuman Thoughts.

There's A Lot Of Science In It, And As Slartibartfast [in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy] Said: 'i Am A Great Fan Of Science, But I Cannot Do A Quadratic Equation.' I've Never, Ever Been Able To Do One. I Remember One Occasion At Warwick University, When Jack And Ian Were At Their Wits' End Because I Couldn't Get It. I Felt Totally Ashamed.

Quadratic Equation

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

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

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

It Was Written In Some Holy Book, Apparently, So That Made It Okay, And Probably Compulsory.

No One Knew Where You Were Before You Were Born, But When You Were Born, It Wasn't Long Before You Found You'd Arrived With Your Return Ticket Already Punched.

Go Anywhere You Wish, Talk To Everyone. Ask Any Questions; You Will Be Given Answers. When You Want To Learn, You Will Be Taught. Use The Library. Open Any Book.

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.

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.

When You Read, I'm Sure You Don't Realize That Your Eyes Are Going Backwards And Forwards And To This Place And That Place. Mine Don't Do That.

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.

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

A World Like That, Which Exists Only Because The Gods Enjoy A Joke, Must Be A Place Where Magic Can Survive. And Sex Too, Of Course.

My Character - And For That Matter My Worst Habits - Could Only Be Described By Someone Else. You Can't Open A Box With The Crowbar 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.

Albert Grunted. "do You Know What Happens To Lads Who Ask Too Many Questions?" Mort Thought For A Moment. "no," He Said Eventually, "what?" There Was Silence. Then Albert Straightened Up And Said, "damned If I Know. Probably They Get Answers, And Serve 'em Right.

He Felt As If He Had Been Shipwrecked On The Titanic, But In The Nick Of Time Had Been Rescued. By The Lusitania

Sergeant Colon Of The Ankh-morpork City Guard Was On Duty. He Was Guarding The Brass Bridge, The Main Link Between Ankh And Morpork. From Theft. When It Came To Crime Prevention, Sergeant Colon Found It Safest To Think Big.

All Assassins Had A Full-length Mirror In Their Rooms, Because It Would Be A Terrible Insult To Anyone To Kill Them When You Were Badly Dressed.

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

(about A Cookbook...) - What About This One? Maids Of Honor? - Weeelll, They Starts Out As Maids Of Honor...but They Ends Up Tarts.

Contrary To Popular Belief And Hope, People Don't Usually Come Running When They Hear A Scream. That's Not How Humans Work. Humans Look At Other Humans And Say, 'did You Hear A Scream?' Because The First Scream Might Have Been You Screaming Inside Your Head, Or A Horse Backfiring.

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

Destiny Is Important, See, But People Go Wrong When They Think It Controls Them. It's The Other Way Around.

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.

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.

Be One Of The Crowd? It Went Against Everything A Wizard Stood For, And A Wizard Would Not Stand For Anything If He Could Sit Down For It, But Even Sitting Down, You Had To Stand Out.

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

Oh, Well...up Until Now It Had Been A Good Day, In A Horrible Kind Of Way.

I’m A Witch. It’s What We Do. When It’s Nobody Else’s Business, It’s My Business.

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.

Now That Their Long War Was Over, They Could Get On With The Proper Concern Of All Civilised Nations, Which Is To Prepare For The Next One.

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

Dark Fantasy Is Just Another Way Of Saying Horror.

No, I Happen To Be One Of Those People Whose Memory Shuts Down Under Pressure. The Answers Would Come To Me In The Middle Of The Night In My Sleep! Besides, I Am A Millionaire.

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.

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 Became A Journalist At 17. A Few Hours Later, I Saw My First Dead Body, Which Was Somewhat... Colourful. That's When I Learned You Can Go On Throwing Up After You Run Out Of Things To Throw Up.

Maybe The Best Comics Are Written By People Who Really Are At Ease In The Comic World.

One Day A Tortoise Will Learn How To Fly.

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.

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.

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.

Evil Begins When You Begin To Treat People As Things.

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.

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

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.

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

We've Strayed Into A Zone With A High Magical Index,' He Said. 'don't Ask Me How. Once Upon A Time A Really Powerful Magic Field Must Have Been Generated Here, And We're Feeling The After-effects.' Precisely,' Said A Passing Bush.

Once Upon A Time

The Mountains Of Madness Have Many Little Plateau Of Sanity.

Evil In General Does Not Sleep, And Therefore Doesn't See Why Anyone Else Should.

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.

[y]ou Weren't Born With A Talent For Witchcraft: It Didn't Come Easily; You Worked Hard At It Because You Wanted It. You Forced The World To Give It To You, No Matter The Price, And The Price Is And Always Will Be High... People Say You Don't Find Witchcraft; Witchcraft Finds You. But You've Found It, Even If At The Time You Didn't Know What It Was You Were Finding, And You Grabbed It By Its Scrawny Neck And Made It Work For You.

When She Spoke Again It Was In The Thin, Careful And Above All Brave Voice Of Someone Who Has Pulled Themselves Together Despite Overwhelming Odds But Might Let Go Again At Any Moment.

He Hated Games They Made The World Look Too Simple. Chess, In Particular, Had Always Annoyed Him. It Was The Dumb Way The Pawns Went Off And Slaughtered Their Fellow Pawns While The King Lounged About Doing Nothing. If Only The Pawns Would've United ... The Whole Board Could've Been A Republic In About A Dozen Moves.

A Lot Hinges On The Fact That, In Most Circumstances, People Are Not Allowed To Hit You With A Mallet. They Put Up All Kinds Of Visible And Invisible Signs That Say, 'do Not Do This' In The Hope That It'll Work, But If It Doesn't, Then They Shrug, Because There Is, Really, No Real Mallet At All.

It Was Possibly The Most Circumspect Advance In The History Of Military Maneuvers, Right Down At The Bottom End Of The Scale That Things Like The Charge Of The Light Brigade Are At The Top Of.

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

Unseen University Had Never Admitted Women, Muttering Something About Problems With The Plumbing, But The Real Reason Was An Unspoken Dread That If Women Were Allowed To Mess Around With Magic They Would Probably Be Embarrassingly Good At It.

Have A Bit More Patience With Newbies. Of Course Some Of Them Act Dumb - They're Often Students, For Heaven's Sake.

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

Last Night There Seemed To Be A Chance. Anything Was Possible Last Night. That Was The Trouble With Last Nights. They Were Always Followed By This Mornings.

Most Horses Don't Walk Backwards Voluntarily, Because What They Can't See Doesn't Exist.

No More Words. We Know Them All, All The Words That Should Not Be Said. But You Have Made My World More Perfect.

Several Sellers Of Hot Meat Pies And Sausages In A Bun Had Appeared From Nowhere And Were Doing A Brisk Trade. [footnote: They Always Do, Everywhere. No-one Sees Them Arrive. The Logical Explaination Is That The Franchise Includes The Stall, The Paper Hat And A Small Gas-powered Time Machine.]

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.

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.

At Some Time In The Recent Past Someone Had Decided To Brighten The Ancient Corridors Of The University By Painting Them, Having Some Vague Notion That Learning Should Be Fun. It Hadn’t Worked. It’s A Fact Known Throughout The Universes That No Matter How Carefully The Colors Are Chosen, Institutional Decor Ends Up As Either Vomit Green, Unmentionable Brown, Nicotine Yellow Or Surgical Appliance Pink. By Some Little-understood Process Of Sympathetic Resonance, Corridors Painted In Those Colors Always Smell Slightly Of Boiled Cabbage—even If No Cabbage Is Ever Cooked In The Vicinity.

Credulous: Having Views About The World, The Universe And Humanity's Place In It That Are Shared Only By Very Unsophisticated People And The Most Intelligent And Advanced Mathematicians And Physicists.

Chaos Is Found In Greatest Abundance Wherever Order Is Being Sought. It Always Defeats Order, Because It Is Better Organized.

Oh, Come On. Revelation Was A Mushroom Dream That Belonged In The Apocrypha. The New Testament Is Basically About What Happened When God Got Religion.

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

It Is True That Words Have Power, And One Of The Things They Are Able To Do Is Get Out Of Someone’s Mouth Before The Speaker Has The Chance To Stop Them.

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

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

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?

Welcome To Fear, Said Moist To Himself. It's Hope, Turned Inside Out. You Know It Can't Go Wrong, You're Sure It Can't Go Wrong... But It Might.

Divers Alarums And Excursions', She Read, Uncertainly. 'that Means Lots Of Terrible Happenings, Said Magrat. 'you Always Put That In Plays.' Alarums And What?', Said Nanny Ogg, Who Hadn't Been Listening. Excursions', Said Magrat Patienly. Oh.' Nanny Ogg Brightened A Bit. 'the Seaside Would Be Nice,' She Said. Oh Do Shut Up, Gytha,' Said Granny Weatherwax. 'they're Not For You. They're Only For Divers, Like It Says. Probably So They Can Recover From All Them Alarums.

Few Things Are Hidden From A Quiet Child With Good Eyesight.

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