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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.

-Terry Pratchett

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There Was Once A

Terry Pratchett

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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.

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Do Not Act Incautiously When Confronting A Little Bald Wrinkly Smiling Man!

Imagination, Not Intelligence, Made Us 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.

Ordinary Fortune-tellers Tell You What You Want To Happen; Witches Tell You What’s Going To Happen Whether You Want It To Or Not. Strangely Enough, Witches Tend To Be More Accurate But Less Popular.

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

Freedom Without Limits Is Just A Word.

Build A Man A Fire, And He'll Be Warm For A Day. Set A Man On Fire, And He'll Be Warm For The Rest Of His Life.

In All Seriousness, People Think That It's The Ideas That Are Important. Well, Everyone Has Ideas, All The Time. I Tend To Write Mine Down And Remember Them, But At Some Point You Have To Apply The Bum To The Seat And Knock Out About Sixty Five Thousand Words - That's How Long A Novel Is.

I Don't Think About The End Game. I've Got Lots To Occupy My Mind. It's The Rage That Keeps Me Going.

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

They Were Also Slightly Less Intelligent Than He Was. This Is A Quality You Should Always Pray For In Your Would-be Murderer.

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

A Marriage Is Always Made Up Of Two People Who Are Prepared To Swear That Only The Other One Snores.

If It Wasn't For The Fun And Money, I Really Don't Know Why I'd Bother.

The Thing Is, 'discworld' Had Been Going On For A Very Long Time, And I've Written Children's Books As Well. Usually When People Have A Really Big Series They Franchise It, Which I Thought Is A Bit Of A No-no, So I Thought What I'd Do Is I'd Franchise It To Myself.

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

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

The Nice Thing About Your Police Procedural As Opposed To Your Classic Murder Mystery Is That In A Murder Mystery You Don't Know Who Did It. Whereas In A Police Procedural You Know, You Know Everything Often And You're Watching The Police Home In.

Murder Mysteries

There Are No Medium-sized Trees In The Deep Forest. There Are Only The Towering Ones, Whose Canopy Spreads Across The Sky. Below, In The Gloom, There's Light For Nothing But Mosses And Ferns. But When A Giant Falls, Leaving A Little Space ... Then There's A Race - Between The Trees On Either Side, Who Want To Spread Out, And The Seedlings Below, Who Race To Grow Up. Sometimes, You Can Make Your Own Space.

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

Please Give Us A Simple Answer, So That We Don't Have To Think, Because If We Think, We Might Find Answers That Don't Fit The Way We Want The World To Be

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

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

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

I Can See We're Going To Get Along Like A House On Fire," Said Miss Tick. "there May Be No Survivors.

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.

You Call Yourself Some Kind Of Goddess And You Know Nothing, Madam, Nothing. What Don't Die Can't Live. What Don't Live Can't Change. What Don't Change Can't Learn. The Smallest Creature That Dies In The Grass Knows More Than You.

People Look Down On Stuff Like Geography And Meteorology, And Not Only Because They're Standing On One And Being Soaked By The Other. They Don't Look Quite Like Real Science. But Geography Is Only Physics Slowed Down And With A Few Trees Stuck On It, And Meteorology Is Full Of Excitingly Fashionable Chaos And Complexity. And Summer Isn't A Time. It's A Place As Well. Summer Is A Moving Creature And Likes To Go South For The Winter.

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.

And What Had He Wanted? He'd Never Sat Down To Think About It. But Mostly, He Wanted Yesterday To Be Different From Today.

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

I Mistrust The Term Graphic Novel Because It Sounds Like A Good Thing To Put On A Tee-shirt. That's Why The French Like Them.

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

Writing Is The Most Fun You Can Have By Yourself.

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.

It Takes A Special Kind Of Person To Fight Back.

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!

Young Adults That Actually Read Are Reading Bodice Rippers And Best-sellers And Me. And Horror.

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

You Fear To Die? "it's Not That I Don't Want... I Mean, I've Always...it's Just That Life Is A Habit That's Hard To Break.

...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.

It Was Carrot Who'd Suggested To The Patrician That Hardened Criminals Should Be Given The Chance To 'serve The Community' By Redecorating The Homes Of The Elderly, Lending A New Terror To Old Age And, Given Ankh-morpork's Crime Rate, Leading To At Least One Old Lady Having Her Front Room Wallpapered So Many Times In Six Months That Now She Could Only Get In Sideways.

Naughty And Nice? Said Death. But It's Easy To Be Nice If You're Rich. Is This Fair? Albert Wanted To Argue. He Wanted To Say, Really? In That Case, How Come So Many Of The Rich Buggers Is Bastards? And Being Poor Don't Mean Being Naughty, Neither.

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

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

Someone Out There Was About To Find That Their Worst Nightmare Was A Maddened Librarian. With A Badge.

Worst Nightmares

Here's What I Suggest," He Said. "you Pretend That Rats Can Think, And I'll Promise To Pretend That Humans Can Think, Too.

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

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'.

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.

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.

I Have No Use For People Who Have Learned The Limits Of The Possible.

I Read The Best Works Of Some Of The Best Satirists, And Indeed Best Writers From The Beginning Of The Victorian Era To About The 1960s. If You Want To Be A Blacksmith, You Go And Watch The Blacksmith Working, And You Work Out What The Blacksmith Does.

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

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

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.

Nanny Ogg Looked Under Her Bed In Case There Was A Man There. Well, You Never Knew Your Luck.

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

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

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

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.

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

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*

My Name Is Unpronounceable In Your Tongue, Woman,” It Said. “i’ll Be The Judge Of That,” Warned Granny, And Added, “don’t Call Me Woman.” “very Well. My Name Is Wxrthltl-jwlpklz,” Said The Demon Smugly.

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

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 Truth Is That Even Big Collections Of Ordinary Books Distort Space, As Can Readily Be Proved By Anyone Who Has Been Around A Really Old-fashioned Secondhand Bookshop, One That Looks As Though They Were Designed By M. Escher On A Bad Day And Has More Stairways Than Storeys And Those Rows Of Shelves Which End In Little Doors That Are Surely Too Small For A Full-sized Human To Enter. The Relevant Equation Is: Knowledge = Power = Energy = Matter = Mass; A Good Bookshop Is Just A Genteel Black Hole That Knows How To Read.

You Just Put That Sword Away, Sir, Please," Said The Voice Of Lance-constable Vimes. "you Will Not Shoot Me, You Young Idiot. That Would Be Murder," Said The Captain Calmly. "not Where I'm Aiming, Sir.

If Cats Looked Like Frogs We'd Realize What Nasty, Cruel Little Bastards They Are. Style. That's What People Remember.

Sometimes The Truth Is Arrived At By Adding All The Little Lies Together And Deducting Them From The Totality Of What Is Known.

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

People Couldn't Become Truly Holy, He Said, Unless They Also Had The Opportunity To Be Definitively Wicked.

I Imagine That Fish Have No Word For Water.

The Jurisdiction Of A Good Man Extends To The End Of The World.

End Of The World

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

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

Shoes, Men, Coffins; Never Accept The First One You See.

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

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.

They Think Written Words Are Even More Powerful,’ Whispered The Toad. ‘they Think All Writing Is Magic. Words Worry Them. See Their Swords? They Glow Blue In The Presence Of Lawyers.

Most Of The Great Triumphs And Tragedies Of History Are Caused Not By People Being Fundamentally Good Or Fundamentally Evil, But By People Being Fundamentally People.

[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!

Open Your Eyes And Then Open Your Eyes Again.

And That's When I First Learned About Evil. It Is Built In To The Very Nature Of The Universe. Every World Spins In Pain. If There Is Any Kind Of Supreme Being, I Told Myself, It Is Up To All Of Us To Become His Moral Superior.

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

It's Not Brits Who Think American Readers Are A Bunch Of Whinging Morons With The Geo-social Understanding Of A Wire Coathanger, It's American Editors.

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.

Nanny's Philosophy Of Life Was To Do What Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time, And Do It As Hard As Possible. It Had Never Let Her Down.

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.

When You're All Singing Together, It Brings Things Together. I Know The Songs That My Grandfather And My Father Sang.

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

Mr Lipwig, There's A Lady In The Hall To See You And We've Thanked Her For Not Smoking Three Times And She's Still Doing It!

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

Igor?' Said Moist. 'you Have An Igor?' Oh, Yes,' Said Hubert. 'that's How I Get This Wonderful Light. They Know The Secret Of Storing Lightning In Jars! But Don't Let That Worry You, Mr Lipspick. Just Because I'm Employing An Igor And Working In A Cellar Doesn't Mean I'm Some Sort Of Madman, Ha Ha Ha!' Ha Ha,' Agreed Moist. Ha Hah Hah!,' Said Hubert. 'hahahahahaha!! Ahahahahahahhhhh!!!!!-' Bent Slapped Him On The Back. Hubert Coughed. Sorry About That, It's The Air Down Here,' He Mumbled.

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.

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

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.

My Programming Language Was Solder.

Programming Languages

Around It Are Those Countries Which, According To History, Constitute The Civilised World Ie, A World That Can Support Historians

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

Correct Observation Followed By Meticulous Deduction And The Precise Visualization Of Goals Is Vital To The Success Of Any Enterprise.

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

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

You Never Knew About People, Like You Never Knew How Deep A Pond Was Because All You Saw Was The Top.

You Have So Many Sources To Draw On When You're A Fantasy Writer.

Putting Up A Statue To Someone Who Tried To Stop A War Is Not Very, Um, Statuesque. Of Course, If You Had Butchered Five Hundred Of Your Own Men Out Of Arrogant Carelessness, We'd Be Melting The Bronze Already.

The Universe Was Bad Enough Without People Poking It.

Young Man, The Games We Play Are Lessons We Learn. The Assumptions We Make, Things We Ignore, And Things We Change Make Us What We Become.

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

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.

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

Once You've Ruled Out The Impossible Then Whatever Is Left, However Improbable, Must Be The Truth. The Problem Lay In Working Out What Was Impossible, Of Course. That Was The Trick, All Right. There Was Also The Curious Incident Of The Orangutan In The Night-time.

That, Lad," He Said Proudly, "was Some Of The Worst Poetry I Have Heard For A Long Time. It Was Offensive To The Ear And A Torrrture To The Soul....we'll Make A Gonnagle Out Of Ye Yet!

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 Space Between The Young Reader’s Eyeballs And The Printed Page Is A Holy Place And Officialdom Should Trample All Over It At Their Peril.’

And Therefore Education At The University Mostly Worked By The Age-old Method Of Putting A Lot Of Young People In The Vicinity Of A Lot Of Books And Hoping That Something Would Pass From One To The Other, While The Actual Young People Put Themselves In The Vicinity Of Inns And Taverns For Exactly The Same Reason.

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.

Preston, I Don't Think This Creature Could Ever Find Its Way Into Your Head. Quite Apart From Anything Else, It Seems Pretty Crowded And Complicated To Me.

Ingenuity And Incongruity Always Cheer Me Up.

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

Dreams Come True

Strength Enough To Build A Home, Time Enough To Hold A Child, Love Enough To Break A Heart

Where's My Cow? Are You My Cow?

It's Not Lying When You Do It To Officers!

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.

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 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

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 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.

I Think It's Impossible For Anyone Famous To Come From Here, Because Everyone Around Here Is Insane.

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

And What Are You Doing On It, I Would Like To Know? Running Away From Home, Yesno? If You Were A Boy I'd Say Are You Going To Seek Your Fortune?" "can't Girls Seek Their Fortune?" "i Think They're Supposed To Seek A Boy With A Fortune.

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

They Called Themselves The Munrungs. It Meant The People, Or The True Human Beings. It's What Most People Call Themselves, To Begin With. And Then One Day The Tribe Meets Some Other People Or, If It's Not Been A Good Day, The Enemy. If Only They'd Think Up A Name Like Some More True Human Beings, It'd Save A Lot Of Trouble Later On

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

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.

No Matter What She Did With Her Hair It Took About Three Minutes For It To Tangle Itself Up Again, Like A Garden Hosepipe In A Shed [which, No Matter How Carefully Coiled, Will Always Uncoil Overnight And Tie The Lawnmower To The Bicycles].

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

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.

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.

Rincewind Gave His Fingers A Long Shocked Stare, As One Might Regard A Gun That Has Been Hanging On The Wall For Decades And Has Suddenly Gone Off And Perforated The Cat.

He'd Always Known That The World Was An Interesting Place, And His Imagination Had Peopled It With Pirates And Bandits And Spies And Astronauts And Similar. But He'd Also Had A Nagging Suspicion That, When You Seriously Got Right Down To It, They Were All Just Things In Books And Didn't Properly Exist Anymore.

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

They Always Gives Me Bath Salts," Complained Nobby. "and Bath Soap And Bubble Bath And Herbal Bath Lumps And Tons Of Bath Stuff And I Can't Think Why, 'cos It's Not As If I Hardly Ever Has A Bath. You'd Think They'd Take The Hint, Wouldn't You?

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

We Who Think We Are About To Die Will Laugh At Anything.

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

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.

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.

'educational' Refers To The Process, Not The Object. Although, Come To Think Of It, Some Of My Teachers Could Easily Have Been Replaced By A Cheeseburger.

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.

You Have The Effrontery To Be Squeamish, It Thought At Him. But We Were Dragons. We Were Supposed To Be Cruel, Cunning, Heartless And Terrible. But This Much I Can Tell You, You Ape – The Great Face Pressed Even Closer, So That Wonse Was Staring Into The Pitiless Depths Of His Eyes – We Never Burned And Tortured And Ripped One Another Apart And Called It Morality.

I Think That Sick People In Ankh-morpork Generally Go To A Vet. It's Generally A Better Bet. There's More Pressure On A Vet To Get It Right. People Say "it Was God's Will" When Granny Dies, But They Get Angry When They Lose A Cow.

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.

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

And At The Other End Of The Bar The World Is Full Of The Other Type Of Person, Who Has A Broken Glass, Or A Glass That Has Been Carelessly Knocked Over (usually By One Of The People Calling For A Larger Glass) Or Who Had No Glass At All, Because He Was At The Back Of The Crowd And Had Failed To Catch The Barman's Eye.

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

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.

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

He Was Currently Wondering Vaguely Who Moey And Chandon Were.

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.

You Can't Trust Folk Songs. They Always Sneak Up On You.

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

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

I Know It’s Not The Right Thing To Say To A Lady, Miss, But You Are Sweating Like A Pig!" "my Mother Always Said That Horses Sweat, Men Perspire, And Ladies Merely Glow…" "is That So? Well, Miss, You Are Glowing Like A Pig!

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

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.

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

When It's Time To Stop Living, I Will Certainly Make Death My Number One Choice!

Things That Try To Look Like Things Often Do Look More Like Things Than Things.

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.

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

All Property Is Theft, Except Mine.

If Not You, Who Else?

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

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

"and What Would Humans Be Without Love?" Rare, Said Death.

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.

Some Things Are Fairly Obvious When It's A Seven-foot Skeleton With A Scythe Telling You Them.

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

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.

The Kind Of Accidents You Prefer To Call...accidents.

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.

The Captain Of The Watch Says If You're Still In The City By Sunrise He Will Personally Have You Buried Alive.

There's That Lovely Thing For The First Month Or Two Of Writing A New Book: Ok, I Don't Know What That Character's Going To Do, But We'll Find Out Later. After About Three Or Four Months You Come To That Bit Where You've Got To Put Some Plot In Before It's Too Late, And You Have To Go Back And Start Inserting Plot, And, Ooh, I've Left Out The Literature, Ok, Lets Put Some In.

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

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.

Nanny Ogg Knew How To Start Spelling 'banana', But Didn't Know How You Stopped.

What Do You Call Those Things At The Bottom Of Rivers? Frogs? Stones? Unsuccessful Gangsters?

They Can Tak' Oour Lives But They Canna Tak' Oour Troousers!

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.

His Parents Called Him Youngster. They Did This In The Subconcious Hope That He Might Take The Hint. Wensleydale Gave The Impression Of Having Been Born With A Mental Age Of 47.

… People Didn't Seem To Be Able To Remember What It Was Like With The Elves Around. Life Was Certainly More Interesting Then, But Usually Because It Was Shorter. And It Was More Colorful, If You Liked The Color Of Blood.

If Failure Had No Penalty Success Would Not Be A Prize.

The Baby Boomers Are Getting Older, And Will Stay Older For Longer. And They Will Run Right Into The Dementia Firing Range. How Will A Society Cope? Especially A Society That Can't So Readily Rely On Those Stable Family Relationships That Traditionally Provided The Backbone Of Care?

People Don't Like Change. But Make The Change Fast Enough And You Go From One Type Of Normal To Another.

Wikipedia, Eh? Must Be Accurate Then.

[...] The Awesome Splendor Of The Universe Is Much Easier To Deal With If You Think Of It As A Series Of Small Chunks.

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

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.

Fantasy Is Escapism, But Wait... Why Is This Wrong? What Are You Escaping From, And Where Are You Escaping To? Is The Story Opening Windows Or Slamming Doors? The British Author G.k. Chesterton Summarized The Role Of Fantasy Very Well. He Said Its Purpose Was To Take The Everyday, Commonplace World And Lift It Up And Turn It Around And Show It To Us From A Different Perspective, So That Once Again We See It For The First Time And Realize How Marvelous It Is. Fantasy - The Ability To Envisage The World In Many Different Ways - Is One Of The Skills That Make Us Human.

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