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They Know That People Need Witches; They Need The Unofficial People Who Understand The Difference Between Right And Wrong, And When Right Is Wrong And When Wrong Is Right. The World Needs The People Who Work Around The Edges. They Need The People Who Can Deal With The Little Bumps And Inconveniences. And Little Problems. After All, We Are Almost All Human. Almost All Of The Time.

-Terry Pratchett

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They Know That People

Terry Pratchett

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They Know That People Need Witches; They Need The Unofficial People Who Understand The Difference Between Right And Wrong, And When Right Is Wrong And When Wrong Is Right. The World Needs The People Who Work Around The Edges. They Need The People Who Can Deal With The Little Bumps And Inconveniences. And Little Problems. After All, We Are Almost All Human. Almost All Of The Time.

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It Was A Backwards Memory Of An Event In His Future So Terrifying That It Had Generated Harmonics Of Fear All The Way Along His Lifeline.

Everyone's Heard Of Erwin Schrodinger's Famous Thought Experiment. You Put A Cat In A Box With A Bottle Of Poison, Which Many People Would Suggest Is About As Far As You Need To Go.

'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 Although, Come To Think Of It, Some Of My Teachers Could Easily Have Been Replaced By A Cheeseburger.

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.

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

No. Men Should Die For Lies. But The Truth Is Too Precious To Die For.

Winston Churchill Said 'in War Time, Truth Is So Precious That She Should Always Be Attended By A Bodyguard Of Lies'. Any Book Called The Truth Should Therefore Have One.

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

Just Because You've Got A Mind Like A Hammer Doesn't Mean You Have To Treat Everyone Else Like A Nail

They May Have Been Ugly. They May Have Been Evil. But When It Came To Poetry In Motion, The Things Had All The Grace And Coordination Of A Deck-chair.

Ingenuity And Incongruity Always Cheer Me Up.

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

I Thought Unicorns Were More . . . Fluffy.

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

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.

...no-one Is Finally Dead Until The Ripples They Cause In The World Die Away... The Span Of Someone's Life, They Say, Is Only The Core Of Their Actual Existence.

We Have Been So Successful In The Past Century At The Art Of Living Longer And Staying Alive That We Have Forgotten How To Die. Too Often We Learn The Hard Way. As Soon As The Baby Boomers Pass Pensionable Age, Their Lesson Will Be Harsher Still.

Lord Vetinari Lifted An Eyebrow With The Care Of One Who, Having Found A Piece Of Caterpillar In His Salad, Raises The Rest Of The Lettuce.

It's Not Worth Doing Something Unless You Were Doing Something That Someone, Somewere, Would Much Rather You Weren't Doing.

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.

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.

Vimes Stalked Gloomily Through The Crowded Streets, Feeling Like The Only Pickled Onion In A Fruit Salad.

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

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

People Who Used Magic Without Knowing What They Were Doing Usually Came To A Sticky End. All Over The Entire Room, Sometimes.

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

I Do Not In Fact Use Many Puns. Certainly There Are Far Fewer Than People Believe. But I Suspect The Ones I Do Occasionally Use Tend To Hang Around In People's Memories For A While.

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.

Coffee Is A Way Of Stealing Time That Should By Rights Belong To Your Older Self.

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.

…we Were Born Vampires." "i Thought You Became –" "— Vampires By Being Bitten? Dear Me, No. Oh, We Can Turn People Into Vampires, It’s An Easy Technique, But What Would Be The Point? When You Eat… Now What Is It You Eat? Oh Yes, Chocolate… You Don’t Want To Turn It Into Another Agnes Nitt, Do You? Less Chocolate To Go Around." He Sighed. "oh Dear, Superstition, Superstition Everywhere We Turn.

Nigel Gave The Lamp A Cautious Buff And Small Smoking Red Letters Appeared In The Air. "hi," Nigel Read Aloud, "do Not Put Down The Lamp Because Your Custom Is Important To Us. Please Leave A Wish After The Tone And, Very Shortly, It Will Be Our Command. In The Meantime, Have A Nice Eternity."

It Was Sci-fi And Fantasy That Got Me Reading, And Sci-fi Writers In Particular Have Pack Rat Minds. They Introduce All Sorts Of Interesting Themes And Ideas Into Their Books, And So For Me It Was A Short Leap To Go From The Fantasy And Sci-fi Genres To Folklore, Mythology, Ancient History And Philosophy. I Did Not Read Philosophy Because I Set Out To Become A Philosopher; I Read It Because It Looked Interesting.

You're Not Allowed To Call Them Dinosaurs Any More," Said Yo-less. "it's Speciesist. You Have To Call Them Pre-petroleum Persons.

Political Correctness

The Thing About Secrets Is That They Are Usually Best Kept By Just One Person. That Was The Special Thing About Secrets. Some People Seemed To Think That The Best Way To Keep A Secret Was To Tell As Many People As Possible; What Could Possibly Go Wrong For A Secret When There Were So Many People Defending It?

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.

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.

I Have To Write Because If I Don't Get Something Down Then After A While I Feel It's Going To Bang The Side Of My Head Off.

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.

I Don't See What's So Triffic About Creating People As People And Then Gettin' Upset 'cos They Act Like People.

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He Says Gods Like To See An Atheist Around. Gives Them Something To Aim At.

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.

Thinking. This Book Contains Some. Whether You Try It At Home Is Up To You.

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Sooner Or Later All Men Must Die. Everything Dies In The End. I Can Be Robbed But Never Denied, I Told Myself. Why Worry? “i Too Cannot Be Cheated,” Snapped Fate.

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.

Speak Softly And Employ A Huge Man With A Crowbar.

The Librarian Was Not Familiar With Love, Which Had Always Struck Him As A Bit Ethereal And Soppy, But Kindness, On The Other Hand, Was Practical. You Knew Where You Were With Kindness, Especially If You Were Holding A Pie It Had Just Given You.

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.

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.

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.

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

Never F*!k With The Ineffable.

The Second Mouse Gets The Cheese!

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He Thought About How It Might Be To Be, Say, A Fox Confronted With An Angry Sheep. A Sheep Moreover, That Could Afford To Employ Wolves.

I Meant," Said Ipslore Bitterly, "what Is There In This World That Truly Makes Living Worthwhile?" Death Thought About It. Cats, He Said Eventually. Cats Are Nice.

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

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

He'd Heard That Writers Spent All Day In Their Dressing Gowns Drinking Champagne. This Is, Of Course, Absolutely True.

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.

Who Knows What The Future Holds.

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.

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

Life Is A Trick, And You Get One Chance To Learn It.

The Consensus Seemed To Be That If Really Large Numbers Of Men Were Sent To Storm The Mountain, Then Enough Might Survive The Rocks To Take The Citadel. This Is Essentially The Basis Of All Military Thinking.

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

She Was A Beefy Young Woman And, Whatever Piece Of Music She Was Playing, It Was Definitely Losing.

Either All Days Are Holy Or None Are.

It Was So Loud And So Deep, It Wasn't Really Sound At All, Just Something That Turned The Air Hard And Then Hit You With It.

I Like Being A Writer.

There's Always A Story. It's All Stories, Really. The Sun Coming Up Every Day Is A Story. Everything's Got A Story In It. Change The Story, Change The World.

It Was Long After Midnight And The Stars Looked Damp And Chilly; The Air Was Full Of The Busy Silence Of The Night, Which Is Created By Hundreds Of Small Furry Things Treading Very Carefully In The Hope Of Finding Dinner While Avoiding Being The Main Course.

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.

You Have To Start Out Learning To Believe The Little Lies. "so We Can Believe The Big Ones?" Yes. Justice, Mercy, Duty. That Sort Of Thing.

Freedom Without Limits Is Just A Word.

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).

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

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.

Don't Look Back!" "why Not?" "because I Just Did! Run Faster!

As A Species, We Are Forever Sticking Our Finger Into The Electric Socket Of The Universe To See What Will Happen Next.

A Thaum Is The Basic Unit Of Magical Strength. It Has Been Universally Established As The Amount Of Magic Needed To Create One Small White Pigeon Or Three Normal-sized Billiard Balls.

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

No Clowns Were Funny. That Was The Whole Purpose Of A Clown. People Laughed At Clowns, But Only Out Of Nervousness. The Point Of Clowns Was That, After Watching Them, Anything Else That Happened Seemed Enjoyable

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.

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.

And, As Always Happens, And Happens Far Too Soon, The Strange And Wonderful Becomes A Memory And A Memory Becomes A Dream. Tomorrow It's Gone.

On The Disc The Gods Dealt Severely With Atheists.

Wikipedia, Eh? Must Be Accurate Then.

There Is Always Time For Another Last Minute

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.

Mister Teatime Had A Truly Brilliant Mind, But It Was Brilliant Like A Fractured Mirror, All Marvellous Facets And Rainbows But, Ultimately, Also Something That Was Broken.

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

Most Witches Don’t Believe In Gods. They Know That The Gods Exist, Of Course. They Even Deal With Them Occasionally. But They Don’t Believe In Them. They Know Them Too Well. It Would Be Like Believing In The Postman.

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.

Nothing Has To Be True Forever. Just For Long Enough, To Tell You The Truth.

He'd Been An Angel Once. He Hadn't Meant To Fall. He'd Just Hung Around With The Wrong People.

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.

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

Granny Weatherwas Was Not A Jouster In The Lists Of Love, But, As An Intelligent Onlooker, She Knew How The Game Was Played.

Goodness Is About What You Do. Not Who You Pray To.

Your Average Witch Is Not, By Nature, A Social Animal.... The Natural Size Of A Coven Is One. Witches Only Get Together When They Can't Avoid It.

Making Money Isn't Something To Be Ashamed Of. There's A Feeling Now That If You Have Money You Must Have Got It By Some Kind Of Shady Dealing Or Being An Mp.

...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.

But The Helmet Had Gold Decoration, And The Bespoke Armorers Had Made A New Gleaming Breastplate With Useless Gold Ornamentation On It. Sam Vimes Felt Like A Class Traitor Every Time He Wore It. He Hated Being Thought Of As One Of Those People That Wore Stupid Ornamental Armor. It Was Gilt By Association.

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

You Know What I'd Really, Really Like? What I'd Pay Money For? A Zx81 With A Disc Drive. I Understood The Zx81. It Was So Easy To Interface Stuff To It.

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

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

There’s No Point In Believing In Things That Exist.

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

He Had Never Been Interested In Stories At Any Age, And Had Never Quite Understood The Basic Concept. He'd Never Read A Work Of Fiction All The Way Through. He Did Remember, As A Small Boy, Being Really Annoyed At The Depiction Of Hickory Dickory Dock In A Rag Book Of Nursery Rhymes Because The Clock In The Drawing Was Completely Wrong For The Period.

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.

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

When I Am Old I Shall Wear Midnight.

When In Doubt, Choose To Live.

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

He Moved In A Way That Suggested He Was Attempting The World Speed Record For The Nonchalant Walk.

[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.

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.

And Then Jack Chopped Down What Was The World's Last Beanstalk, Adding Murder And Ecological Terrorism To The Theft, Enticement, And Trespass Charges Already Mentioned, And All The Giant's Children Didn't Have A Daddy Anymore. But He Got Away With It And Lived Happily Ever After, Without So Much As A Guilty Twinge About What He Had Done...which Proves That You Can Be Excused For Just About Anything If You Are A Hero, Because No One Asks Inconvenient Questions.

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.

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

… You Were So Worried About Legal And Illegal That You Never Stopped To Think About Whether It Was Right Or Wrong.

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

Rincewind Tried To Force The Memory Out Of His Mind, But It Was Rather Enjoying Itself There, Terrorizing The Other Occupants And Kicking Over The Furniture.

One Of The Important Things About Being A Small-town Reporter Is Knowing What Not To Put In The Paper.

Just Call In At The Torturer On Your Way Out. See When He Can Fit You In.

It Is Often Said That Before You Die Your Life Passes Before Your Eyes. It Is In Fact True. It's Called Living.

Find The Story, Granny Weatherwax Always Said. She Believed That The World Was Full Of Story Shapes. If You Let Them, They Controlled You. But If You Studied Them, If You Found Out About Them... You Could Use Them, You Could Change Them.

Fresh Wounds," Said Angua. "but One Of Them Did Shoot One Of The Other In The Leg By Accident." "i Think You'd Better Put In Your Report As -self Inflicted- Wounds While Resisting Arrest," Said Vimes.

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 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.

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.

Education Had Been Easy. Learning Things Had Been Harder.

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

Fortune Telling

My Programming Language Was Solder.

Programming Languages

I Think You Should Be Proud Of Not Being Worse Than Just Deeply Introverted And Socially Maladjusted.

It's Not Morbid To Talk About Death. Most People Don't Worry About Death, They Worry About A Bad Death.

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

If He'd Been A Hero, He Would Have Taken The Opportunity To Say, "that's What I Call Sorted!" Since He Wasn't A Hero, He Threw Up.

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.

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

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.

There Are Some People Who Hate My Guts. But That Goes With The Territory.

A Horse's Skull Always Looks Scary, Even If Someone Has Put Lipstick On It.

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.

Don't You Understand?" Snarled Rincewind. "we Are Going Over The Edge, Godsdammit!" "can't We Do Anything About It?" "no!" "then I Can't See The Sense In Panicking," Said Twoflower Calmly.

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

My Advice Is This. For Christ's Sake, Don't Write A Book That Is Suitable For A Kid Of 12 Years Old, Because The Kids Who Read Who Are 12 Years Old Are Reading Books For Adults. I Read All Of The James Bond Books When I Was About 11, Which Was Approximately The Right Time To Read James Bond Books.

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

Rings Try To Find Their Way Back To Their Owner. Someone Ought To Write A Book About It.

Sheep Are Stupid, And Have To Be Driven. But Goats Are Intelligent, And Need To Be Led.

I'm Not Really Good At Fun-to-know, Human Interest Stuff. We're Not 'celebrities', Whose Life Itself Is A Performance. Good Or Bad Or Ugly, We Are Our Words. They're What People Meet.

If I Were You, I'd Sue My Face For Slander.

The Significant Owl Hoots In The Night.

It Must Be Hard For Humans, Forever Floundering Through Inconvenient Geography. Humans Are Always Lost. It's A Basic Characteristic. It Explains A Lot About Them.

Once You Have Your Character Sitting Right There In Your Head, All You Really Need To Do Is Wind Them Up, Put Them Down, And Simply Write Down What They Do, Say, Or Think.

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

The Book Is Not Completely Written Until Someone Else Has Read It.

He Never Pays Attention, He Always Knows The Answer, And He Can Never Tell You How He Knows. We Can't Keep Thrashing Him. He Is A Bad Example To The Other Pupils. There's No Educating A Smart Boy.

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

I Discovered Fantasy And Science Fiction When I Was About 10, And Read Nothing Else For About Three Years. I Ran Out Of All The Books That There Were To Read In The Library. I Was Keen On Reading Stuff That Took Me To Other Places.

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

If The Government Ever Imposes A Tax On Books - And I Wouldn't Put It Past Them - I'm In Dead Trouble.

The Iq Of A Mob Is The Iq Of Its Dumbest Member Divided By The Number Of Mobsters.

But Ye Gotta Know Where Ye're Just Gonna Rush In. Ye Cannae Just Rush In Anywhere. It Looks Bad, Havin' To Rush Oout Again Straight Awa'.

The Chain Letter To The Ephebians. Forget Your Gods. Be Subjugated. Learn To Fear. Do Not Break The Chain -- The Last People Who Did Woke Up One Morning To Find Fifty Thousand Armed Men On Their Lawn.

There Are Hardly Any Excesses Of The Most Crazed Psychopath That Cannot Easily Be Duplicated By A Normal Kindly Family Man Who Just Comes In To Work Every Day And Has A Job To Do.

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.

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

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

Stories Of Imagination Tend To Upset Those Without One.

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.

Soon To Come In Licorice, Orange, Cinnamon, And Banana, But Not Strawberry, Because I Hate Strawberries.

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

While A Book Has Got To Be Worthwhile From The Point Of View Of The Reader It's Got To Be Worthwhile From The Point Of View Of The Writer As Well.

Anyway, Why Would You Trust Anything Written Down? She Certainly Didn't Trust "mothers Of Borogravia!" And That Was From The Government. And If You Couldn't Trust The Government, Who Could You Trust? Very Nearly Everyone, Come To Think Of It.

He Moved On, In The Centre Of A Widening Circle. He Wasn't An Enemy, He Was A Nemesis.

There Are Many Horrible Sights In The Multiverse. Somehow, Though, To A Soul Attuned To The Subtle Rhythms Of A Library, There Are Few Worse Sights Than A Hole Where A Book Ought 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.

"multiple Exclamation Marks," He Went On, Shaking His Head, "are A Sure Sign Of A Diseased Mind."

Exclamation Marks

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.

Mind You, The Elizabethans Had So Many Words For The Female Genitals That It Is Quite Hard To Speak A Sentence Of Modern English Without Inadvertently Mentioning At Least Three Of Them.

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

The Diplomatic Thing For Me To Say Is That If Publishers Are Dressing Up Other Authors As Terry Pratchett Clones Then They Are Doing A Disservice To Those Authors. If They Didn't Dress Them As Clones But Did Something Different, Then Those Authors Could Be Pioneering In A Different Sense.

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.

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.

I Would Rather Stare At The Wall For Half An Hour Than Watch An Episode Of Any Of The 53,801 Australian Soap Operas Now Cluttering Up Uk Tv.

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.

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.

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

If There Was Anything That Depressed Him More Than His Own Cynicism, It Was That Quite Often It Still Wasn't As Cynical As Real Life.

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

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.

Dogs Are Not Like Cats, Who Amusingly Tolerate Humans Only Until Someone Comes Up With A Tin Opener That Can Be Operated With A Paw. Men Made Dogs, They Took Wolves And Gave Them Human Things - Unnecessary Intelligence, Names, A Desire To Belong, And A Twitching Inferiority Complex. All Dogs Dream Wolf Dreams, And Know They're Dreaming Of Biting Their Maker. Every Dog Knows, Deep In His Heart, That He Is A Bad Dog.

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