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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.

-Terry Pratchett

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This Was The Definition

Terry Pratchett

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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.

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I Particularly Admire Are Mark Twain And Jerome K. Jerome Who Wrote In A Certain Tone Of Voice Which Was Humane And Understanding Of Humanity, But Always Ready To Annotate Its Little Foibles. I Think I'd Lay My Cards Down On That, And Say That It's That That I'm Trying To Do.

No, What He Didn't Like About Heroes Was That They Were Usually Suicidally Gloomy When Sober And Homicidally Insane When Drunk.

Whole New Theories Of Money Were Growing Here Like Mushrooms: In The Dark And Based On Bullshit.

You Can't Second-guess Ineffability, I Always Say.

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

Funny Inspirational

The Ideal Death, I Think, Is What Was The Ideal Victorian Death, You Know, With Your Grandchildren Around You, A Bit Of Sobbing. And You Say Goodbye To Your Loved Ones, Making Certain That One Of Them Has Been Left Behind To Look After The Shop.

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.

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

People Who Didn't Need People Needed People Around To Know That They Were The Kind Of People Who Didn't Need People.

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.

The Purpose Of This Lectchoor Is To Let You Know Where We Are. We Are In The Deep Cack. It Couldn't Be Worse If It Was Raining Arseholes. Any Questions?

When All Else Failed, She Tried Being Reasonable.

Little Crimes Breed Big Crimes. You Smile At Little Crimes And Then Big Crimes Blow Your Head Off.

Do You Think There’s Anything To Eat In This Forest?” “yes,” Said The Wizard Bitterly, “us.

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.

Knowing That You Are Going To Die Is, I Suspect, The Beginning Of Wisdom.

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

You Can't Make People Happy By Law. If You Said To A Bunch Of Average People Two Hundred Years Ago "would You Be Happy In A World Where Medical Care Is Widely Available, Houses Are Clean, The World's Music And Sights And Foods Can Be Brought Into Your Home At Small Cost, Traveling Even 100 Miles Is Easy, Childbirth Is Generally Not Fatal To Mother Or Child, You Don't Have To Die Of Dental Abscesses And You Don't Have To Do What The Squire Tells You" They'd Think You Were Talking About The New Jerusalem And Say "yes."

But, In Truth, It Had Not Exactly Been Gold, Or Even The Promise Of Gold, But More Like The Fantasy Of Gold, The Fairy Dream That The Gold Is There, At The End Of The Rainbow, And Will Continue To Be There Forever - Provided, Naturally, That You Don't Go And Look. This Is Known As Finance.

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

Smaller-than-medium-jock-but-bigger-than-wee-jock-jock

Getting An Education Was A Bit Like A Communicable Sexual Disease. It Made You Unsuitable For A Lot Of Jobs And Then You Had The Urge To Pass It On.

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

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.

Mort Was Hurt By This. It Was One Thing Not To Want To Marry Someone, But Quite Another To Be Told They Didn't Want To Marry You.

Balance. It Was All About Balance. That Had Been One Of The First Things That She Had Learned: The Centre Of The Seesaw Has Neither Up Nor Down, But Upness And Downness Flow Through It While It Remains Unmoved. You Had To Be The Centre Of The Seesaw So The Pain Flowed Through You, Not Into You. It Was Very Hard. But She Could Do It!

Moist Was Sure Doctors Keep Skeletons Around To Cow Patients. Nyer, Nyer, We Know What You Look Underneath.

If You Were Going To Be Successful In The World Of Crime, You Needed A Reputation For Honesty.

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.

People Aren't Just People, They Are People Surrounded By Circumstances.

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

Generally I Start Writing When I Have Even The Smallest Idea Of How A Book Is Going To Go, Because The Physical Process Of Writing Itself Keeps The Mind Active And Focused On The Job At Hand. Usually I Write In About 5 Drafts, But That Simply Means There Are 5 Definite Times When I Go In A Linear Fashion From The Beginning To The End Of The Book.

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

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

All Property Is Theft, Except Mine.

Just Because Things Are Obvious Doesn't Mean They're True.

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.

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

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

This, Milord, Is My Family's Axe. We Have Owned It For Almost Nine Hundred Years, See. Of Course, Sometimes It Needed A New Blade. And Sometimes It Has Required A New Handle, New Designs On The Metalwork, A Little Refreshing Of The Ornamentation . . . But Is This Not The Nine Hundred-year-old Axe Of My Family? And Because It Has Changed Gently Over Time, It Is Still A Pretty Good Axe, Y'know. Pretty Good.

No Real Sunrise Could Paint The Sky Surgical Appliance Pink.

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

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?

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.

Only To People!' Shouted Rincewind. He Drew His Sword And, With A Smooth Overarm Throw, Completely Failed To Hit The Troll.

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

One Day I'll Be Dead And Then You'll All Be Sorry.

People Wanted The World To Be A Story, Because Stories Had To Sound Right And They Had To Make Sense. People Wanted The World To Make Sense.

An Assassin, A Real Assassin Had To Look Like One-black Clothes, Hood, Boots, And All. If They Could Wear Any Clothes, Any Disguise, Then What Could Anyone Do But Spend All Day In A Small Room With A Loaded Crossbow Pointed At The Door?

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

When In Doubt, Choose To Live.

I Reckon Responsible Behavior Is Something To Get When You Grow Older. Like Varicose Veins.

So Much Universe, And So Little Time.

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!

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

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.

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.

It Was One Of Those Problematic Occasions With Long Silences, Sporadic Coughs, And People Saying Isolated Things Like, "well, Isn't This Nice.

The Conversation Of Human Beings Seldom Interested Him, But It Crossed His Mind That The Males And Females Always Got Along Best When Neither Actually Listened Fully To What The Other One Was Saying.

Picture A Tall, Dark Figure, Surrounded By Cornfields... No, You Can't Ride A Cat. Who Ever Heard Of The Death Of Rats Riding A Cat? The Death Of Rats Would Ride Some Kind Of Dog. Picture More Fields, A Great Horizon-spanning Network Of Fields, Rolling In Gentle Waves... Don't Ask Me I Don't Know. Some Kind Of Terrier, Maybe. ...fields Of Corn, Alive, Whispering In The Breeze... Right, And The Death Of Fleas Can Ride It Too. That Way You Kill Two Birds With One Stone. ...awaiting The Clockwork Of The Seasons. Metaphorically.

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.

It Seems Sensible To Me That We Should Look To The Medical Profession, That Over The Centuries Has Helped Us To Live Longer And Healthier Lives, To Help Us Die Peacefully Among Our Loved Ones In Our Own Home Without A Long Stay In God's Waiting Room.

People Are Often So Busy Living That They Never Stop To Wonder Why.

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.

Personal’s Not The Same As Important. People Just Think It Is.

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

If You Get The Characters Right You've Done Sometimes Nearly Half The Work. I Sometimes Find I Get The Characters Right Then The Characters Will Often Help Me Write The Book - Not What They Look Like That's Not Very Important - What People Look Like Is Not About Their Character. You Have To Describe The Shape They Leave In The World, How They React To Things, What Effect They Have On People And You Do That By Telling Their Story.

He Found That He Had This Sudden Desperate Longing For The Fuming, Smoky Streets Of Ankh-morpork, Which Was Always At Its Best In The Spring, When The Gummy Sheen On The Turbid Waters Of The Ankh River Had A Special Iridescence And The Eaves Were Full Of Birdsong, Or At Least Birds Coughing Rhythmically

What're Quantum Mechanics?" "i Don't Know. People Who Repair Quantums, I Suppose.

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

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.

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

I Once Absent-mindedly Ordered Three Mile Island Dressing In A Restaurant And, With Great Presence Of Mind, They Brought Thousand Island Dressing And A Bottle Of Chili Sauce.

Presence Of Mind

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

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."

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

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.

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

Cutangle: While I'm Still Confused And Uncertain, It's On A Much Higher Plane, D'you See, And At Least I Know I'm Bewildered About The Really Fundamental And Important Facts Of The Universe. Treatle: I Hadn't Looked At It Like That, But You're Absolutely Right. He's Really Pushed Back The Boundaries Of Ignorance. They Both Savoured The Strange Warm Glow Of Being Much More Ignorant Than Ordinary People, Who Were Only Ignorant Of Ordinary Things.

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

Exclamation Marks

He Was The Sort Of Person Who Stood On Mountaintops During Thunderstorms In Wet Copper Armour Shouting 'all The Gods Are Bastards.'

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

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.

Never Trust A Species That Grins All The Time. It’s Up To Something.

Stop Stealing The Funeral Meats Right Now, You Wee Scuggers!" She Shouted. The Feegles Stopped And Stared At Her. Then Rob Anybody Said: "socks Wi'oot Feets?

Child. That Was A Terrible Thing To Say To Anyone Who Was Almost Thirteen.

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

He Felt That The Darkness Was Full Of Unimaginable Horrors - And The Trouble With Unimaginable Horrors Was That They Were Only Too Easy To Imagine.

Modesty Is Only Arrogance By Stealth.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

The Landscape Was Snow And Green Ice On Broken Mountains. These Weren't Old Mountains, Worn Down By Time And Weather And Full Of Gentle Ski Slopes, But Young, Sulky, Adolescent Mountains. They Held Secret Ravines And Merciless Crevices. One Yodel Out Of Place Would Attract, Not The Jolly Echo Of A Lonely Goatherd, But Fifty Tons Of Express-delivery Snow.

I Dinna Trust Him," Said Slightly Mad Angus. "he Reads Books An' Such.

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).

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

We Are Here And It Is Now. The Way I See It Is, After That, Everything Tends Towards Guesswork.

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

Wisdom Experience

Wisdom And Experience

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

I Had A Deprived Childhood, You See. I Had Lots Of Other Kids To Play With And My Parents Bought Me Outdoor Toys And Refused To Ill-treat Me, So It Never Occurred To Me To Seek Solitary Consolation With A Good Book.

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

Polly Felt Questing Eyes Boring Into Her. She Was Embarrassed, Of Course. But Not For The Obvious Reason. It Was For The Other One, The Little Lesson That Life Sometimes Rams Home With A Stick: You Are Not The Only One Watching The World. Other People Are People; While You Watch Them They Watch You, And They Think About You While You Think About Them. The World Isn’t Just About You.

The Kappamaki, A Whaling Research Ship, Was Currently Researching The Question: How Many Whales Can You Catch In One Week?

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.

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

People Were Stupid, Sometimes. They Thought The Library Was A Dangerous Place Because Of All The Magical Books, Which Was True Enough, But What Made It Really One Of The Most Dangerous Places There Could Ever Be Was The Simple Fact That It Was A Library.

Colon Thought Carrot Was Simple. Carrot Often Struck People As Simple. And He Was. Where People Went Wrong Was Thinking That Simple Meant The Same Thing As Stupid.

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.

But Then Science Is Nothing But A Series Of Questions That Lead To More Questions.

Are You A Philosopher? Where's Your Sponge?

Adventure! People Talked About The Idea As If It Were Something Worthwhile, Rather Than A Mess Of Bad Food, No Sleep And Strange People Inexplicably Trying To Stick Pointed Objects In Bits Of You.

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

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

They May Be Called The Palace Guard, The City Guard, Or The Patrol. Whatever The Name, Their Purpose In Any Work Of Heroic Fantasy Is Identical: It Is, Round About Chapter Three (or Ten Minutes Into The Film) To Rush Into The Room, Attack The Hero One At A Time, And Be Slaughtered. No One Ever Asks Them If They Want To. This Book Is Dedicated To Those Fine Men.

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

…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.

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!

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.

People Whose Concept Of Ancient History Is The First Series Of Star Trek May Be Treated With Patience, Because It's Usually Not Their Fault They Were Reduced To Getting Their Education From School.

Interesting Thing, These Fellows Never Seem To Get The Idea Of Perspective-' The Bursar Thought, Or Received The Thought: That's Because Perspective Is A Lie. If I Know A Pond Is Round Then Why Should I Draw It Oval? I Will Draw It Round Because Round Is True. Why Should My Brush Lie To You Just Because My Eye Lies To Me?

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

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.

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

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

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

God Moves In Extremely Mysterious, Not To Say, Circuitous Ways. God Does Not Play Dice With The Universe; He Plays An Ineffable Game Of His Own Devising, Which Might Be Compared, From The Perspective Of Any Of The Other Players, Ie., Everybody, To Being Involved In An Obscure And Complex Version Of Poker In A Pitch-dark Room, With Blank Cards, For Infinite Stakes, With A Dealer Who Won't Tell You The Rules, And Who Smiles All The Time.

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

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?

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

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."

And When The Patrician Was Unhappy, He Became Very Democratic. He Found Intricate And Painful Ways Of Spreading That Unhappiness As Far As Possible.

Truthfully, Without Over-egging It, As I Often Do, The Library And Journalism, Those Things Made Me Who I Am.

The Universe, They Said, Depended For Its Operation On The Balance Of Four Forces Which They Identified As Charm, Persuasion, Uncertainty And Bloody-mindedness.

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

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

Granny Weatherwax Was Often Angry. She Considered It One Of Her Strong Points. Genuine Anger Was One Of The World's Greatest Creative Forces. But You Had To Learn How To Control It. That Didn't Mean You Let It Trickle Away. It Meant You Dammed It, Carefully, Let It Develop A Working Head, Let It Drown Whole Valleys Of The Mind And Then, Just When The Whole Structure Was About To Collapse, Opened A Tiny Pipeline At The Base And Let The Iron-hard Stream Of Wrath Power The Turbines Of Revenge.

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

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.

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

Creatures Which, Lacking Mankind's Superior Brain Power, Did Not Concern Themselves With Finding Someone To Blame, And Instead Tried To Find Someone To Eat.

Finding Someone

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.

I See Evil When I Look In My Shaving Mirror. It Is, Philosophically, Present Everywhere In The Universe In Order, Apparently, To Highlight The Existence Of Good. I Think There Is More To This Theory, But I Tend To Burst Out Laughing At This Point.

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.

Whatever Happens, They Say Afterwards, It Must Have Been Fate. People Are Always A Little Confused About This, As They Are In The Case Of Miracles. When Someone Is Saved From Certain Death By A Strange Concatenation Of Circumstances, They Say That's A Miracle. But Of Course If Someone Is Killed By A Freak Chain Of Events -- The Oil Spilled Just There, The Safety Fence Broken Just There -- That Must Also Be A Miracle. Just Because It's Not Nice Doesn't Mean It's Not Miraculous.

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

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

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

Curiosity May Have Killed The Cat, But Her's Curiosity Could Have Massacred A Pride Of Lions.

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

The Truth May Be Out There, But Lies Are Inside Your Head.

Of Course, Like All The Informal Inhabitants Of The University The Roaches Were A Little Unusual, But There Was Something Particularly Unpleasant About The Sound Of Billions Of Very Small Feet Hitting The Stones In Perfect Time. Rincewind Stepped Gingerly Over The Marching Column. The Librarian Jumped It. The Luggage, Of Course, Followed Them With A Noise Like Someone Tapdancing Over A Bag Of Crisps.

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

[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!

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

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

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

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.

Everyone Knew There Were Wolves In The Mountains, But They Seldom Came Near The Village-the Modern Wolves Were The Offspring Of Ancestors That Had Survived Because They Had Learned That Human Meat Had Sharp Edges.

You 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.

No One Is Actually Dead Until The Ripples They Cause In The World Die Away.

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

Of Course, Ankh-morpork's Citizens Had Always Claimed That The River Water Was Incredibly Pure. Any Water That Had Passed Through So Many Kidneys, They Reasoned, Had To Be Very Pure Indeed.

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

He'd Been Wrong, There Was A Light At The End Of The Tunnel, And It Was A Flamethrower.

People Who Are Rather More Than Six Feet Tall And Nearly As Broad Across The Shoulders Often Have Uneventful Journeys. People Jump Out At Them From Behind Rocks Then Say Things Like, "oh. Sorry. I Thought You Were Someone Else.

Words Are The Litmus Paper Of The Mind.

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.

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

Voodoo Is A Very Interesting Religion For The Whole Family, Even Those Members Of It Who Are Dead.

No One Thinks That Young Adults Read Hooks For Young Adults, Books For Young Adults Are Read By Kids.

It's Hard To Be Famous And Alive.

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

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

Once Upon A Time

Humans Had Built A World Inside The World, Which Reflected It In Pretty Much The Same Way As A Drop Of Water Reflected The Landscape. And Yet ... And Yet ... Inside This Little World They Had Taken Pains To Put All The Things You Might Think They Would Want To Escape From - Hatred, Fear, Tyranny, And So Forth. Death Was Intrigued. They Thought They Wanted To Be Taken Out Of Themselves, And Every Art Humans Dreamt Up Took Them Further In. He Was Fascinated.

Behind Him The Master Of Ceremonies Cleared His Throat. His Eyes Took On A Distant, Glazed Look.the Stealer Of Souls, He Said In The Faraway Voice Of One Whose Ears Aren't Hearing What His Mouth Is Saying, Defeater Of Empires, Swallower Of Oceans, Thief Of Years, The Ultimate Reality, Harvester Of Mankind, The-all Right, All Right. I Can See Myself In.

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

I'd Like To Sell A Lot Of Books.

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

"right!" "right!" "you Can Get There!" "i Can Get There!" "you're A Natural At Counting To Two!" "i'm A Nat'ral At Counting To Two!" "if You Can Count To Two, You Can Count To Anything!" "if I Can Count To Two, I Can Count To Anything!" "and Then The World Is Your Mollusc!" "my Mollusc! What's A Mollusc?

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.

A Police Procedural Novel Can Be Even Funnier If The Police Include Trolls And Dwarves And Things Like That. You Start Looking At The Whole Basis Of The Cop Novel. You Get The Cop Moving In A Different Way When You've Actually Set It In A Fantasy City.

Insofar As He'd Formed Any Opinion Of Her, It Was That She Suffered From Misplaced Gentility And The Mistaken Belief That Etiquette Meant Good Breeding. She Mistook Mannerisms For Manners.

It Was Lonely On The Hill, And Cold. And All You Could Do Was Keep Going. You Could Scream, Cry, And Stamp Your Feet, But Apart From Making You Feel Warmer, It Wouldn’t Do Any Good. You Could Say It Was Unfair, And That Was True, But The Universe Didn’t Care Because It Didn’t Know What “fair” Meant. That Was The Big Problem About Being A Witch. It Was Up To You. It Was Always Up To You.

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

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.

A European Says: I Can't Understand This, What's Wrong With Me? An American Says: I Can't Understand This, What's Wrong With Him? I Make No Suggestion That One Side Or Other Is Right, But Observation Over Many Years Leads Me To Believe It Is True.

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

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

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.

Always Be Wary Of Any Helpful Item That Weighs Less Than Its Operating Manual.

I Know That I Am A Small, Weak Man, But I Have Amassed A Large Library; I Dream Of Dangerous Places.

Ritual And Ceremony In Their Due Times Kept The World Under The Sky And The Stars In Their Courses. It Was Astonishing What Ritual And Ceremony Could Do.

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

...roland De Chumsfanleigh (it Wasn't His Fault).

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

I'd Like To Walk On The Moon (and Return).

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?

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