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…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.

-Terry Pratchett

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…we Were Born Vampires."

Terry Pratchett

...

…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.

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

Aziraphale Collected Books. If He Were Totally Honest With Himself He Would Have To Have Admitted That His Bookshop Was Simply Somewhere To Store Them. He Was Not Unusual In This. In Order To Maintain His Cover As A Typical Second-hand Book Seller, He Used Every Means Short Of Actual Physical Violence To Prevent Customers From Making A Purchase. Unpleasant Damp Smells, Glowering Looks, Erratic Opening Hours - He Was Incredibly Good At It.

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Luck Is My Middle Name. Mind You, My First Name Is Bad.

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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.

Time Is A Drug. Too Much Of It Kills You.

There's No Such Thing As Writer's Block. That Was Invented By People In California Who Couldn't Write.

These People Were Not Only Cheering, They Were Throwing Flowers And Hats. The Hats Were Made Of Stone, But The Thought Was There.

It Doesn't Matter If Dragons Are Flying Overhead Or Whatever - A Lot Of Victoriana Is Still Cut In The Frame Of Fantasy.

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I Don't Regret It, You Know. I Would Do It All Again. Children Are Our Hope For The Future." There Is No Hope For The Future, Said Death. "what Does It Contain, Then?" Me.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Oh, My Dear Vimes, History Changes All The Time. It Is Constantly Being Re-examined And Re-evaluated, Otherwise How Would We Be Able To Keep Historians Occupied? We Can't Possibly Allow People With Their Sort Of Minds To Walk Around With Time On Their Hands.

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

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

I Don't Think I've Drunk Enough Beer To Understand That.

I Was Just A Kid Then. But I Won't Forget. Nor Will Others. There's Lots Of People With Reason To Hate The Church.

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.

Either Dragons Should Exist Completely Or Fail To Exist At All, He Felt. A Dragon Only Half-existing Was Worse Than The Extremes.

Now He Knew: They Were Real. Who’d Make Up A Thing Like This? Okay, One Of Them Was A Cheese That Rolled Around Of Its Own Accord, But Nobody Was Perfect.

The Reason That Clichés Become Clichés Is That They Are The Hammers And Screwdrivers In The Toolbox Of Communication.

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

Fate Can Be One Mean God At Times.

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.

If You Want To Change A Whole People, Then You Start With The Girls. It Stands To Reason: They Learn Faster, And They Pass On What They Learn To Their Children.

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

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."

I Was A Very Keen Reader Of Science Fiction, And During The Time I Was Going To Libraries, It Was Good, Written By People Who Knew Their Science.

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

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

Your Own Brain Ought To Have The Decency To Be On Your Side!

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.

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

You Can't Die With An Unfinished Book.

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

I Certainly Don't Sit Down And Plan A Book Out Before I Write It. There's A Phrase I Use Called "the Valley Full Of Clouds." Writing A Novel Is As If You Are Going Off On A Journey Across A Valley. The Valley Is Full Of Mist, But You Can See The Top Of A Tree Here And The Top Of Another Tree Over There. And With Any Luck You Can See The Other Side Of The Valley. But You Cannot See Down Into The Mist. Nevertheless, You Head For The First Tree.

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

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

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

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

The Price Of Being The Best Is Having To Be The Best.

That's Why It's Always Worth Having A Few Philosophers Around The Place. One Minute It's All Is Truth Beauty And Is Beauty Truth, And Does A Falling Tree In The Forest Make A Sound If There's No One There To Hear It, And Then Just When You Think They're Going To Start Dribbling One Of 'em Says, Incidentally, Putting A Thirty-foot Parabolic Reflector On A High Place To Shoot The Rays Of The Sun At An Enemy's Ships Would Be A Very Interesting Demonstration Of Optical Principles.

I Taught Myself More In The Library Than School Taught Me.

Tiffany Has Been Apprenticing As A Witch By Visiting People In Need With Her Mentor. After Meeting With One Particularly Sad Case, She Tells Her Mentor, "it Shouldn't Be Like This." Her Mentor Replies, "there Isn't A Way Things Should Be. There's Just What Happens, And What We Do.

Sometimes It Is Better To Light A Flamethrower Than Curse The Darkness.

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.

There's No Justice, Said Mort. Just Us.

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

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

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

Nac Mac Feegle! The Wee Free Men! Nae King! Nae Quin! Nae Laird! Nae Master! We Willna' Be Fooled Again!

In Defiance Of Miss Maccalariat I'd Like To Commit Hanky-panky With You, Miss Adora Belle Dearheart... Well, Certainly Hanky, And Possibly Panky When We Get To Know One Another Better.

Everywhere's Been Where It Is Ever Since It Was First Put There. It's Called Geography.

Five Exclamation Marks: The Sure Sign Of An Insane Mind.

Exclamation Points

Exclamation Marks

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.

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

Ninety Percent Of True Love Is Acute, Ear-burning Embarrassment.

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

Truth! Freedom! Justice! And A Hard-boiled Egg!

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.

Somewhere Around The Place I've Got An Unfinished Short Story About Schrodinger's Dog; It Was Mostly Moaning About All The Attention The Cat Was Getting.

You're Allowed To Grant People Into The Darkness, But You Must Allow Them To Come Out Again.

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.

The Words Are Easy - Most Of Them Have Already Been Invented.

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

You Were The Kind Of Kid Who Couldn't See The Difference Between Throwing Rocks At A Cat And Setting It On Fire.

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

Tourist, Rincewind Decided, Meant ‘idiot.

Over The Centuries, Mankind Has Tried Many Ways Of Combating The Forces Of Evil... Prayer, Fasting, Good Works And So On. Up Until Doom, No One Seemed To Have Thought About The Double-barrel Shotgun. Eat Leaden Death, Demon...

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

Evolution Was Far More Thrilling To Me Than The Biblical Account. Who Would Not Rather Be A Rising Ape Than A Falling Angel? To My Juvenile Eyes, Darwin Was Proved True Every Day. It Doesn't Take Much To Make Us Flip Back Into Monkeys Again.

You Can't Trample Infidels When You're A Tortoise. I Mean, All You Could Do Is Give Them A Meaningful Look.

And So The Children Of The Revolution Were Faced With The Age-old Problem: It Wasn't That You Had The Wrong Kind Of Government, Which Was Obvious, But That You Had The Wrong Kind Of People. As Soon As You Saw People As Things To Be Measured, They Didn't Measure Up.

There Can Be No Better Grounding For A Lifetime As An Author Than To See Humanity In All Its Various Guises Through The Lens Of The Reporter For The Town.

Ninety Percent Of Most Magic Merely Consists Of Knowing One Extra Fact.

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.

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

Historical Re-creation, He Thought Glumly, As They Picked Their Way Across, Under, Over Or Through The Boulders And Insect-buzzing Heaps Of Splintered Timber, With Streamlets Running Everywhere. Only We Do It With People Dressing Up And Running Around With Blunt Weapons, And People Selling Hot Dogs, And The Girls All Miserable Because They Can Only Dress Up As Wenches, Wenching Being The Only Job Available To Women In The Olden Days.

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.

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

Would A Minute Have Mattered? No, Probably Not, Although His Young Son Appeared To Have A Very Accurate Internal Clock. Possibly Even 2 Minutes Would Be Okay. Three Minutes, Even. You Could Go To Five Minutes, Perhaps. But That Was Just It. If You Could Go For Five Minutes, Then You'd Go To Ten, Then Half An Hour, A Couple Of Hours...and Not See Your Son All Evening. So That Was That. Six O'clock, Prompt. Every Day. Read To Young Sam. No Excuses. He'd Promised Himself That. No Excuses. No Excuses At All. Once You Had A Good Excuse, You Opened The Door To Bad Excuses.

I Should Have Learned This, She Thought. I Wanted To Learn Fire, And Pain, But I Should Have Learned People.

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

We Live And Learn, Or, Perhaps More Importantly We Learn And Live.

Last Hopeless Chances Have Got To Work. Nothing Makes Sense Otherwise. You Might As Well Not Be Alive.

Ankh-morpork! Pearl Of Cities! This Is Not A Completely Accurate Description, Of Course — It Was Not Round And Shiny — But Even Its Worst Enemies Would Agree That If You Had To Liken Ankh-morpork To Anything, Then It Might As Well Be A Piece Of Rubbish Covered With The Diseased Secretions Of A Dying Mollusc.

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.

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

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

If You Are Going To Write, Say, Fantasy - Stop Reading Fantasy. You've Already Read Too Much. Read Other Things; Read Westerns, Read History, Read Anything That Seems Interesting, Because If You Only Read Fantasy And Then You Start To Write Fantasy, All You're Going To Do Is Recycle The Same Old Stuff And Move It Around A Bit.

[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!

It's An Interesting Fact That Fewer Than 17 % Of Real Cats End Their Lives With The Same Name They Started With. Much Family Effort Goes Into Selecting One At The Start ("she Looks Like A Winnifred To Me"), And The As The Years Roll By It Suddenly Finds Itself Being Called Meepo Or Ratbag.

Only In Our Dreams Are We Free. The Rest Of The Time We Need Wages.

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.

Wizards Don't Believe In Gods In The Same Way That Most People Don't Find It Necessary To Believe In, Say, Tables. They Know They're There, They Know They're There For A Purpose, They'd Probably Agree That They Have A Place In A Well-organised Universe, But They Wouldn't See The Point Of Believing, Of Going Around Saying "o Great Table, Without Whom We Are As Naught." Anyway, Either The Gods Are There Whether You Believe In Them Or Not, Or Exist Only As A Function Of The Belief, So Either Way You Might As Well Ignore The Whole Business And, As It Were, Eat Off Your Knees.

I Don’t Think It's Weak To Admit You Made A Mistake. That Takes Strength, If You Ask Me.

Either All Days Are Holy Or None Are.

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.

It's The Expression On Their Little Faces I Like, Said The Hogfather. "you Mean Sort Of Fear And Awe And Not Knowing Whether To Laugh Or Cry Or Wet Their Pants?" Yes. Now That Is What I Call Belief.

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

However, You Do Need Rules. Driving On The Left (or The Right Or, In Parts Of Europe, On The Left And The Right As The Mood Takes You) Is A Rule Which Works, Since Following It Means You're More Likely To Reach Your Intended Rather Than Your Final Destination.

On The Disc, The Gods Aren't So Much Worshipped, As They Are Blamed.

Bringing About Armageddon Can Be Dangerous. Do Not Attempt It In Your Own Home.

The Best Research Is The Research That You Don't Know That You Are Doing.

We Are Monkeys. We Like To Chatter. Chattering Doesn't Cost Us Anything.

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

Most Species Do Their Own Evolving, Making It Up As They Go Along, Which Is The Way Nature Intended.

Evolution Of Man

Trial And Error

But What Should We Do When The Highborn And Wealthy Take To Crime? Indeed, If A Poor Man Will Spend A Year In Prison For Stealing Out Of Hunger, How High Would The Gallows Need To Be To Hang The Rich Man Who Breaks The Law Out Of Greed?

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.

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.

It Was, According To The History Books, The Fastest Coronation Since Bubric The Saxon Crowned Himself With A Very Pointy Crown On A Hill During A Thunderstorm, And Reigned For One And A Half Seconds.

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.

Nanny Ogg Never Did Any Housework Herself, But She Was The Cause Of Housework In Other People.

Lords And Ladies

Insanity Is Catching.

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