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What Was Supposed To Be So Special About A Full Moon? It Was Only A Big Circle Of Light. And The Dark Of The Moon Was Only Darkness. But Halfway Between The Two, When The Moon Was Between The Worlds Of Light And Dark, When Even The Moon Lived On The Edge...maybe Then A Witch Could Believe In The Moon.

-Terry Pratchett

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What Was Supposed To

Terry Pratchett

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What Was Supposed To Be So Special About A Full Moon? It Was Only A Big Circle Of Light. And The Dark Of The Moon Was Only Darkness. But Halfway Between The Two, When The Moon Was Between The Worlds Of Light And Dark, When Even The Moon Lived On The Edge...maybe Then A Witch Could Believe In The Moon.

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Look At Satan. Created As An Angel, Grows Up To Be The Great Adversary. Hey, If You’re Going To Go On About Genetics, You Might As Well Say The Kid Will Grow Up To Be An Angel. After All, His Father Was Really Big In Heaven In The Old Days. Saying He’ll Grow Up To Be A Demon Just Because His Dad Became One Is Like Saying A Mouse With Its Tail Cut Off Will Give Birth To Tailless Mice. No. Upbringing Is Everything. Take It From Me.

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

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.

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Don't Be Smart. Smart Is Only A Polished Version Of Dumb. Try Intelligence. It Will Surely See You Through.

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

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

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Poetic Simile Was Strictly Limited To Statements Like 'his Mighty Steed Was As Fleet As The Wind On A Fairly Calm Day, Say About Force Three,' And Any Loose Talk About A Beloved Having A Face That Launched A Thousand Ships Would Have To Be Backed By Evidence That The Object Of Desire Did Indeed Look Like A Bottle Of Champagne.

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

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

My Agent Pointed Out One Day That I Had Been Quoted By A Columnist In Some American Newspaper, And He Noted With Some Glee That They Simply Identified Me By Name Without Reminding People Who I Was, Apparently In The Clear Expectation That Their Readers Would Know Who I Am.

Their Families Cordially Detested One Another.

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Exclamation Points

Exclamation Marks

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I Would Like Permission To Fetch A Note From My Mother, Sir' Ridcully Sighed. 'rincewind, You Once Informed Me, To My Everlasting Puzzlement, That You Never Knew Your Mother Because She Ran Away Before You Were Born. Distinctly Remember Writing It Down In My Diary. Would You Like Another Try?' 'permission To Go And Find My Mother?'

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The Stories Never Said Why She Was Wicked. It Was Enough To Be An Old Woman, Enough To Be All Alone, Enough To Look Strange Because You Have No Teeth. It Was Enough To Be Called A Witch. If It Came To That, The Book Never Gave You The Evidence Of Anything. It Talked About "a Handsome Prince"... Was He Really, Or Was It Just Because He Was A Prince That People Called Handsome? As For "a Girl Who Was As Beautiful As The Day Was Long"... Well, Which Day? In Midwinter It Hardly Ever Got Light! The Stories Don't Want You To Think, They Just Wanted You To Believe What You Were Told.

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You Can't Inspire People With Facts. They Need A Cause. They Need A Symbol.

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

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Christ Managed To Boil Down An Awful Lot Of Commandments To A Few Very Simple Rules For Living. It's When You Go Backwards Through The 'begats' And The Garden Of Eden, And You Start Thinking, 'hang On, That's A Big Punishment For Eating One Lousy Apple... There's A Human-rights Issue.'

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

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

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One Day I'll Work Out What It Is You Are Saying, My Lad, And Then You'll Be In Trouble.

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I Didn't Go To University. Didn't Even Finish A-levels. But I Have Sympathy For Those Who Did.

Be Careful What You Wish For. You Never Know Who Will Be Listening.

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Speak Softly And Employ A Huge Man With A Crowbar.

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

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

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

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.

Before You Can Become A Writer, You Have To Be A Reader, And A Reader Of Everything, At That. To The Best Of My Recollection, I Became A Reader At The Age Of 10 And Have Never Stopped. Like Many Authors, I Read All Sorts Of Books All The Time, And It Is Amazing How The Mind Fills Up.

Most People Who Have Found That They Are More Intelligent Than Most Around Them, Have Yet To Learn That One Of The Most Intelligent Things They Can Do Is Prevent Said People Ever Finding This Out.

Probably The Last Man Who Knew How It Worked Had Been Tortured To Death Years Before. Or As Soon As It Was Installed. Killing The Creator Was A Traditional Method Of Patent-protection.

I'm Interested In Mythology Generally, But India Has No Special Place In My Heart - Although Hindu Gods Seem A Lot More Fun.

Life Doesn't Happen In Chapters - At Least, Not Regular Ones.

- I Notice You Didn't Laugh, Mr. Black! - No, Your Majesty. We Are Forbidden To Laugh At The Things Kings Say, Sire, Because Otherwise We Would Be At It All Day.

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

Even The Blind And Meek And Voiceless Have Gods.

Don't Stick Your Nose Where Someone Can Pull It Off And Eat It.

Unseen University Was Much Bigger On The Inside. Thousands Of Years As The Leading Establishment Of Practical Magic In A World Where Dimensions Were Largely A Matter Of Chance In Any Case Had Left It Bulging In Places Where It Shouldn't Have Places. There Were Rooms Containing Rooms Which, If You Entered Them, Turned Out To Contain The Room You'd Started With, Which Can Be A Problem If You Are In A Conga Line.

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

This Time It Had Been Magic. And It Didn't Stop Being Magic Just Because You Found Out How It Was Done.

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

A Push-and-go Wooden Duck On Wheels Can Cause Quite A Lot Of Damage If Wielded With Enough Force.

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

Mum Had Done Everything You Need To Educate A Kid. She Made Me A Kid Who Likes Books And She Told Me About 'wind In The Willows' And Read It And I Thought This Is Weird, Rat, Mole, Toad And My First Ever Bolshie Thought - You Know About 'the Wind In The Willows.'

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

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

Raising The Flag And Singing The Anthem Are, While Somewhat Suspicious, Not In Themselves Acts Of Treason.

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.

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

Lords And Ladies

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

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

Books Must Be Treated With Respect, We Feel That In Our Bones, Because Words Have Power. Bring Enough Words Together They Can Bend Space And Time.

All Property Is Theft, Except Mine.

Even A Really Bad Creator Would At Least Have Started With Earth, Air, Fire, Water And Surprise.

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

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’d Better Tell Me What You Know, Toad,” Said Tiffany. “miss Tick Isn’t Here. I Am.” “another World Is Colliding With This One,” Said The Toad. “there. Happy Now? That’s What Miss Tick Thinks. But It’s Happening Faster Than She Expected. All The Monsters Are Coming Back.” “why?” “there’s No One To Stop Them.” There Was Silence For A Moment. “there’s Me,” Said Tiffany.

Humans Can Think Inhuman Thoughts.

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

But The Purpose Of The Book Is Not The Horror, It Is Horror's Defeat.

In An Instant He Became Aware That The Tourist Was About To Try His Own Peculiar Brand Of Linguistics, Which Meant That He Would Speak Loudly And Slowly In His Own Language.

Despite Rumor, Death Isn't Cruel--merely Terribly, Terribly Good At His Job.

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

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.

What Can The Harvest Hope For...

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.

Nothing But Dust And Fundamentalists.

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

Priests Were Metal-reinforced Overshoes. They Saved Your Soles. This Is An Assassin Joke.

It Was Amazing How Many Friends You Could Make By Being Bad At Things, Provided You Were Bad Enough To Be Funny.

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

Once Upon A Time

I Like The Idea Of Democracy. You Have To Have Someone Everyone Distrusts.

They Say That The Prospect Of Being Hanged In The Morning Concentrates A Man's Mind Wonderfully; Unfortunately, What The Mind Inevitably Concentrates On Is That, In The Morning, It Will Be In A Body That Is Going To Be Hanged.

He'd Noticed That Sex Bore Some Resemblance To Cookery: It Fascinated People, They Sometimes Bought Books Full Of Complicated Recipes And Interesting Pictures, And Sometimes When They Were Really Hungry They Created Vast Banquets In Their Imagination - But At The End Of The Day They'd Settle Quite Happily For Egg And Chips. If It Was Well Done And Maybe Had A Slice Of Tomato.

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

The Gods Of The Disc Have Never Bothered Much About Judging The Souls Of The Dead, And So People Only Go To Hell If That's Where They Believe, In Their Deepest Heart, That They Deserve To Go. Which They Won't Do If They Don't Know About It. This Explains Why It Is So Important To Shoot Missionaries On Sight.

Plot Exposition That Can Be Gently Wound Out By The Authorial Voice And Internal Monologue Of A Character In The Length Of A Page Has To Be Delivered In A Matter Of Seconds On The Stage.

She Was Already Learning That If You Ignore The Rules People Will, Half The Time, Quietly Rewrite Them So That They Don't Apply To You.

The Only Superstition I Have Is That I Must Start A New Book On The Same Day That I Finish The Last One, Even If It's Just A Few Notes In A File. I Dread Not Having Work In Progress.

If Women Were As Good As Men They'd Be A Lot Better!

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'.

She Wore So Much Thick White Makeup In Order To Conceal Her Naturally Rosy Complexion That If She Turned Around Suddenly Her Face Would Probably End Up On The Back Of Her Head.

Things Have No Power That Humans Don't Put There.

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.

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

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

Dreams Come True

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.

The Storm Was Really Giving It Everything It Had. This Was Its Big Chance. It Had Spent Years Hanging Around The Provinces, Putting In Some Useful Work As A Squall, Building Up Experience, Making Contacts, Occasionally Leaping Out On Unsuspecting Shepherds Or Blasting Quite Small Oak Trees. Now An Opening In The Weather Had Given It An Opportunity To Strut Its Hour, And It Was Building Up Its Role In The Hope Of Being Spotted By One Of The Big Climates.

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

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.

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.

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.

Take It From Me, Whenever You See A Bunch Of Buggers Puttering Around Talking About Truth And Beauty And The Best Way Of Attacking Ethics, You Can Bet Your Sandals It's All Because Dozens Of Other Poor Buggers Are Doing All The Real Work Around The Place.

...the Proliferation Of Luminous Fungi Or Iridescent Crystals In Deep Caves Where The Torchlessly Improvident Hero Needs To See Is One Of The Most Obvious Intrusions Of Narrative Causality Into The Physical Universe.

There's A Saying That All Roads Lead To Ankh-morpork. And It's Wrong. All Roads Lead Away From Ankh-morpork, But Sometimes People Just Walk Along Them The Wrong Way.

She Walked Quickly Through The Darkness With The Frank Stride Of Someone Who Was At Least Certain That The Forest, On This Damp And Windy Night, Contained Strange And Terrible Things And She Was It.

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

Fortune Telling

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