And what would humans be without love?”RARE, said Death.
It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it’s called Life.
If cats looked like frogs we’d realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That’s what people remember.
Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.
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.
The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.
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.
This isn’t life in the fast lane, it’s life in the oncoming traffic.
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…
Perhaps it would be simpler if you just did what you’re told and didn’t try to understand things.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
Give a man a fire and he’s warm for a day, but set fire to him and he’s warm for the rest of his life.
Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying ‘End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH’, the paint wouldn’t even have time to dry.
Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.
In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.
DON’T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.
Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.
No! Please! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know!” the man yelled. “Really?” said Vimes. “What’s the orbital velocity of the moon?””What?””Oh, you’d like something simpler?
It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever,” he said. “Have you thought of going into teaching?
He’d been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower.
Death: “THERE ARE BETTER THINGS IN THE WORLD THAN ALCOHOL, ALBERT.”Albert: “Oh, yes, sir. But alcohol sort of compensates for not getting them.
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.
The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they’ve found it.
HUMAN BEINGS MAKE LIFE SO INTERESTING. DO YOU KNOW, THAT IN A UNIVERSE SO FULL OF WONDERS, THEY HAVE MANAGED TO INVENT BOREDOM. (Death)
We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything.
…inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
Do you think it’s possible for an entire nation to be insane?
The entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.
In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She’d much prefer to read a good book.
Coffee is a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your older self.
Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.
Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother.
The trouble is you can shut your eyes but you can’t shut your mind.
Some things are fairly obvious when it’s a seven-foot skeleton with a scythe telling you them
Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.
I get it,’ said the prisoner. ‘Good Cop, Bad Cop, eh?’If you like.’ said Vimes. ‘But we’re a bit short staffed here, so if I give you a cigarette would you mind kicking yourself in the teeth?
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?
What’s a philosopher?’ said Brutha.Someone who’s bright enough to find a job with no heavy lifting,’ said a voice in his head.
This was not a fairy-tale castle and there was no such thing as a fairy-tale ending, but sometimes you could threaten to kick the handsome prince in the ham-and-eggs.
Rincewind could scream for mercy in nineteen languages, and just scream in another forty-four.
You can’t give her that!’ she screamed. ‘It’s not safe!’IT’S A SWORD, said the Hogfather. THEY’RE NOT MEANT TO BE SAFE.’She’s a child!’ shouted Crumley.IT’S EDUCATIONAL.’What if she cuts herself?’THAT WILL BE AN IMPORTANT LESSON.
The trouble was that he was talking in philosophy but they were listening in gibberish.
It was sad music. But it waved its sadness like a battle flag. It said the universe had done all it could, but you were still alive.
Granny was an old-fashioned witch. She didn’t do good for people, she did right by them.
Speak softly and employ a huge man with a crowbar.
Every intelligent being, whether it breathes or not, coughs nervously at some time in its life.
Juliet’s version of cleanliness was next to godliness, which was to say it was erratic, past all understanding and was seldom seen.
The sun rose slowly, as if it wasn’t sure it was worth all the effort.
Bursar?””Yes, Archchancellor?””You ain’t a member of some secret society or somethin’, are you?””Me? No, Archchancellor.””Then it’d be a damn good idea to take your underpants off your head.
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?
I’m not superstitious. I’m a witch. Witches aren’t superstitious. We are what people are superstitious of.
We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork.
The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head.
A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.
I should have learned this, she thought. I wanted to learn fire, and pain, but I should have learned people.
When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth.
WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN?The Death of Rats looked up from the feast of the potato. SQUEAK, he said.Death waved a hand dismissively. WELL, YES, OBVIOUSLY ME, he said. I JUST WONDERED IF THERE WAS ANYONE ELSE.
Just because you can explain it doesn’t mean it’s not still a miracle.
God does not play games with His loyal servants”, said the Metatron, but in a worried tone of voice.”Whoopee”, said Crowley.
In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of thecat, although in this case there were three determinate states the catcould be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.
Wisdom is one of the few things that looks bigger the further away it is.
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.
Anyone with half a mind could see that,” said Tiffany.Miss Tick sighed. “Yes. But sometimes it’s so hard to find half a mind when you need one.
No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away…
Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.
Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?
If words had weight, a single sentence from Death would have anchored a ship.
IT’S A SWORD, said the Hogfather. THEY’RE NOT /MEANT/ TO BE SAFE.
How do you get all those coins?” asked Mort.IN PAIRS.
It was said that life was cheap in Ankh-Morpork. This was of course, completely wrong. Life was often very expensive; you could get death for free.
OH, THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING IN THE STOCKING THAT MAKES A NOISE, said Death. OTHERWISE, WHAT IS 4:30 A.M. FOR?
WHAT FOR IS THIS BOX PADDED? IS IT TO BE SAT ON? CAN IT BE THAT IT IS CAT-FLAVOURED?
YOU’RE ONLY PUTTING OFF THE INEVITABLE, he said.That’s what being alive is all about.
There was no safety. There was no pride. All there was, was money. Everything became money, and money became everything. Money treated us as if we were things, and we died.
Do you know how wizards like to be buried?””Yes!””Well, how?”Granny Weatherwax paused at the bottom of the stairs.”Reluctantly.
DO NOT PUT ALL YOUR TRUST IN ROOT VEGETABLES. WHAT THINGS SEEM TO BE MAY NOT BE WHAT THEY ARE.-Death
Maladict had hallucinations, but Wazzer had a certainty you could bend steel around. It was the opposite of a hallucination, somehow. It was as if she could see what was real and you couldn’t.
The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.
[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!
I read anything that’s going to be interesting. But you don’t know what it is until you’ve read it. Somewhere in a book on the history of false teeth there’ll be the making of a novel.
I just rearrange words into a pleasing order for money.
Lots of people would be as cowardly as me if they were brave enough.
That’s what being alive is, Thing! It’s being badly prepared for everything! Because you only get one chance, Thing!
If complete and utter chaos was lightning, then he’d be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting ‘All gods are bastards!
Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; a key to the understanding of all religion is that a god’s idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs.
On the Disc, the Gods aren’t so much worshipped, as they are blamed.
Gods don’t like people not doing much work. People who aren’t busy all the time might start to think.
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).
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.
The trouble with being a god is that you’ve got no one to pray to.
Be careful what you wish for. You never know who will be listening.
When you can flatten entire cities at a whim, a tendency towards quiet reflection and seeing-things-from-the-other-fellow’s-point- of-view is seldom necessary.
Creators aren’t gods. They make places, which is quite hard. It’s men that make gods. This explains a lot.
Ankh-Morpork is a godless city–”I thought it had more than three hundred places of worship?’ said Maladict. city’, he recovered.
To tell you the truth, I’m something of an atheist.
If you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, then you don’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably going wrong.
…it is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you’re attempting can’t be done.
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.
She got on with her education. In her opinion, school kept on trying to interfere with it.
I’m trying to remember how you tell the time by looking at the sun.” -“I should leave it for a while, it’s too bright to see the numbers at the moment.
The calendar of the Theocracy of Muntab counts down, not up. No-one knows why, but it might not be a good idea to hang around and find out.
Life could be horrible in the wrong trouser of time.
The female mind is certainly a devious one, my lord.” Vetinari looked at his secretary in surprise. “Well, of course it is. It has to deal with the male one.
People who didn’t need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn’t need people.
Well, child? Aren’t you going to try to turn me into some kind of unspeakable creature?I don’t think I shall bother, madam, seeing as you are making such a good job of it yourself!
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.
If per capita was a problem, decapita could be arranged
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.
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.
You’re not going to tell me they built fifty-foot-high killer golems, are you?””Only a man would think of that.It’s our job,” said Moist. “If you don’t think of fifty-foot-high killer golems first, someone else will.
The elevator shaft was a kind of heat sink. Hot food was cold by the time it arrived. Cold food got colder. No one knew what would happen to ice cream, but it would probably involve some rewriting of the laws of thermodynamics.
Just to keep the bad dreams at bay, she took a swig out of a bottle that smelled of apples and happy brain-death.
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.
I never said nothing…””I know you never! I could hear you not saying anything! You’ve got the loudest silences I ever did hear from anyone who wasn’t dead!
But the purpose of the book is not the horror, it is horror’s defeat.
Whole new theories of money were growing here like mushrooms: in the dark and based on bullshit.
Your wife is a big hippo! My face is melting! My face is meltinnnnggg!
(About sweeping)….What he was in FACT doing was moving the dirt around with a broom, to give it a change of scenery and a chance to make new friends.
. . . you worked for Harry King, they said, because a broken leg was bad for business, and Harry King was all about business.
It was a fine summer morning, the kind to make a man happy to be alive. And probably the man *would* have been happier to be alive. He was, in fact, dead. It would be hard to be deader without special training.
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.
It was a large room, heavily outfitted with the usual badly ventilated furnaces, rows of bubbling crucibles, and one stuffed alligator. Things floated in jars. The air smelled of a limited life expectancy.
How can anyone trust scientists? If new evidence comes along, they change their minds.
Did I see them waving?’ said Mrs Liberty’And particling, I shouldn’t wonder’ said the Alderman
If you have enough book space, I don’t want to talk to you.
It looked like the sort of book described in library catalogues as ‘slightly foxed’, although it would be more honest to admit that it looked as though it had been badgered, wolved and possibly beared as well.
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.Someone had stolen a book.
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.
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.
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.
A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.
A stink. A stench. A foulness in her mind, dreadful and unforgiving. A compost of horrible ideas and rotted thoughts that made her want to take our her brain and wash it.
The intelligence of that creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it.
And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things.
Oh. I see. People don’t want to see what can’t possibly exist.
Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves.
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.
Peace?’ said Vetinari. ‘Ah, yes, defined as period of time to allow for preparation for the next war.
It is a long-cherished tradition among a certain type of military thinker that huge casualties are the main thing. If they are on the other side then this is a valuable bonus.
Men marched away, Vimes. And men marched back. How glorious the battles would have been that they never had to fight!
And now I demand that you do what the ignorant might feel is the easier thing. You must refrain from dying in battle. Revenge is not redress. Revenge is a wheel, and it turns backwards. The dead are not your masters.
Now we have travelled a hundred million steps from the Datum, we are finding life systems entirely unlike our own – and yet we still find war. Must it always be so?
History was full of the bones of good men who’d followed bad orders in the hope that they could soften the blow. Oh, yes, there were worse things they could do, but most of them began right where they started following bad orders.
William: “I’m sure we can all pull together, sir.”Vetinari: “Oh, I do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.
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…
There was this about vampires : they could never look scruffy. Instead, they were… what was the word… deshabille. It meant untidy, but with bags and bags of style.
You’re not allowed to call them dinosaurs any more,” said Yo-less. “It’s speciesist. You have to call them pre-petroleum persons.
Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.
Everywhere’s been where it is ever since it was first put there. It’s called geography.
Don’t look back!” “Why not?” “Because I just did! Run faster!
Letitia! What a name. Halfway between a salad and a sneeze.
Were you proposing to shoot these people in cold blood, sergeant?””Nossir. Just a warning shot inna head, sir.
Never trust a species that grins all the time. It’s up to something.
The Captain of the Watch says if you’re still in the City by sunrise he will personally have you buried alive.
You do know you could find yourself charged with being a dominant species while under the influence of impulse-driven consumerism, don’t you?
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.
I know it’s not the right thing to say to a lady, miss, but you are sweating like a pig!””My mother always said that horses sweat, men perspire, and ladies merely glow…””Is that so? Well, miss, you are glowing like a pig!
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!
He looked up at them, a scruffy Napoleon with his laces trailing, exiled to a rose-trellised Elba.
If you were going to be successful in the world of crime, you needed a reputation for honesty.
He was certain he was anorectic, because every time he looked in a mirror he saw a fat man. It was the Archchancellor, standing behind him and shouting at him.
Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw.It was its tendency to bend at the knees.
One cannot help feeling that some alternative occupation—lettuce farming, say—would offer somewhat less of a risk of being put to death by installments. Why do you persist in it?”Goldeneyes Dactylos shrugged.“I’m good at it,” he said.
Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
. . . Mrs. Arcanum considered foreign parts only marginally less unspeakable than private parts. . .
He was the sort of person who stood on mountaintops during thunderstorms in wet copper armour shouting ‘All the Gods are bastards.
It’s political, sir. Apparently he wants a return to the values and traditions that made the city great, sir.” “Does he _know_ what those values and traditions _were_?” said Vimes, aghast.
If women were as good as men they’d be a lot better!
Well, the lion is a big ol’ coward, mostly. If you want trouble, you want to tangle with the lioness. They’re killers, and they hunt together. It’s the same everywhere. If you want big grief, look to the ladies.
Handle with care. Probably has Views. Do not attempt to kiss hand.
High magic requires a great clarity of thought, you see, and women’s talents do not lie in that direction. Their brains tend to overheat.
Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.
The trouble is that things never get better, they just stay the same, only more so.
This is Art holding a Mirror up to Life. That’s why everything is exactly the wrong way around.
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 y
As far as he could see, the drawings were simply alive. They might be colored earth on rock, but they were as alive as the kangaroo that’d just hopped away.
A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.
I know that I am a small, weak man, but I have amassed a large library; I dream of dangerous places.
His granny taught him to read, see. I reckon it overheated his mind.
He was stupid, yes, in the particular way that very clever people can be stupid.
Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.
Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out,” said the shopkeeper. “That’s what I’ve always thought. No one goes mad quicker than a totally sane person.
And just when you’d think [humans] were more malignant than ever Hell could be, they occasionally showed more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of.
I don’t see what’s so triffic about creating people as people and then gettin’ upset ‘cos they act like people.
I would like you to teach [the orcs] civilised behaviour,” said Ladyship coldly.He appeared to consider this. “Yes of course, I think that would be quite possible,” he said. “And who would you send to teach the humans?
If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.
He sighed. It had come to this. He was a responsible authority, and people could use terms like “core values” at him with impunity.
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.
Fire is easy to work with if you keep your mind clear, but pain . . . pain fights back. Pain is alive. Pain is the enemy.
It’s a terrible thing for a man when his woman gangs up on him wi’ a toad
There are millions of chords. There are millions of numbers. And everyone forgets the one that is a zero. But without the zero, numbers are just arithmetic. Without the empty chord, music is just noise.
Big fat hairy monkey, hands a couple of octaves wide?
They say that the eyes of some paintings can follow you around the room, a fact that I doubt, but I am wondering whether some music can follow you for ever.
In the words of the philosopher Sceptum, the founder of my profession: am I going to get paid for this?
The money… will talk?’ said Mr Spools carefully.’Imps,’ said Moist. ‘They’re only a sort of intelligent spell. They don’t even have to have a shape. We’ll print them on the higher denominations.
That was an important rule of any game: always make it easy for people to give you money.
A flicker of defiance flared very briefly in Rincewind’s battered heart.
Humanity’s a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.
Fantasy – the ability to envisage the world in many different ways – is one of the skills that makes us human.
What is a fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Dragons?
NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLOM OF NIT CAN STAY THESE MESENGERS ABOT THEIR DUTY
It was a Guild of Assassins, after all. Black was what you wore. The night was black and so were you. And black had such style, and an Assassin without style, everyone agreed, was just a highly paid arrogant thug.
Then Tak looked upon the stone and it was trying to come alive, and Tak smiled, and wrote All things strive.And for the service the stone had given, he fashioned it into the first Troll, and delighted in the life that came unbidden.
Too much alleged ‘fantasy’ is just empty sugar, life with the crusts cut off.
I just think the world ought to be more sort of organized.”That’s just fantasy,’ said Twoflower.’I know. That’s the trouble.’ Rincewind sighed again.
In fact the Gods were as puzzled by all this as the wizards were, but they were powerless to do anything and in any case were engaged in an eons-old battle with the Ice Giants, who had refused to return the lawnmower.
I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
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.
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.
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.
Adora Belle fought back, and to make sure fought back even before she was attacked.
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.
The universe, they say, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty, and bloody-mindedness.
That’s No’-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock, mistress,’ said Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock. ‘Ye were one jock short,’ he added helpfully.
It’s lies. It’s all lies. Some of them are just prettier than others, that’s all. People see what they think is there.
My personal theory is that he has a very firm grasp upon reality, it’s simply not a reality the rest of us have ever met before.
Or — and this she knew was a far more accurate way of looking at it — the book was true and reality was lying.
Reality so often fails when it comes to small, satisfying details, she thought.
Just because something is a metaphor doesn’t mean it can’t be real.
Positive thinking,’ he would say, ‘is also very important.
I staggered into a Manchester bar late one night on a tour and the waitress said “You look as if you need a Screaming Orgasm”. At the time this was the last thing on my mind…
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?
Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. It’s a feeling inside that can hardly be contained.
Yes, but nomes aren’t hard to make,” said Dorcas. “You just need other nomes.” “You’re weird.
Granny,” said Esk, in the exasperated and remarkably adult voice children use to berate their wayward elders. “I don’t think you quite understand. I don’t want to hit the ground. It’s never done anything to me.
As far as she could see, children mostly argued, shouted, ran around very fast, laughed loudly, picked their noses, got dirty and sulked.
Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things.
You can be any sex you like provided you act male. There’s no men and women in the Watch, just a bunch of lads.
I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You’re wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.
The public thinks big, sensible, measured thoughts while people run around doing silly things
The wizards were civilized men of considerable education and culture. When faced with being inadvertently marooned on a desert island they understood immediately that the first thing to do was place the blame
…Granny Weatherwax, who had walked nightly without fear in the bandit-haunted forests of the mountains all her life in the certain knowledge that the darkness held nothing more terrible than she was…
I don’t think it’s weak to admit you made a mistake. That takes strength, if you ask me.
We’re living in science fiction, but we don’t realize it.
I really should talk to him. He’s had a near-death experience!””We all have. It’s called living.”(Hogfather)
You mean it’s my destiny? she said at last.Granny shrugged. Something like that. Probably. Who knows?
You mean it’s my destiny?” she said at last.Granny shrugged. “Something like that. Probably. Who knows?
The beagle and the kobold approached, walking out of the dusty distance.
Plans can break down. You cannot plan the future. Only presumptuous fools plan. The wise man steers.
And the people of Ankh-Morpork are so thirsty for novelty that the whole city is, you might say, hurrying the future along for the sheer joy of watching its progress.
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.
There’s no point in believing in things that exist.
But all them things exist,” said Nanny Ogg. “That’s no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages ’em.
Gods didn’t mind atheists, if they were deep, hot, fiery, atheists like Simony, who spend their whole life hating gods for not existing. That sort of atheism was a rock. It was nearly belief …
Belief, he says. Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure.
Around the Godde there forms a Shelle of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authority, until at Last the Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte be noticed.
And Dil was realizing that there are few things that so shake belief as seeing, clearly and precisely, the object of that belief. Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn’t believing. It’s where belief stops, because it isn’t needed anymore.
He knew from experience that true and obvious ideas, such as the ineffable wisdom and judgment of the Great God Om, seemed so obscure to many people that you actually had to kill them before they saw the error of their ways…
Susan hated Literature. She’d much prefer to read a good book.
Lord Vetinari in a meeting: “what people said was what they wanted him to hear. He paid a lot of attention to the spaces outside the words, though. That’s where the things were that they hoped he didn’t know and didn’t want him to find out.
A witch relied too much on words ever to go back on them.
… a man needs no camel to ride to hell, yea, nor horse, nor mule; a man may ride into hell on his tongue…
Goodness is about what you do. Not who you pray to.
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.
Learnin’ how not to do things is as hard as learning how to do them.
Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.
Esk felt that bravery was called for, but on a night like this bravery lasted only as long as a candle stayed alight.
You trust him?” he said. “No,” said Hastur. “Right,” said Ligur. It’s be a funny old world, he reflected, if demons went round trusting one another.
After all, if you can’t trust governments, whom can you trust?
She heard him mutter, ‘Can you take away this grief?”I’m sorry,’ she replied. ‘Everyone asks me. And I would not do so even if I knew how. It belongs to you. Only time and tears take away grief; that is what they are for.
Tiffany thought of the little spot in the woods where Granny Weatherwax lay. Remembered. And knew that You had been right. Granny Weatherwax was indeed here. And there. She was, in fact, and always would be, everywhere.
Tiffany found her mind filling up with an invisible gray mist, and in that thought there was nothing but grief. She could feel herself trying to push back time, but even the best witchcraft could not do that.
Daphne’s thought in Nation: This was no time to go totally mad. You had to maintain standards.
Death paused. YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE, he said, THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE?‘Yes. Yes, of course.’Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.
Dullness. Only humans could have invented it. What imaginations they had.
That’s Third Thoughts for you. When a huge rock is going to land on your head, they’re the thoughts that think: Is that an igneous rock, such as granite, or is it sandstone?
Noble dragons don’t have friends. The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still alive.
It’s an unfair world, Child. Be glad you have friends.
The hippo of recollection stirred in the muddy waters of the mind.
We’ve strayed into a zone with a high magical index,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask me how. Once upon a time a really powerful magic field must have been generated here, and we’re feeling the after-effects.’Precisely,’ said a passing bush.
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.
It took place in the midnight in the University’s Great Hall, in a welter of incense, candlesticks, runic inscriptions and magic circles, none of which was strictly necessary but which made the wizards feel better.
Perhaps the magic would last, perhaps it wouldn’t. But then again, what does?
… darkness isn’t the opposite of light, it is simplyits absence, and what was radiating from the book was the light that lies on the far side ofdarkness, the light fantastic.It was a rather disappointing purple colour.
Time travel was only a kind of magic, after all. That’s why it always went wrong.
Look at it like this, it’s not that we’re making life, we’re simply giving life a place to live.
It’s witchcraft with all the crusts cut off, and real witchcraft is ALL crusts.
A good motto in life, he’d reckoned, was: don’t eat anything that glows.
She told me that if magic gives people what they want, then not using magic can give them what they need.
A man walked across the moors from Razorback to Lancre town without seeing a single marshlight, head-less dog, strolling tree, ghostly coach or comet, and had to be taken in by a tavern and given a drink to unsteady his nerves.
You can’t not help people just because they’re stupid or forgetful or unpleasant… If I don’t help them, who will?
You haven’t really been anywhere until you’ve got back home.
Sometimes thinking is like talking to another person, but that person is also you.
I AM ALWAYS ALONE. BUT JUST NOW I WANT TO BE ALONE BY MYSELF.
Why us?” he said. “Why is it happening to us?””Everything has to happen to someone,” said Ginger.
It’s vital to remember who you really are. It’s very important. It isn’t a good idea to rely on other people or things to do it for you, you see. They always get it wrong.
And I’m made up of everyone I’ve ever met who’s changed the way I think. So who is “me”?
When people talk about their great past they’re usually trying to excuse the mediocre present.
There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can’t, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having.
It is a mystery,’ said Detritus.Vimes grinned mirthlessly. It was a mystery. And he didn’t like mysteries. Mysteries had a way of getting bigger if you didn’t solve them quickly. Mysteries pupped.
-Oh yes? Can you identify yourself?-Certainly. I’d know me anywhere.
It was the living who ignored the strange and wonderful, because life was too full of the boring and mundane.
Sergeant Colon of the Ankh-Morpork City Guard was on duty. He was guarding the Brass Bridge, the main link between Ankh and Morpork. From theft.When it came to crime prevention, Sergeant Colon found it safest to think big.
Where’s the pleasure in bein’ the winner if the loser ain’t alive to know they’ve lost?
(About a cookbook…)- What about this one? Maids of Honor?- Weeelll, they starts OUT as Maids of Honor…but they ends up Tarts.
Possession of the box conferred a kind of power on the wielder–which was that anyone, confronted with the hypnotic glass eye, would submissively obey the most peremptory orders about stance and expression.
What some people need,” said Magrat, to the world in general, “is a bit more heart.””What some people need,” said Granny Weatherwax, to the stormy sky, “is a lot more brain.”Then she clutched at her hat to stop the wind from blowing i
Quite amazing, isn’t it, Mister Lipwig?’ he said cheerfully through the smoke. ‘Though isn’t it a pity that they can only run on rails? I can’t imagine what the world would be like if everyone had their own steam locomotive. Abominable.
… a metaphor … is like lying but more decorative.
There are all kinds of darkness, and all kinds of things can be found in them, imprisoned, banished, lost or hidden. Sometimes they escape. Sometimes they simply fall out. Sometimes they just can’t take it any more.
He’d heard that writers spent all day in their dressing gowns drinking champagne. This is, of course, absolutely true.
Measurements is your saving grace if you want to raise steam.
TO CHANGE THE FATE OF ONE INDIVIDUAL IS TO CHANGE THE WORLD.
It’s daft, locking us up,” said Nanny. “I’d have had us killed.””That’s because you’re basically good,” said Magrat. “The good are innocent and create justice. The bad are guilty, which is why they invent mercy.
The flip side of the coin of which Good and Evil are but one side.
… it is to your credit that you recognize that if he was a monster then it was other monstrous things which made him so. The iron forged on the anvil cannot be blamed for the hammer…
Evil in general does not sleep, and therefore doesn’t see why anyone else should.
She sniffed, and smiled a bit, but not too much because if there is one thing worse than someone who doesn’t understand you it’s someone who understands perfectly, before you’ve had a chance to have a good pout about not being understood.
But then science is nothing but a series of questions that lead to more questions.
I guess the truth is nobody told this smart kid that communication between such divergent life forms was impossible, so he just went ahead and did it anyhow.
He wasn’t sure he liked everything that was happening, but a lot of it was “cultural,” apparently, and you couldn’t object to that, so he didn’t. “Cultural” sort of solved problems by explaining that they weren’t really there.
He was red with anger, except where he was white with rage. When he spoke, his words seared through the air like so many knives, clipped as topiary, crisp as biscuits.
Anger was a weapon to be honed and treasured and used only at the moment yielding most premium.
… responsibilities are the anvil on which a man is forged.
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.
But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.
The important thing about having lots of things to remember is that you’ve got to go somewhere afterwards where you can remember them, you see? You’ve got to stop. You haven’t really been anywhere until you’ve got back home.
Even our fears make us feel important, because we fear we might not be.
I don’t know what to do,” he said. “No harm in that. I’ve never known what to do,” said Rincewind with hollow cheerfulness. “Been completely at a loss my whole life.” He hesitated. “I think it’s called being human, or something.
…Human beings, little bags of thinking water held up briefly by fragile accumulations of calcium…
His progress through life was hampered by his tremendous sense of his own ignorance, a disability which affects all too few.
On the Kite, the situation was being ‘workshopped’. This is the means by which people who don’t know anything get together to pool their ignorance.
He stared at his feet. “I’m still very ignorant,” he said, “but at least I’m ignorant about really important things.
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.
I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU, he said, BUT I COULD MURDER A CURRY.
Pride is all very well, but a sausage is a sausage.
Have a chocolate-covered raisin,” he said.“They look like rat droppings,” said the Chair.The Dean peered at them in the gloom.“So that’s it,” he said. “The bag fell on the floor a minute ago, and I thought there seemed rather a lot.
Silence fell like a hammer made of feathers. It left holes in the shape of the sound of the sea.
A mirror can contain the reflection of the whole universe, a whole skyful of stars in a piece of silvered glass no thicker than a breath.
The thing is, I mean, there’s times when you look at the universe and you think, “What about me?” and you can just hear the universe replying, “Well, what about you?”
I believe the term is ‘eminent domain.’Ah, yes. That means ‘theft by the government,
Of all the forces in the universe, the hardest to overcome is the force of habit.
Is It Frightening To Be Free?””You said it.””You Say To People ‘Throw Off Your Chains’ And They Make New Chains For Themselves?””Seems to be a major human activity, yes.
I MAY HAVE ALLOWED MYSELF SOME FLICKER OF EMOTION IN THE RECENT PAST, said Death, BUT I CAN GIVE IT UP ANY TIME I LIKE.
On the Disc the gods dealt severely with atheists.
The gods had a habit of going round to atheists’ houses and smashing their windows.
Everyone has gods. You just don’t think they’re gods.
But what’s worth more than gold?””Practically everything. You, for example. Gold is heavy. Your weight in gold is not very much gold at all. Aren’t you worth more than that?
And he goes around killing people?” said Mort. He shook his head. “There’s no justice.”Death sighed. No, he said… there’s just me.
After all, people seemed quite easy about having their rights and liberties taken away by those they looked up to, but somehow a space on the perch was a slap in the face, and treated as such.
A woman always has half an onion left over, no matter what the size of the onion, the dish or the woman
His voice gave out and he made several wavy motions with his hand, indicative of the shape of a woman who would probably be unable to keep her balance.
It is possibly worth mentioning at this point that Mr. Young thought that paparazzi was a kind of Italian linoleum.
The dogged determination and patience of one person to do what is Right and Necessary may not always win the day or even be noticed, but it will tip the balance just a little in the direction of good.
Probably went swimming and got eaten by a pineapple.
It tells him what to say. I know it sounds ridiculous,” muttered Hugh.“How can a book tell a man what to say?
I tell them stars have never hurt me, I wish I could say the same about people.
Rain don’t fall on a with if she doesn’t want it to, although personally I prefer to get wet and be thankful.””Thankful for what?” said Tiffany.”That I’ll get dry later.
People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way around.
…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.
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.
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.
Silverfish looked down.”Oh. Are you a dwarf?”Cuddy gave him a blank stare.”Are you a giant?” He said.”Me? Of course not!””Ah. Then I must be a dwarf, yes.
Nanny’s philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down.
He said it was better to belong where you don’t belong than not to belong where you used to belong, remembering when you used to belong there.
Heaven has no taste.””Now-“”And not one single sushi restaurant.”A look of pain crossed the angel’s suddenly very serious face.
You couldn’t get a decent drink in either of them, for a start. And the boredom you got in Heaven was almost as bad as the excitement you got in Hell.
This I choose to do. If there is a price, this I choose to pay. If it is my death, then I choose to die. Where this takes me, there I choose to go. I choose. This I choose to do.
That was messages without meaning: telepathy without brains.
Ye mustn’t be afraid to ask for help. Pride is a good thing, my girl, but it will kill you in time.
Its like people care more abput their pride than about what’s correct, about the truth.
It’s like people care more about their pride than about what’s correct, about the truth.
It’s most unfair. Once people find out you’re a vampire they act as if you’re some kind of monster.
I know nothing about her. Just some books, and some stories she tried to tell me, and things I didn’t understand, and I remember big red soft hands and that smell. I never knew who she really was. I mean, she must have been nine too, once.
What a mess the world was in, Vimes reflected. Constable Visit had told him the meek would inherit it, and what had the poor devils done to deserve that?
Could I please amend that suggestion? Could you not be there in the second darkest shadow one hour before midnight, to see who steps into the darkest shadow?
Little crimes breed big crimes. You smile at little crimes and then big crimes blow your head off.
He grinned. It was the sort of grin that Agnes supposed was called infectious but, then, so was measles.
Afterward, there was that long, crowded pause in which everyone decides that although they are very shaken, and possibly upside down, they are, to their surprise, still alive.
It doesn’t stop being magic just because you know how it works.
Then he kept to the back streets, and found a place that did a very reasonable double sausage, egg, bacon and fried slice, in the hope that food could replace sleep.
Yes, she’d made a mistake… but she wasn’t going to be bullied. You couldn’t let boys go around raining on your lava and ogling other people’s watercolors.
It struck Mort with sudden, terrible poignancy that Death must be the loneliest creature in the universe. In the great party of Creation, he was always in the kitchen.
People said that there was one law for the rich and one law for the poor, but it wasn’t true. There was no law for those who made the law, and no law for the incorrigibly lawless.
Two types of people laugh at the law: those that break it and those that make it.
… drink levels all mankind. It is the ultimate democrat
Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because—what with trolls and dwarfs and so on—speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green.
Them as can do has to do for them as can’t. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.
You’ll get into dreadful trouble and it won’t be my fault. You are bad people.
You couldn’t say: It’s not my fault. You couldn’t say: It’s not my responsibility.You could say: I will deal with this.You didn’t have to want to. But you had to do it.
I reckon responsible behavior is something to get when you grow older. Like varicose veins.
In my experience, what every true artist wants, really wants, is to be paid.
The last thing she wanted was to see her friend getting ideas in her head. There was such a lot of room in there for them to bounce around and do damage.
It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren’t doing.
People are content to wait a long time for salvation, but expect dinner to turn up within the hour.
One day it’s the ringing of the bells and the casting down of the evil tyrant, and the next it’s everyone sitting around complaining that ever since the tyrant was overthrown no one’s been taking out the trash.
It didn’t have a name. Animals don’t normally bother with them.
Yes, but humans are more important than animals,’ said Brutha.’This is a point of view often expressed by humans,’ said Om.
But all this business about kings and lords, it’s against basic human dignity. We’re all born equal. It makes me sick.”Never heard you talk like this before, Frederick,’ said Nobby.’It’s Sergeant Colon to you, Nobby.
His age was indeterminate. But in cynicism and general world weariness, which is a sort of carbon dating of the personality, he was about seven thousand years old.
His parents called him Youngster. They did this in the subconcious hope that he might take the hint. Wensleydale gave the impression of having been born with a mental age of 47.
The rising sun managed to peek around the vast column of smoke that forever rose from Ankh-Morpork, City of Cities, illustrating almost up to the edge of space that smoke means progress or, at least, people setting fire to things.
He looked at her defiantly, and she thought: and so one at a time we all become human—human werewolves, human dwarfs, human trolls …the melting pot melts in one direction only, and so we make progress.
One day I’ll work out what it is you are saying, my lad, and then you’ll be in trouble.
Might have just been an innocent bystander, sir,’ said Carrot‘What, in Ankh-Morpork?’‘Yes, sir.’‘We should have grabbed him, then, just for the rarity value
Might have just been an innocent bystander, sir,’ said Carrot’What, in Ankh-Morpork?’Yes, sir.’‘We should have grabbed him, then, just for the rarity value
Doesn’t this place give you the creeps? You could perhaps do something with some floral wallpaper and a fire-bomb.
It’s bad enough barging into Guild property, but we’ll get into really serious trouble if we shoot anyone. Lord Vetinari won’t stop at sarcasm. He might use’ – Colon swallowed – ‘irony.
REMIND ME AGAIN, he said, HOW THE LITTLE HORSE-SHAPED ONES MOVE.
Commander, I always used to consider that you had a definite anti-authoritarian streak in you.”“Sir?”“It seems that you have managed to retain this even though you are authority.”“Sir?”“That’s practically zen.
Of course, to be fair, that was a parent’s job. The world was so full of sharp bends that if they didn’t put a few twists in you, you wouldn’t stand a chance of fitting in.
I have to ask, sir…Why does it have to be done like this?”Vetinari smiled. “Can you keep a secret, Mister Lipwig?””Oh, yes, sir. I’ve kept lots.””Capital. And the point is, so can I. You do not need to know.
The games we play are lessons we learn. The assumptions we make, things we ignore, and things we change make us what we become.
The invisible people knew that happiness is not the natural state of mankind, and is never achieved from the outside in.
Down, boy! Couchant! I said couchant! No! Not rampant!
Revenge is not redress. Revenge is a wheel, and it turns backwards.
It’s supposed to be jolly, with mistletoe and holly… and other things ending in olly.
It’s madness, of course’, thought Moist. ‘But now I’ve got it, too.
In Ankh-Morpork you can be whoever you want to be and sometimes people laugh and sometimes they clap, and mostly and beautifully, they don’t really care.
I hate cats.”Death’s face became a little stiffer, if that were possible. The blue glow in his eye sockets flickered red for an instant.”I SEE,” he said. The tone suggested that death was too good for cat haters.
Cats will amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw.
Cats gravitate to kitchens like rocks gravitate to gravity.
Witches were a bit like cats. They didn’t much like one another’s company, but they did like to know where all the other witches were, just in case they needed them.
Maurice watched them argue again. Humans, eh? Think they’re lords of creation. Not like us cats. We know we are. Ever see a cat feed a human? Case proven.
Cats, Dog considered, were clearly a lot tougher than lost souls.
Er, excuse me,’ said the man as Nanny Ogg turned away, ‘but what is that on your shoulders?”It’s. . . a fur collar,’ said Nanny.’Excuse me, but I just saw it flick its tail.”Yes. I happen to believe in beauty without cruelty.
Cats, Dog considered, were clearly a lot tougher than lost souls
Cats do not hunt seals. They would hunt them if they knew what seals and where to find them. But they do not know, so it’s okay.
Learning how not to do things is as hard as learning how to do them. Harder, maybe. There’d be a sight more frogs in this world if I didn’t know how not to turn people into them. And big pink balloons, too.
There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this.
Who shall I shoot? You choose. Now, listen very carefully: where’s your coffee? You’ve got coffee, haven’t you? C’mon, everyone’s got coffee! Spill the beans!
Living this long’s not as wonderful as people think. I mean, you get the same amount of youth as everyone else, but a great big extra helping of being very old and deaf and creaky.
Your own brain ought to have the decency to be on your side!
Granny looked up at the zombie. He was – or, technically, had been – a tall, handsome man. He still was, only now he looked like someone who had walked through a room full of cobwebs.’What’s your name, dead man?’ she said.
Let grammar, punctuation, and spelling into your life! Even the most energetic and wonderful mess has to be turned into sentences.
There are some laws that are coded into the very nature of the universe, and one is: There Is Never Enough Shelf Space.
Time and space were, from Death’s point of view, merely things that he’d heard described. When it came to Death, they ticked the box marked Not Applicable. It might help to think of the universe as a rubber sheet, or perhaps not.
You Say To People ‘Throw Off Your Chains’ And They Make New Chains For Themselves?
She’d struck Esk once before – the blow a baby gets to introduce it to the world and give it a rough idea of what to expect from life.
Ye know full well that the meaning of life is to find your gift. To find your gift is happiness. Never tae find it is misery.
Captain Vimes believed in logic, in much the same way as a man in a desert believed in ice — i.e., it was something he really needed, but this just wasn’t the world for it.
Questions don’t have to make sense, Vincent,” said Miss Susan. “But answers do.
He had the kind of real deep tan that rich people spent ages trying to achieve with expensive holidays and bits of tinfoil, when really all you need to do to obtain one is work your arse off in the open air everyday.
Did I hear things, or can that little dog speak?” said Dibbler.“He says he can’t,” said Victor.Dibbler hesitated. The excitement was unhinging him a little. “Well,” he said, “I suppose he should know.
…You want a special truth. *You* want the truth to be a truth that *you* like. You want it to be a pretty little truth that fits what you already believe!
There’s one thing you can say for air pollution, you get utterly amazing sunrises.
Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
It’s like chess, you know. The Queen saves the King.
All dwarfs have beards and wear up to twelve layers of clothing. Gender is more or less optional.
The smug mask of virtue triumphant could be almost as horrible as the face of wickedness revealed.
Did I do anything last night that suggested I was sane?
The only really sane person in there is Igor, and possibly the turnip. And I’m not sure about the turnip.
This is a lovely party,” said the Bursar to a chair, “I wish I was here.
Blessings be on this house,” Granny said, perfunctorily. It was always a good opening remark for a witch. It concentrated people’s minds on what other things might be on this house.
If you really want to upset a witch, do her a favor which she has no means of repaying. The unfulfilled obligation will nag at her like a hangnail.
Verence would rather cut his own leg off than put a witch in prison, since it’d save trouble in the long run and probably be less painful.
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.
I’m a witch. It’s what we do. When it’s nobody else’s business, it’s my business.
And people think she killed him?” said Miss Tick. She sighed. “They probably think she cooked him in the oven, or somet
You don’t need none of that,” she said. “You need headology.
You couldn’t escape the pointy hat, though. There was nothing magical about a pointy hat except that it said that the woman underneath it was a witch. People paid attention to a pointy hat.
The English, by and large, being a crass and indolent race, were not as keen on burning women as other countries in Europe.
Even the pious Scots, locked throughout history in a long-drawn-out battle with their arch-enemies the Scots, managed a few burnings to while away the long winter evenings.
We ain’t going to curse anyone,” said Granny firmly. “It hardly ever works if they don’t know you’ve done it.
We got the spell exactly right. Except for the ingredients. And most of the poetry. And it probably wasn’t the right time. And Gytha took most of it home for the cat, which couldn’t of been proper.
At last the magic caught, and she managed to vault clumsily onto it before it trundled into the night sky as gracefully as a duck with one wing missing.
Gossiping’s part of witchcraft,’ said Tiffany. ‘They’re checking to see if they’ve gone batty yet.
But a girl starting out in life might well say to herself: ‘Is this it? You worked hard and denied yourself things and what you got at the end was hard work and self-denial?
Here you are. Would you like some pickles?”“Pickles gives me the wind something awful.”“In that case—”“Oh, I wasn’t saying no,” Mistress Weatherwax said, taking two large pickled cucumbers.
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.
the whole point of the wish business was to see to it that what the client got was exactly what he asked for and exactly what he didn’t really want.
It was raining in the small, mountainous country of Llamedos. It was always raining in Llamedos. Rain was the country’s main export. It had rain mines.
It was the kind of storm that suggests the whole sky has swallowed a diuretic.
She was the Goddess Who Must Not Be Named; those who sought her never found her, yet she was known to come to the aid of those in greatest need. And, then again, sometimes she didn’t. She was like that.
The gods,” he said. “Imprisoned in a thought. And perhaps they were never more than a dream.
The gods were there to do the duties of a megaphone, because who else would people listen to?
I’VE NEVER BEEN VERY SURE ABOUT WHAT IS RIGHT, said Bill Door. I AM NOT SURE THERE IS SUCH A THING AS RIGHT. OR WRONG. JUST PLACES TO STAND.
I kill in my own time,” he said. “In any case, killing unconscious people isn’t right.”“I can’t think of a more opportune time,” said the Loremaster.
Humans! They lived in a world where the grass continued to be green and the sun rose every day and flowers regularly turned into fruit, and what impressed them? Weeping statues. And wine made out of water!
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.
That’s the fashion. Fast as the speed of light, they say. Ha! It’s got no soul, sir, no heart.
You’re wondering if I really would slit your throat. To tell the truth, I don’t know either, but think of the fun we could have finding out.
They want dancing girls! They want thrills! They want elephants! They want people falling off roofs! They want dreams! The world is full of little people with big dreams!
Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.
He’s got a box with a demon in it that draws pictures,” said Rincewind shortly. “Do what the madman says and he will give you gold.
I could use you—if you pass the tests, of course. There are three of them. You have passed the first.””What are the other—” Hrun paused, his lips moved soundlessly and then he hazarded, “two?
Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck.
Million-to-one chances…crop up nine times out of ten.
Luck is my middle name,” said Rincewind, indistinctly. “Mind you, my first name is Bad.
Because the world all twisted up and wrong, like distorted glass, only came back into focus if you looked at it through the bottom of a bottle.
Let’s just say that if complete and utter chaos were lightning, then he’d be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor and shouting ‘All Gods are bastards.
The neck in front of her came up. The head swivelled 180 degrees and the horse looked at Kin with bright insectile eyes.’YOUR WISH IS MY COMMAND,’ it said inside Kin’s head.’Hell!”THOSE ARE NOT MEANINGFUL CO-ORDINATES.
I recall no arrangement, Mau, no bargain, covenant, agreement or promise. There is what happens, and what does not happen. There is no ‘should
Using a metaphor in front of a man as unimaginative as Ridcully was like ared flag to a bu… was like putting something very annoying in front ofsomeone who was annoyed by it.
Mind you,” said Ponder, “the universe does have a rhythm. Day and night, light and dark, life and death—” “Chicken soup and croutons,” said Ridcully. “Well, not evert metaphor bears close examination”.
You’re saying,’ he said, weighing each word, ‘that we should send Carrot away to be a duck among humans because Bjorn Stronginthearm is my uncle.
The thing about football – the important thing about football – is that it is not just about football.
They stole from rich merchants and temples and kings. They didn’t steal from poor people; this was not because there was anything virtuous about poor people, it was simply because poor people had no money.
People couldn’t become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked.
… you were so worried about legal and illegal that you never stopped to think about whether it was right or wrong.
He wanted one drink, and understood precisely why he wasn’t going to have one. One drink ended up arriving in a dozen glasses.
He only drinks when he gets depressed,’ said Carrot. ‘Why does he get depressed?’ ‘Sometimes it’s because he hasn’t had a drink.
One of the highlights of the first Good Omens tour was Neil and I walking through New York singing Shoehorn with Teeth. Well, we’d had a good breakfast. And you don’t get mugged, either.
The girls were expected to grow up to be somebody’s wife. They were also expected to read and write, those being considered soft indoor jobs that were too fiddly for the boys.
Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft are written by men.
Charity ain’t giving people what you wants to give, it’s giving people what they need to get.
No, what he didn’t like about heroes was that they were usually suicidally gloomy when sober and homicidally insane when drunk.
Heroes get kingdoms and princesses, and they take regular exercise, and when they smile the light glints off their teeth, ting
If they look as though they’re worried, we’ll move in.”And do what exactly?’ said Polly.’Threaten to shoot them,’ said Maladict firmly.’And if they don’t believ
Falling isn’t so bad, you know. It’s only the landing that hurts.
This book had two authors, and they were both the same person.
never ask the tight-rope walker how he keeps his balance. if he stops to think about it, he falls off
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.
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.
Mums are mums, lance-constable. They don’t like to see men managing by themselves, in case that sort of thing catches on.
Ricewind had always relied on running away. But somerimes, perhaps, you had to stand and fight, if only because there was nowhere left to run.
Look, that’s why there’s rules, understand? So that you think before you break ’em.
There was a party of well-dressed people with Gilt, and as they progressed accoss the room the whole place began to revolve around the big man, gold being very dense and having a gravity all of its own.
It’s always worrying to see a journalist take a sudden interest in what you’re saying, especially when you half suspect it was a load of pigeon guano.
For several years he hadn’t moved outside a large, airy room, but this was OK, because he spent most of his time inside his own head in any case. There’s a certain type of person it’s very hard to imprison.
MANY PHENOMENA–wars, plagues, sudden audits–have been advanced as evidence for the hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of Man.
He’d been an angel once. He hadn’t meant to Fall. He’d just hung around with the wrong people.
All he had was nothing, but that was something, and now it had been taken away.
If there were such a thing as an inter-city thieving contest, Ankh-Morpork would bring home the trophy and probably everyone’s wallets.
There’s a saying that all roads lead to Ankh-Morpork, greatest of Discworld c
Before you can kill the monster you have to say its name.
The Auditors fluttered anxiously. And, as always happens in their species when something goes radically wrong and needs fixing instantly, they settled down to try to work how who was to blame.
How hard can writing be? After all, most of the words are going to be ‘and,’ ‘the,’ and ‘I,’ and ‘it,’ and so on, and there’s a huge number to choose from, so a lot of the work has been done for you.
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.
It’s not morbid to talk about death. Most people don’t worry about death, they worry about a bad death.
Previous generations understood about death, and undoubtedly would have seen a reasonable amount of death. Once you get into the Victorian era, you might well have seen the funerals of many of your siblings before you were very old.
The intelligence of the creature known as a crowd, is the square root of the number of people in it.
Personally, I think the best motto for an educational establishment is: ‘Or Would You Rather Be a Mule?’
There was once a caustic comment from someone suggesting I was breeding a new race. Fans from different countries have married, amazing things like that. I’ve been to some of the weddings. I went to one here the other day, a pagan ceremony.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods they have not forgotten this.
My experience in Amsterdam is that cyclists ride where the hell they like and aim in a state of rage at all pedestrians while ringing their bell loudly, the concept of avoiding people being foreign to them.
I believe it should be possible for someone stricken with a serious and ultimately fatal illness to choose to die peacefully with medical help, rather than suffer.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.
I didn’t go to university. Didn’t even finish A-levels. But I have sympathy for those who did.
Never trust any complicated cocktail that remains perfectly clear until the last ingredient goes in, and then immediately clouds.
I’ve always felt that what I have going for me is not my imagination, because everyone has an imagination. What I have is a relentlessly controlled imagination. What looks like wild invention is actually quite carefully calculated.
If it wasn’t for the fun and money, I really don’t know why I’d bother.
Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.
Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.
By the time you’ve reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.
It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living.
Anger is wonderful. It keeps you going. I’m angry about bankers. About the government.
It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer’s you are an old fart. That’s how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone.
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.
In my heart, I’m just a kid from the council houses. I can remember the old cottage and my dad coming round with the tin bath. I’m not a rich man.