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547b678
|
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.
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change
discworld
growth
travel
|
Terry Pratchett |
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ab281f3
|
A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.
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bookstore
discworld
read
reading
|
Terry Pratchett |
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b78b5bb
|
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.
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|
death
discworld
hogfather
humor
humour
important-lessons
lessons
swords
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
5c4ee49
|
"We're dealing here," said Vimes, "With a twisted mind." "Oh, no! You think so?" "Yes." "But... no... you can't be right. Because Nobby was with us all the time." "Not Nobby," said Vimes testily. "Whatever he might do to a dragon, I doubt if he'd make it explode. There's stranger people in this world than Corporal Nobbs, my lad." Carrot's expression slid into a rictus of intrigued horror. "Gosh," he said."
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|
arms
at
discworld
men
|
Terry Pratchett |
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23abf2b
|
"I believe in reincarnation," [Bjorn] said. I KNOW. "I tried to live a good life. Does that help?" THAT'S NOT UP TO ME. Death coughed. OF COURSE... SINCE YOU BELIEVE IN REINCARNATION... YOU'LL BE BJORN AGAIN."
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|
death
discworld
humor
puns
reincarnation
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
8dee16f
|
Murder was in fact a fairly uncommon event in Ankh-Morpork, but there were a lot of suicides. Walking in the night-time alleyways of The Shades was suicide. Asking for a short in a dwarf bar was suicide. Saying 'Got rocks in your head?' to a troll was suicide. You could commit suicide very easily, if you weren't careful.
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|
discworld
pratchett
suicide
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
fc82d55
|
Have - have you got an appointment?' he said. 'I don't know,' said Carrot. 'Have we got an appointment?' 'I've got an iron ball with spikes on,' Nobby volunteered. 'That's a morningstar, Nobby.' 'Is it?' 'Yes,' said Carrot. 'An appointment is an engagement to see someone, while a morningstar is a large lump of metal used for viciously crushing skulls. It is important not to confuse the two, isn't it, Mr-?' He raised his eyebrows. 'Boffo, sir. But-' 'So if you could perhaps run along and tell Dr Whiteface we're here with an iron ball with spi- What am I saying? I mean, without an appointment to see him? Please? Thank you.
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|
carrot-ironfoundersson
corporal-carrot
discworld
men-at-arms
pratchett
terry-pratchett
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
27598f3
|
It's an inconvenience, true enough, and I don't like it at all, but I know that you do it for everyone, Mister Death. Is there any other way?' NO, THERE ISN'T, I'M AFRAID. WE ARE ALL FLOATING IN THE WINDS OF TIME. BUT YOUR CANDLE, MISTRESS WEATHERWAX, WILL FLICKER FOR SOME TIME BEFORE IT GOES OUT - A LITTLE REWARD FOR A LIFE WELL LIVED. FOR I CAN SEE THE BALANCE AND YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT, AND IF YOU ASK ME, said Death, NOBODY COULD DO ANY BETTER THAN THAT . . .
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|
discworld
|
Terry Pratchett |
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eaaa469
|
On the Disc the gods dealt severely with atheists.
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|
discworld
gods
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
030850b
|
You couldn't say 'I had orders.' You couldn't say 'It's not fair.' No one was listening. There were no Words. You owned yourself. [...] Not 'Thou Shalt Not'. Say 'I Will Not'.
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|
discworld
morality-without-religion
the-individual
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
3bf3910
|
Sybil's female forebears had valiantly backed up their husbands as distant embassies were besieged, had given birth on a camel or in the shade of a stricken elephant, had handed around the little gold chocolates while trolls were trying to break into the compound, or had merely stayed at home and nursed such bits of husbands and sons as made it back from endless little wars. The result was a species of woman who, when duty called, turned into solid steel.
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|
discworld
sybil-vimes
wife
woman
women
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
f6b968e
|
I HAVE MADE THIS FOR YOU. She reached out and took a damp square of cardboard. Water dripped off the bottom. Somewhere in the middle, a few brown feathers seemed to have been glued on. 'Thank you. Er ... what is it?' ALBERT SAID THERE OUGHT TO BE SNOW ON IT, BUT IT APPEARS TO HAVE MELTED, said Death. IT IS, OF COURSE, A HOGSWATCH CARD. 'Oh ...' THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN A ROBIN ON IT AS WELL, BUT I HAD CONSIDERABLE DIFFICULTY IN GETTING IT TO STAY ON. 'Ah...' IT WAS NOT AT ALL COOPERATIVE. 'Really ...?' IT DID NOT SEEM TO GET INTO THE HOGSWATCH SPIRIT AT ALL.
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|
discworld
humor
pratchett
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
c329fae
|
Tiffany knew what the problem was immediately. She'd seen it before, at birthday parties. Her brother was suffering from tragic sweet deprivation. Yes, he was surrounded by sweets. But the moment he took any sweet at all, said his sugar-addled brain, that meant he was not taking all the rest. And there were so many sweets he'd never be able to eat them all. It was too much to cope with. The only solution was to burst into tears.
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|
discworld
humour
sweets
tiffany-aching
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
21f92ee
|
No enemies had ever taken Ankh-Morpork. Well technically they had, quite often; the city welcomed free-spending barbarian invaders, but somehow the puzzled raiders found, after a few days, that they didn't own their horses any more, and within a couple of months they were just another minority group with its own graffiti and food shops.
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|
comedy
discworld
fantasy
|
Terry Pratchett |
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315ad80
|
Several times he had to flatten himself against the shelves as a thesaurus thundered by. He waited patiently as a herd of Critters crawled past, grazing on the contents of the choicer books and leaving behind them piles of small slim volumes of literary criticism.
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|
discworld
library
literary-criticism
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
e0ea08c
|
There are things so horrible that even the dark is afraid of them. Most people don't know this and this is just as well because the world could not really operate if everyone stayed in bed with the blankets over their head, which is what would happen if people knew what horrors lay a shadow's width away.
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|
dark
discworld
equal-rites
horror
terry-pratchett
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
435d67a
|
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.
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|
discworld
life
life-philosophy
people
small-gods
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
753d455
|
"Firstly," said Ponder, "Mr Pessimal wants to know what we do here." "Do? We are the premier college of magic!" said Ridcully. "But do we teach?" "Only if no alternative presents itself," said the Dean. "We show 'em where the library is, give 'em a few little chats, and graduate the survivors. If they run into any problems, my door is always metaphorically open." "Metaphorically, sir?" said Ponder. "Yes. But technically, of course, it's locked." "Explain to him that we don't do things, Stibbons," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. "We are academics."
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|
discworld
university
wizards
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
90a98d8
|
"The end of times?" said Nanny. "Look, Tiff, Esme tol' me to say, if you want to see Esmerelda Weatherwax, then just you look around. She is here. Us witches don't mourn for very long. We are satisfied with happy memories - they're there to be cherished."
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|
discworld
granny-weatherwax
grief
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
4e34b4b
|
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.
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|
discworld
fantasy
humor
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
3f41039
|
He sighed and opened the black box and took out his rings and slipped them on. Another box held a set of knives and Klatchian steel, their blades darkened with lamp black. Various cunning and intricate devices were taken from velvet bags and dropped into pockets. A couple of long-bladed throwing tlingas were slipped into their sheaths inside his boots. A thin silk line and folding grapnel were wound around his waist, over the chain-mail shirt. A blowpipe was attached to its leather thong and dropped down the back of his cloak; Teppic picked a slim tin container with an assortment of darts, their tips corked and their stems braille-coded for ease of selection in the dark. He winced, checked the blade of his rapier and slung the baldric over his right shoulder, to balance the bag of lead slingshot ammunition. As an afterthought he opened his sock drawer and took a pistol crossbow, a flask of oil, a roll of lockpicks and, after some consideration, a punch dagger, a bag of assorted caltrops and a set of brass knuckles. Teppic picked up his hat and checked it's lining for the coil of cheesewire. He placed it on his head at a jaunty angle, took a last satisfied look at himself in the mirror, turned on his heel and, very slowly, fell over.
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|
discworld
dungeons-and-dragons
fantasy
humor
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
ffc4f65
|
"He was trying to conjure up a succubus." It should be impossible to leer when all you've got is a beak, but the parrot managed it. "That's a female demon what comes in the night and makes mad passionate wossn-" "I've heard of them," said Rincewind. "Bloody dangerous things." The parrot put its head on one side. "It never worked. All he ever got was a neuralger."
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|
discworld
humor
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
12802ff
|
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
discworld
religion
small-gods
terry-pratchett
|
Terry Pratchett |