|
db8651d
|
Money makes people rich; it is a fallacy to think it makes them better, or even that it makes them worse. People are what they do, and what they leave behind.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
12c2dd2
|
The important thing is not to shout at this point, Vimes told himself. Do not...what do they call it...go postal? Treat this as a learning exercise. Find out why the world is not as you thought it was. Assemble the facts, digest the information, consider the implications. THEN go postal. But with precision.
|
|
thud
vimes
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
d376bf7
|
Before you can kill the monster you have to say its name.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
2f2b1c9
|
Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it's just another job.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
e3249e3
|
But I think you have a right to know what it is you're not being told.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
576d8c9
|
You want fantasy? Here's one... There's this species that lives on a planet a few miles above molten rock and a few miles below a vacuum that'd suck the air right out of them. They live in a brief geological period between ice ages, when giant asteroids have temporarily stopped smacking into the surface. As far as they can tell, there's nowhere else in the universe where they could stay alive for ten seconds. And what do they call their fr..
|
|
universe
humour
humanity
science
realism
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
56feb25
|
He'd always felt he had a right to exist as a wizard in the same way that you couldn't do proper maths without the number 0, which wasn't a number at all but, if it went away, would leave a lot of larger numbers looking bloody stupid.
|
|
humor
interesting-times
zero
numbers
number
maths
wizard
rincewind
|
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 ..
|
|
humor
pratchett
discworld
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
3396a1e
|
We live and learn, or, perhaps more importantly we learn and live.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
fa35fdc
|
Well,----me," he said. "A----ing wizard. I hate----ing wizards!" "You shouldn't----them, then," muttered one of his henchmen, effortlessly pronouncing a row of dashes."
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
ec5ab8d
|
He's probably their battle poet, too." "You mean he makes up heroic songs about famous battles?" "No, no. He recites poems that frighten the enemy....When a well-trained gonnagle starts to recite, the enemy's ears explode."
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
470c7f6
|
Creators aren't gods. They make places, which is quite hard. It's men that make gods. This explains a lot.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
0c76b95
|
Well, you know Esme. She wasn't one for that kind of thing - never one to push herself forward* * She hadn't ever needed to. Granny Weatherwax was like the prow of a ship. Seas parted when she turned up.
|
|
granny-weatherwax
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
c35ee26
|
Don't try the paranormal until you know what's normal.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
86789eb
|
Carpe Jugulum," read Agnes aloud. "That's... well, Carpe Diem is 'Sieze the Day,' so this means-" "Go for the throat"
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
913c453
|
I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, he said, BUT I COULD MURDER A CURRY.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
f6b5813
|
And our lady friend, she thinks life works like a fairy tale.' Well, that's harmless, isn't it?' Yeah, but in fairy tales, when someone dies... it's just a word.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
ab5d68d
|
Dedication: My thanks to the people who showed me that opera was stranger than I could imagine. I can best repay their kindness by not mentioning their names here.
|
|
humor
opera
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
3b18181
|
But...but you can't treat religion as a sort of buffet, can you? I mean, you can't say yes please, I'll have some of the Celestial Paradise and a helping of the Divine Plan but go easy on the kneeling and none of the Prohibition of Images, they give me wind. Its table d'hote or nothing, otherwise...well, it would be silly.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
dd4b26e
|
War, Nobby. Huh! What is it good for?" he said. "Dunno, Sarge. Freeing slaves, maybe?" "Absol--well, okay." "Defending yourself against a totalitarian aggressor?" "All right, I'll grant you that, but--" "Saving civilization from a horde of--" "It doesn't do any good in the long run is what I'm saying, Nobby, if you'd listen for five seconds together," said Fred Colon sharply. "Yeah, but in the long run, what does, Sarge?"
|
|
war
slavery
good
long-run
totalitarianism
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
73c31f9
|
Probably the last sound heard before the Universe folded up like a paper hat would be someone saying, "What happens if I do this?"
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
fe20967
|
WHERE'S MY COW? ARE YOU MY COW?
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
1d9921f
|
They avoided one another's faces, for fear of what they might see mirrored there. Each man thought: one of the others is bound to say something soon, some protest, and then I'll murmur agreement, not actually anything, I'm not stupid as that, but definitely murmur very firmly, so that the others will be in no doubt that I thoroughly disapprove, because at a time like this it behooves all decent men to nearly stand up and be almost heard....
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
835dcaa
|
He shrugged. - They're just people - he said. - They're just doing what people do. Sir. Lord Vetinari gave him a friendly smile. - Of course, of course - he said. - You have to believe that, I appreciate. Otherwise you'd go quite mad. Otherwise you'd think you're standing on a feather-thin bridge over the vaults of Hell. Otherwise existence would be a dark agony and the only hope would be that there is no life after death. I quite understan..
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
bfbb1ee
|
There was no universe, anywhere, where a Sam Vimes would give in on this, because if he did then he wouldn't be Sam Vimes anymore.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
8e0b4b4
|
It was a nice day.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
b25fa60
|
Stories don't care who takes part in them. All that matters is that the story gets told, that the story repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the service only of the story itself.
|
|
stories
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
fb2187c
|
Vimes struggled to his feet, shook his head and set off after it. No thought was involved. It is the ancient instinct of terriers and policemen to chase anything that runs away.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
2ae2141
|
But you ain't part of it, are you?" said Granny conversationally. "You try, but you always find yourself watchin' yourself watchin' people, eh? Never quite believin' anything? Thinkin' the wrong thoughts?"
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
d8e0692
|
YOU'RE ONLY PUTTING OFF THE INEVITABLE, he said. That's what being alive is all about.
|
|
humor
life
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
8b06905
|
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.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
8efbb45
|
I'm your worst nightmare!' said Teatime cheerfully. The man shuddered. 'You mean ... the one with the giant cabbage and the sort of whirring knife thing?' 'Sorry?' Teatime looked momentarily nonplussed. 'Then you're the one where I'm falling, only instead of the ground underneath it's all --' 'No. In fact I'm --' The guard sagged. 'Awww, the one where there's all this kind of, you know, mud and then everything goes blue --' 'No, I'm --'..
|
|
humor
pratchett
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
1348fc1
|
Stand before your god, bow before your king, kneel before your man.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
ace5cca
|
Vimes died. The sun dropped out of the sky, giant lizards took over the world, and the stars exploded and went out and all hope vanished and gurgled into the sinktrap of oblivion. And gas filled the firmament and combusted and behold! There was a new heaven - or possibly not. And Disc and Io and and possibly verily life crawled out of the sea - or possibly didn't because it had been made by the gods, and lizards turned to less scaly lizards..
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
a31a392
|
When Mister Safety Catch Is Not On, Mister Crossbow Is Not Your Friend.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
4976a9d
|
When all else failed, she tried being reasonable.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
a50bb24
|
Quick, someone's coming! Look real!
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
952c760
|
Hilta laughed like someone who had thought hard about Life and had seen the joke.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
001a15a
|
God does not play games with His loyal servants", said the Metatron, but in a worried tone of voice. "Whoopee", said Crowley."
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett Neil Gaiman |
|
73ee9a5
|
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?
|
|
witches
imagination
science
humor
perspicacity
tiffany-aching
geology
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
f4e7b95
|
Tiffany got up early and lit the fires. When her mother came down, she was scrubbing the kitchen floor, very hard. "Er...aren't you supposed to do that sort of thing by magic, dear?" said her mother, who'd never really got the hang of what witchcraft was all about. "No, Mum, I'm supposed not to," said Tiffany, still scrubbing. "But can't you just wave your hand and make all the dirt fly away, then?" "The trouble is getting the magic to unde..
|
|
magic
real-life
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
7bd591b
|
Once you've ruled out the impossible then whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth. The problem lay in working out what was impossible, of course. That was the trick, all right. There was also the curious incident of the orangutan in the night-time.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
4a3dd83
|
He took his hands off the oars and pulled in the mooring rope. If I make a couple of loops, he thought, I can strap the axe on to my back. He had a mental picture of what could happen to a man who plunged into the cauldron below a waterfall with a sharp piece of metal attached to his body. GOOD MORNING. Vimes blinked. A tall dark robed figure was now sitting in the boat. 'Are you Death?' IT'S THE SCYTHE, ISN'T IT? PEOPLE ALWAYS NOTICE THE S..
|
|
uncertainty
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
c01fe2c
|
Everyone has gods. You just don't think they're gods.
|
|
illusion
god
theology
|
Terry Pratchett |