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e5ff5ec
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Just because something is a metaphor doesn't mean it can't be real.
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reality
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Terry Pratchett |
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6ade785
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SEE! I HAVE TIME. AT LAST, I HAVE TIME Albert backed away nervously. 'And now that you have it, what are you going to do with it?' he said. Death mounted his horse. I AM GOING TO SPEND IT.
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Terry Pratchett |
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b7aaeea
|
Legends don't have to make sense. They just have to be beautiful. Or at least interesting.
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Terry Pratchett |
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706f9b4
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I want to eat chocolates in a great big room where the world is a different place.
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Terry Pratchett |
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e4baeef
|
I WAS NOT EXPECTING A NAC MAC FEEGLE TODAY, said Death. OTHERWISE I WOULD HAVE WORN PROTECTIVE CLOTHING, HA HA.
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humor
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Terry Pratchett |
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ba4a342
|
Sergeant Colon had had a broad education. He'd been to the School of My Dad Always Said, the College of It Stands to Reason, and was now a postgraduate student at the University of What Some Bloke In the Pub Told Me.
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Terry Pratchett |
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6be7aa9
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She gazed out across the rooftops of Ankh-Morpork and reasoned like this: writing was only the words that people said, squeezed between layers of paper until they were fossilized (fossils were well known on the Discworld, great spiraled shells and badly constructed creatures that were left over from the time when the Creator hadn't really decided what He wanted to make and was, as it were, just idly messing around with the Pleistocene). And..
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Terry Pratchett |
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1b36dba
|
The only thing more dangerous then a vampire crazed with blood lust was a vampire crazed with anything else. All the meticulous single-mindedness that went into finding young women who slept with their bedroom window open got channeled into some other interest, with merciless and painstaking efficiency...
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single-mindedness
vampire
obsession
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Terry Pratchett |
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2995f96
|
The disc's greatest lovers were undoubtedly Mellius and Gretelina, whose pure, passionate and soul-searing affair would have scorched the pages of History if they had not, because of some unexplained quirk of fate, been born two hundred years apart on different continents. However, the gods took pity on them and turned him into an ironing board** and her into a small brass bollard. **When you're a god, you don't have to have reasons.
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Terry Pratchett |
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d3289d7
|
Talent just defines what you do," he said. "It doesn't define what you are. Deep down, I mean. When you know what you are, you can do anything."
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Terry Pratchett |
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cb8b3cf
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When much is taken, something is returned.
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Terry Pratchett |
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534f92d
|
She was a beefy young woman and, whatever piece of music she was playing, it was definitely losing.
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Terry Pratchett |
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422e761
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There was a bond, you see, when we were both young, but she wanted to be the best of all witches and I hoped one day to be Archchancellor. Alas for us, our dreams came true.
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Terry Pratchett |
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490ad21
|
SOD YOU, THEN, Death said.
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humour
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Terry Pratchett |
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88fccde
|
The moments that change your life are the ones that happen suddenly, like the one where you die.
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Terry Pratchett |
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e1e339c
|
There's no a lot of laughs in an underworld. This one used to be called Limbo, ya ken, 'cause the door was verra low.
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Terry Pratchett |
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fcc9cc1
|
Rings try to find their way back to their owner. Someone ought to write a book about it.
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humor
ring
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Terry Pratchett |
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3625c90
|
On the other hand the Nac Mac Feegle were always looking for a fight, in a cheerful sort of way, and when they had no one to fight they fought one another, and if one was all by himself he'd kick his own nose just to keep in practice.
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nac-mac-feegles
speed
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Terry Pratchett |
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c6e87b3
|
Ponder just let it happen. It's because their minds are so often involved with deep and problematic matters, he told himself, that their mouths are allowed to wander around making a nuisance of themselves.
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Terry Pratchett |
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7cc5b28
|
When they're laughing at you, their guard is down. When their guard is down, you can kick them in the fracas.
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Terry Pratchett |
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3a9f9a8
|
It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn't then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doin..
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humourous
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Terry Pratchett |
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42f3b4e
|
Omens are everywhere in this world you just have to find the one that fits.
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Terry Pratchett |
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863651b
|
I believe the term is 'eminent domain.' Ah, yes. That means 'theft by the government,
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government
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Terry Pratchett |
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c8560fa
|
Look down, your grace," said Skimmer. "Mhm, mhm." Vimes realized he could feel the faintest prick of a knife blade on his stomach. "Look down further," he said. Inigo looked down. He swallowed. Vimes had a knife, too. "You really no gentleman, then," he said. "Make a sudden move and neither are you," said Vimes."
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humourous
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Terry Pratchett |
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a3e7486
|
People build something that works. Then circumstances change, and they have to tinker with it to make it continue to work, and they are so busy tinkering that they cannot see that a much better idea would be to build a whole new system to deal with the new circumstances. But to an outsider, the idea is obvious.
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Terry Pratchett |
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7b7d9cc
|
Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to refrain from doing it when you know how easy it is.
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Terry Pratchett |
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2f70e85
|
He quite liked the English. They tended to say sorry a lot, which was quite understandable given their heritage and the crimes of their ancestors.
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Terry Pratchett |
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cbfc690
|
Just imagine how terrible it might have been if we'd been at all competent.
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humor
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Terry Pratchett |
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cd5602c
|
He wanted to go home. He wanted it so much that he trembled at the thought. But if the price of that was selling good men to the night, if the price was filling those graves, if the price was not fighting with every trick he knew...then it was too high.
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Terry Pratchett |
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244cdf1
|
The Four Horsemen whose Ride presages the end of the world are known to be Death, War, Famine, and Pestilence. But even less significant events have their own Horsemen. For example, the Four Horsemen of the Common Cold are Sniffles, Chesty, Nostril, and Lack of Tissues; the Four Horsemen whose appearance foreshadows any public holiday are Storm, Gales, Sleet, and Contra-flow.
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Terry Pratchett |
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85cd44d
|
Are we entirely ready, sir?" said Lieutenant Hornett, with the special inflection that means "We are not entirely ready, sir." "We had better be. Glory awaits, gentlemen. In the words of General Tacticus, 'let us take history by the scrotum.' Of course, he was not a very honourable fighter."
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Terry Pratchett |
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40b81fc
|
It is said that whomsoever the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. In fact, whomsoever the gods wish to destroy, they first hand the equivalent of a stick with a fizzing fuse and Acme Dynamite Company written on the side. It's more interesting, and doesn't take so long.
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humor
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Terry Pratchett |
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c00c956
|
To animals they were just the weather, just part of everything. But humans arose and gave them names, just as people filled the starry sky with heroes and monsters, because this turned them into stories. And humans loved stories, because once you'd turned things into stories, you could change the stories.
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seasons
words
stories
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Terry Pratchett |
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a77283a
|
And so Mort came at last to the river Ankh, greatest of rivers. Even before it entered the city, it was slow and heavy with the silt of the plains, and by the time it got to The Shades even an agnostic could have walked across it. It was hard to drown in the Ankh, but easy to suffocate.
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religion
pollution
|
Terry Pratchett |
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f784a88
|
A number of religions in Ankh-Morpork still practiced human sacrifice, except that they didn't really need to practice any more because they had got so good at it.
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Terry Pratchett |
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1d8bb6c
|
There will be justice," said Brutha. "If there is no justice, there is nothing."
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Terry Pratchett |
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4f2b529
|
And if you couldn't trust the government, who could you trust? Very nearly everyone, come to think of it...
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Terry Pratchett |
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b62f655
|
And, er, these stories about you..." "Oh, all true. Most of them. A bit of exaggeration, but mostly true." "The one about the Citadel in Muntab and the Pash and the fish bone?" "Oh, yes." "But how did you get in where half a dozen armed and trained men couldn't even - ?" "I am a little man and I carry a broom," said Lu-Tze simply. "Everyone has some mess that needs clearing up. What harm is a man with a broom?" "What? And that was ?" "Well..
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humourous
|
Terry Pratchett |
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34c1d6e
|
Tiffany read the sign and smiled. "Aha," she said. There was nothing to knock on, so she added "Knock, knock" in a louder voice. A woman's voice from within said: "Who's there?" "Tiffany," said Tiffany. "Tiffany who?" said the voice. "Tiffany who isn't trying to make a joke."
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Terry Pratchett |
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b7b17b5
|
People said there had to be a Supreme Being because otherwise how could the universe exist, eh? And of course there clearly had to be, said Koomi, a Supreme Being. But since the universe was a bit of a mess, it was obvious that the Supreme Being hadn't in fact made it. If he had made it he would, being Supreme, have made a better job of it, with far better thought given, taking an example at random, to things like the design of the common n..
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prayer
religion
humor
satire
|
Terry Pratchett |
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e8650a1
|
Nanny Ogg could see the future in the froth on a beer mug. It invariably showed that she was going to enjoy a refreshing drink which she almost certainly was not going to pay for.
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Terry Pratchett |
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296f1aa
|
It was, according to the history books, the fastest coronation since Bubric the Saxon crowned himself with a very pointy crown on a hill during a thunderstorm, and reigned for one and a half seconds.
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Terry Pratchett |
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f17be56
|
Escapism isn't good or bad of itself. What is important is what you are escaping from and where you are escaping to. I write from experience, since in my case I escaped to the idea that books could be really enjoyable, an aspect of reading that teachers had not hitherto suggested.
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reading
how-we-teach-reading-to-children
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
205ef5f
|
Well, he thought, so this is diplomacy. It's lying, only for a better class of people.
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Terry Pratchett |