|
88851b0
|
I comma square bracket recruit's name square bracket comma do solemnly swear by square bracket recruit's deity of choice square bracket to uphold the Laws and Ordinances of the City of Ankh-Morpork comma serve the public truft comma and defend the fubjects of his ftroke her bracket delete whichever is inappropriate bracket Majefty bracket name of reigning monarch bracket without fear comma favour comma or thought of perfonal fafety semi-col..
|
|
punctuation
oath
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
deb36dd
|
Crivens!
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
c0e712b
|
There were people who called themselves Satanists who made Crowley squirm. It wasn't just the things they did, it was the way they blamed it all on Hell. They'd come up with some stomach-churning idea that no demon could have thought of in a thousand years, some dark and mindless unpleasantness that only a fully-functioning human brain could conceive, then shout "The Devil Made Me Do It" and get the sympathy of the court when the whole poin..
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
78c0642
|
Anyway, it's like with bikes,' said the first speaker authoritatively. 'I thought I was going to get this bike with seven gears and one of them razorblade saddles and purple paint and everything, and they gave me this light blue one. With a basket. A girl's bike.' 'Well. You're a girl,' said one of the others. 'That's sexism, that is. Going around giving people girly presents just because they're a girl.
|
|
sexism
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
f9ff41a
|
Personal's not the same as important. People just think it is.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
8582483
|
There is always a choice." "You mean I could choose certain death?" "A choice nevertheless, or perhaps an alternative. You see I believe in freedom. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based."
|
|
freedom
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
6c0f247
|
No it's not!" said Constable Visit. "Atheism is a denial of a god." "Therefore It Is A Religious Position," said Dorfl. "Indeed, A True Atheist Thinks Of The Gods Constantly, Albeit In Terms of Denial. Therefore, Atheism Is A Form Of Belief. If The Atheist Truly Did Not Believe, He Or She Would Not Bother To Deny."
|
|
religion
gods
atheist
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
9fd4735
|
Granny Weatherwax was often angry. She considered it one of her strong points. Genuine anger was one of the world's greatest creative forces. But you had to learn how to control it. That didn't mean you let it trickle away. It meant you dammed it, carefully, let it develop a working head, let it drown whole valleys of the mind and then, just when the whole structure was about to collapse, opened a tiny pipeline at the base and let the iron-..
|
|
revenge
emotions
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
cba3636
|
It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows.
|
|
religion
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
7feed25
|
There should be a word for that brief period just after waking when the mind is full of warm pink nothing. You lie there entirely empty of thought, except for a growing suspicion that heading towards you, like a sockful of damp sand in a nocturnal alleyway, are all the recollections you'd really rather do without, and which amount to the fact that the only mitigating factor in your horrible future is the certainty that it will be quite shor..
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
fd46642
|
The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
ddedfab
|
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." --
|
|
terry-pratchett
feet-of-clay
prachett
sam-vimes
zen
samuel-vimes
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
c2f227c
|
It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works.
|
|
wonder
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
4c21eca
|
Down there - he said - are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any inequity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathsomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don't say no.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
0eb1d19
|
Crowley (An Angel who did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards)
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
ca53e12
|
Bishops move diagonally. That's why they often turn up where the kings don't expect them to be.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
b1e7f80
|
That's a nice song," said young Sam, and Vimes remembered that he was hearing it for the first time. "It's an old soldiers' song," he said. "Really, sarge? But it's about angels." , thought Vimes, "As I recall, they used to sing it after battles," he said. "I've seen old men cry when they sing it," he added. "Why? It sounds cheerful." , thought Vimes. "
|
|
death
comrades
soldiers
singing
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
7e09a91
|
Listen, Peaches, is what humans are all about," said the voice of Maurice. "They're so keen on tricking one another all the time that they elect governments to do it for them."
|
|
politics
humor
voting
trickery
sarcasm
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
9c4b778
|
It was amazing how many friends you could make by being bad at things, provided you were bad enough to be funny.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
0f8aba8
|
Rincewind tried to force the memory out of his mind, but it was rather enjoying itself there, terrorizing the other occupants and kicking over the furniture.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
1d86052
|
Using a metaphor in front of a man as unimaginative as Ridcully was like a red flag to a bu... was like putting something very annoying in front of someone who was annoyed by it.
|
|
simile
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
1d88d28
|
That was always the dream, wasn't it? 'I wish I'd known then what I know now'? But when you got older you found out that you NOW wasn't YOU then. You then was a twerp. You then was what you had to be to start out on the rocky road of becoming you now, and one of the rocky patches on that road was being a twerp.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
0be3c38
|
Rincewind could scream for mercy in nineteen languages, and just scream in another forty-four.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
c8c39f1
|
This is very similar to the suggestion put forward by the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, "Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it's all true you'll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn't then you've lost nothing, right?" When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, "We're going to show you what we think of Mr Clever..
|
|
humor
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
50ccfa0
|
The first words that are read by seekers of enlightenment in the secret, gong-banging, yeti-haunted valleys near the hub of the world, are when they look into The Life of Wen the Eternally Surprised. The first question they ask is: 'Why was he eternally surprised?' And they are told: 'Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. Therefore, he understood, there is in truth no past..
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
7c130a0
|
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?
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
b479950
|
It was quite impossible to describe. Here is what it looked like. It looked like a piano sounds shortly after being dropped down a well. It tasted yellow, and it felt Paisley. It smelled like the total eclipse of the moon.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
6668d57
|
Shadwell hated all southerners and, by inference, was standing at the North Pole.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
a9494c8
|
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."
|
|
underpants
secret-society
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
87c5ea1
|
Wisdom is one of the few things that looks bigger the further away it is.
|
|
witches
wisdom
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
7229096
|
We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
6d6c979
|
Despite rumor, Death isn't cruel--merely terribly, terribly good at his job.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
a37040b
|
The trouble was that he was talking in philosophy but they were listening in gibberish.
|
|
philosophy
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
8672633
|
Oh yes? Can you identify yourself? -Certainly. I'd know me anywhere.
|
|
humorous
humor
witty-quotes
satire
funny-and-random
wit
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
a2491e9
|
People aren't just people, they are people surrounded by circumstances.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
a0c9ffa
|
ALL THINGS THAT ARE, ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION. AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOMEDAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS. Death took a step backwards. It was impossible to read expression in Azrael's features. Death glanced ..
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
37a026f
|
Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things.
|
|
humor
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
3f4d548
|
Your average witch is not, by nature, a social animal as far as other witches are concerned. There's a conflict of dominant personalities. There's a group of ringleaders without a ring. There's the basic unwritten rule of witchcraft, which is 'Don't do what you will, do what I say.' The natural size of a coven is one. Witches only get together when they can't avoid it.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
585ffb6
|
I'm not superstitious. I'm a witch. Witches aren't superstitious. We are what people are superstitious of.
|
|
philosophy
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
8f772ac
|
I should have learned this, she thought. I wanted to learn fire, and pain, but I should have learned people.
|
|
terry-pratchett
witches
life
truth
inspirational
tiffany-aching
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
5546ac3
|
How can you protect yourself by carrying a sword if you don't know how to use it?' Not me, sir. Other people. They see the sword and don't attack me,' said Maladict patiently. Yes, but if they did, lad, you wouldn't be any good with it,' said the sergeant. No, sir. I'd probably settle for just ripping their heads off, sir. That's what I mean by protection, sir. Theirs, not mine. And I'd get hell from the League if I did that, sir.
|
|
self-defense
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
31a4123
|
The turtle moves.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
3268032
|
A book has been taken. A book has been taken? You summoned the Watch," Carrot drew himself up proudly, "because someone's taken a ? You think that's worse than murder?" The Librarian gave him the kind of look other people would reserve for people who said things like "What's so bad about genocide?"
|
|
libraries
librarians
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
b2f8855
|
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?" "
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |