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6cb7db4 You have a conscience, and a conscience is a valuable attribute, but not if it begins to make you think you were to blame for what is far beyond the scope of your responsibility. guilt Philip Roth
c8c564f He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense. And when that happens the happiness is never spontaneous again. It is artificial and, even then, bought at the price of an obstinate estrangement from oneself and one's history. Philip Roth
89374b9 We ran like young wild furies, where angels feared to tread. The woods were dark and deep. Before us demons fled. We checked Coke bottle bottoms to see how far was far. Our worlds of magic wonder were never reached by car. We loved our dogs like brothers, our bikes like rocket ships. We were going to the stars, to Mars we'd make round trips. We swung on vines like Tarzan, and flashed Zorro's keen blade. We were James Bond in his Aston, we w.. Robert McCammon
8c63808 I walk alone, absorbed in my fantastic play, -- Fencing with rhymes, which, parrying nimbly, back away; Tripping on words, as on rough paving in the street, Or bumping into verses I long had dreamed to meet. words Charles Baudelaire
53b5e11 The chaos in my head spun itself into a silk of silence. I had distilled myself to the immediacy of hand, blade, blood, flesh. Caroline Kettlewell
ba4b114 I had a moment of clarity, saw the feeling in the heart of things, walked out to the garden crying. Allen Ginsberg
3550392 He was currently wondering vaguely who Moey and Chandon were. Terry Pratchett
3a3b656 In my experience, what every true artist wants, really wants, is to be paid. artists-life humor Terry Pratchett
81ef397 Religion is not an exact science. Sometimes, of course, neither is science. Terry Pratchett
038afe8 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! Terry Pratchett
286cf30 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." human-nature Terry Pratchett
969b3b8 Never promise to do the possible. Anyone could do the possible. You should promise to do the impossible, because sometimes the impossible possible, if you could find the right way, and at least you could often extend the limits of the possible. And if you failed, well, it been impossible. going-postal moist-von-lipwig Terry Pratchett
bea4595 Anyway, lots of warrior tribes think that when they die, they go to a heavenly land somewhere," said the toad. "You know, where they can drink and fight and feast forever? So maybe this is theirs." "But this is a real place!" "So? That's what they believe. Besides, they're only small. Maybe the universe is a bit crowded and they have to put heavens anywhere there's room? I'm a toad, so you'll appreciate that I'm having to guess a lot here." humor Terry Pratchett
ecd5e9d Vimes stalked gloomily through the crowded streets, feeling like the only pickled onion in a fruit salad. Terry Pratchett
4a4ef20 Who'd want a pony when you could have the whole universe? It was far more interesting and you didn't have to muck it out once a week. 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. dark discworld equal-rites horror terry-pratchett Terry Pratchett
33a6a66 Oh, well...up until now it had been a good day, in a horrible kind of way. Terry Pratchett
4fe9349 They say that there can never be two snowflakes that are exactly alike, but has anyone checked lately? Terry Pratchett
f07ca60 Right!" "Right!" "You can get there!" "I can get there!" "You're a natural at counting to two!" "I'm a nat'ral at counting to two!" "If you can count to two, you can count to anything!" "If I can count to two, I can count to anything!" "And then the world is your mollusc!" "My mollusc! What's a mollusc?" stupidity vocabulary Terry Pratchett
284ef2d The fact was that, as droves of demon kings had noticed, there was a limit to what you could do to a soul with, e.g., red-hot tweezers, because even fairly evil and corrupt souls were bright enough to realize that since they didn't have the concomitant body and nerve endings attached to them there was no real reason, other than force of habit, why they should suffer excruciating agony. So they didn't. Demons went on doing it anyway, because.. Terry Pratchett
a000e8a They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enligh.. Terry Pratchett
d2e7d9d He wanted one drink, and understood precisely why he wasn't going to have one. One drink ended up arriving in a dozen glasses. drinking humor Terry Pratchett
15c7e39 It was then that Marvin got religion. Not the quiet, personal kind, that involves doing good deeds and living a better life; not even the kind that involves putting on a suit and ringing' people's doorbells; but the kind that involves having your own TV network and getting people to send you money. Terry Pratchett Neil Gaiman
e922289 Just a minute," said Lobsang. "Who you? Time has stopped, the world is given over to...fairy tales and monsters, and there's a walking around?" "Best kind of person to have," said Susan. "We don't like silliness. Anyway, I told you. I've inherited certain talents." "Like living outside of time?" "That's one of them." "It's a weird talent for a schoolteacher!" "Good for marking, though," said Susan calmly." humourous Terry Pratchett
119b4a5 I dinna trust him," said Slightly Mad Angus. "He reads books an' such." Terry Pratchett
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. discworld library literary-criticism Terry Pratchett
1426d82 No other library anywhere, for example, has a whole gallery of unwritten books - books that would have been written if the author hadn't been eaten by an alligator around chapter 1, and so on. Atlases of imaginary places. Dictionaries of illusory words. Spotter's guides to invisible things. Wild thesauri in the Lost Reading Room. A library so big that it distorts reality and has opened gateways to all other libraries, everywhere and everywh.. Terry Pratchett
22f65df There's no greys, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.' 'It's a lot more complicated than that -' 'No. It ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts. Terry Pratchett
4027a96 Apes had it worked out. No ape would philosophize, "The mountain is, and is not." They would think, "The banana is. I will eat the banana. There is no banana. I want another banana." Terry Pratchett
cc78633 The good are innocent and create justice. The bad are guilty, which is why they invent mercy. Terry Pratchett
04963f0 Not natural, in my view, sah. Not in favor of unnatural things.' Vetinari looked perplexed. 'You mean, you eat your meat raw and sleep in a tree? Terry Pratchett
3213da4 The most important thing was that time had passed, pouring thousands of soothing seconds across the island. People need time to deal with the now before it runs away and becomes the then. Terry Pratchett
82c9b31 YOU HAVE REACHED THE END OF CAKE patricians Terry Pratchett
6a46315 Everybody does it!" Quirke burst out. "It's !" "Everybody?" said Vimes. He looked around at the squad. "Anyone else here take bribes?" His glare ran from face to face, causing most of the squad to do an immediate impression of the Floorboard and Ceiling Inspectors Synchronized Observation Team." humourous Terry Pratchett
67da234 You just want to know that you're all right. You just want to feel all right." And now he dives into the sneer. Arty's sneer could flay a rhino. "That's all you need other people's love for!" Katherine Dunn
e1aac7e I don't mind being lord of all I survey but I don't want to have to work at it. It just wouldn't be practical. Katherine Dunn
5a7bb41 Understand, daughter, that the only reason for your existing was as a tribute to your uncle-father. You were meant to love him. I planned to teach you how to serve him and adore him. You would be his monument and his fortress against mortality. Forgive me. As soon as you arrived I realized that you were worth far more than that. Katherine Dunn
905561e there are those who feel their own strangeness and are terrified by it. They struggle toward normalcy. They suffer to exactly that degree that they are unable to appear normal to others, or to convince themselves that their aberration does not exist. These are true freaks, who appear, almost always, conventional and dull. Katherine Dunn
3c88fce How deep and sticky is the darkness of childhood, how rigid the blades of infant evil, which is unadulterated, unrestrained by the convenient cushions of age and its civilizing anesthesia. Katherine Dunn
4e03c65 If she were here I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off her. I would hold her so close she'd beg me to let her breathe. I'd kiss her so hard she'd plead for mercy. I'd unfasten her clothing and lie with her on that hard bed, and what was between us would be as far above the ordinary congress between man and woman as the stars are above their pale reflections in the lake below. reunion romance simile Juliet Marillier
6308f23 Sometimes... Frank Warren
8ce9be2 I didn't think time could change us. Frank Warren
37f5e69 Not forgiving someone is like not pulling a thorn out of your foot just because you weren't the one to put it there. Mercedes Lackey
fc0af4d Now I wonder if it means that the future is a place, or like a place, that I could go to; that is go to in some way other than just getting older. future life place time Audrey Niffenegger