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Terry
Pratchett
(a British author, if you don't get some of the jokes,
there's an Annotation file)
In the beginning there was
nothing. And the Lord said: 'Let there be light' and there was still nothing,
but now you could see it. -- (erm... could someone help me and tell
me which book it is from? I forgot...)
Many people, meeting Aziraphale
[the angel] for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was
English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a tree full
of monkeys on nitrous oxide. -- Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
Anathema didn't only believe
in ley-lines, but in seals, whales, bicycles, rainforests, whole grain
in loves, recycled paper, white South Africans out of South Africa, and
Americans out of practically everywhere down to and including Long Island.
-- Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
English Burger Lords managed
to take any American fast food virtues (the speed with which your food
was delivered, for example) and carefully remove them; your food arrived
after half an hour, at room temperature, and it was only because of the
strip of warm lettuce between them that you could distinguish the burger
from the bun. The Burger Lord pathfinder salesmen had been shot 25 minutes
after setting foot in France. -- Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
Voodoo is a very interesting
religion for the whole family, even those members of it who are dead.
-- Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
Death and Famine and War
and Pollution continued biking towards Tadfield. And Grievous Bodily Harm,
Cruelty To Animals, Things Not Working Properly Even After You've Given
Them A Good Thumping but secretly No Alcohol Lager, and Really Cool People
travelled with them. --- The eight Bikers of the Apocalypse from Good
Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
Along with the standard computer
warranty agreement which said that if the machine
1) didn't work,
2) didn't do what the expensive advertisement said,
3) electrocuted the immediate neighbourhood,
4) and in fact failed entirely to be inside the expensive box when you
opened it,
this was expressly, absolutely, implicitly and in no event the fault or
responsibility of the manufacturer, that the purchaser should consider
himself lucky to be allowed to give his money to the manufacturer, and
that any attempt to treat what had just been paid for as the purchaser's
own property would result in the attentions of serious men with menacing
briefcases and very thin watches.
Crowley [the demon] had been extremely impressed with the warranties offered
by the computer industry, and had in fact sent a bundle Below to the department
that drew up the Immortal Soul agreements, with a yellow memo form attached
just saying: "Learn, guys." -- Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
If you take the small view,
the universe is just something small and round, like those water-filled
balls which produce a miniature snowstorm when you shake them. Although,
unless the ineffable plan is a lot more ineffable than it's given credit
for, it does not have a large plastic snowman at the bottom. -- Good
Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
"You're Hells Angels, then?
What chapter are you from?"
REVELATIONS, CHAPTER SIX.
-- Death speaking with a biker, Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
Many phenomena - wars, plagues,
sudden audits - have been advanced as evidence for the hidden hand of
Satan in the affairs of Man, but whenever students of demonology get together
the M25 London orbital motorway is generally agreed to be among the top
contenders for exhibit A. -- Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
A man threw himself through
the window, a knife between his teeth, a Kalashnikov automatic rifle in
one hand, a grenade in the other.
"I glaim gis oteg in der gaing og der --"
He paused. He tooke the knife out of his teeth and began again. --
Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
"Surely you have considered
terrorist activity?"
There was another pause. Then the spokesman said, in the quiet tones of
someone who has had enough and who is going to quit after this and raise
chickens somewhere, "Yes, I suppose we must. All we need to do is find
some terrorists who are capable of taking an entire nuclear reactor out
of its can while it's running and without anyone noticing. It weighs about
a thousand tons and is forty feet high. So they'll be quite strong terrorists.
Perhaps you'd like to ring them up, sir, and ask them questions in that
supercilious, accusatory way of yours." -- Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
... walking like a man carrying
a thermos flask of something that might cause, if he dropped it or even
thought about dropping it, the sort of explosion that impels grey-beards
to make statements like "And where this crater is now, once stood the
city of Wah-Shing-Ton", in SF B-movies. -- Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
She'd stopped reading the
kind of women's magazine that talked about romance and knitting and started
reading the kind of women's magazine that talked about orgasms, but apart
from making a mental note to have one if ever the occasion presented itself
she dismissed them as only romance and knitting in a new form. -- Good
Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
"Let's just say that if complete
and utter chaos was lightning, he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop
in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are
bastards'." -- Rincewind about Twoflower, The Colour of Magic
Tourist, Rincewind decided,
meant "idiot". -- The Colour of Magic
"I challenge you," said Hrun
[the Barbarian Hero], glaring at the brothers, "Both at once."
Lio!rt and Liartes exchanged looks. "You'll fight us both together?" said
Liartes, a tall, wiry man with long black hair.
"Yah."
"That's pretty uneven odds, isn't it?"
"Yah. I outnumber you one to two." -- The Colour of Magic
It looked like the sort of
book described in library catalogues as "slightly foxed", although it
would be more honest to admit that it looked as though it had beed badgered,
wolved and possibly beared as well. -- The Light Fantastic
The old shaman said carefully,
"You didn't just see two men go through upside down on a broomstick, shouting
and screaming at each other, did you?"
The boy looked at him levelly.
"Certainly not," he said.
The old man heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness for that," he said.
"Neither did I." -- The Light Fantastic
Something small and distant
broke through the cloud layer, trailing shreds of vapour. In the stratospheric
calm the sounds of bickering came sharp and clear.
"You said you could fly one of these things!"
"No I didn't; I just said you couldn't!" -- The Light Fantastic
The druid stiffened. "Nice?"
he said. "A triumph of the silicon chunk, a miracle of modern masonic
technology -- nice?"
"Oh, yes," said Twoflower, to whom sarcasm was merely a seven letter word
beginning with S. -- The Light Fantastic
"If you're going to suggest
I try dropping twenty feet down a pitch dark tower in the hope of hitting
a couple of greasy little steps which might not even still be there, you
can forget it," said Rincewind sharply.
"There is an alternative, then."
"Out with it, man."
"You could drop five hundred feet down a pitch black tower and hit stones
which certainly are there," said Twoflower. Dead silence from below him.
Then Rincewind said, accusingly, "That was sarcasm." -- The Light Fantastic
The point is that descriptive
writing is very rarely entirely accurate and during the reign of Olaf
Quimby II as Patrician of Ankh some legislation was passed in a determined
attempt to put a stop to this sort of thing and introduce some honesty
into reporting. Thus, if a legend said of a notable here that "all men
spoke of his prowess" any bard who valued his life would add hastily "except
for a couple of people in his home village who thought he was a liar,
and quite a lot of other people who had never really heard of him." --
The Light Fantastic
Still, it was a relief to
get away from that macabre sight. Gander considered that gnolls didn't
look any better inside than out. He hated their guts. -- Equal Rites
"While I'm still confused
and uncertain, it's on a much higher plane, d'you see, and at least I
know I'm bewildered about the really fundamental and important facts of
the universe."
Treatle nodded. "I hadn't looked at it like that," he said, "But you're
absolutely right. He's really pushed back the boundaries of ignorance."
They both savoured the strange warm glow of being much more ignorant than
ordinary people, who were only ignorant of ordinary things. -- Equal
Rites
They may have been ugly.
they may have been evil. But when it came to poetry in motion, the Things
[creatures from the Dungeon Dimension] had all the grace and coordination
of a deck-chair. -- Equal Rites
For animals, the entire universe
has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run
away from, and (d) rocks. -- Equal Rites
Only one creature could have
duplicated the expressions on their faces, and that would be a pigeon
who has heard not only that Lord Nelson has got down off his column but
has also been seen buying a 12-bore repeater and a box of cartridges.
-- Mort
The only things known to
go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher
Ly Tin Weedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king,
and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king
dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably,
he said, there must be some elementary particles -- kingons, or possibly
queons -- that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if,
in mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious
plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing
of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expanded
because, at that point, the bar closed. -- Mort
Poets have tried to describe
Ankh-Morpork. They have failed. Perhaps it's the sheer zestful vitality
of the place, or maybe it's just that a city with a million inhabitants
and no sewers is rather robust for poets, who prefer daffodils and no
wonder. -- Mort
"You're dead," he said.
Keli waited. She couldn't think of any suitable reply. "I'm not" lacked
a certain style, while "Is it serious?" seemed somehow too frivolous.
-- Mort
Ankh-Morpork had dallied
with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy
known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.
-- Mort
"Sodomy non sapiens," said
Albert under his breath.
"What does that mean?"
"Means I'm buggered if I know." -- Mort
Women's clothes were not
a subject that preoccupied Cutwell much -- in fact, usually when he thought
about women his mental pictures seldom included any clothes at all --
but the vision in front of him really did take his breath away. --
Mort
"Be quiet! And listen, when
I tell you that they drove me out, with their books and their rituals
and their Lore! They called themselves wizards, and they had less magin
in their whole fat bodies than I have in my little finger! Banished! Me!
For showing that I was human! And what would humans be without love?"
RARE, said Death. -- Sourcery
Books of magic have a sort
of life of their own. Some have altogether too much; for example, the
first edition of the Necrotelicomicon has to be kept between iron plates,
the True Arte of Levitatione has spent the last one hundred and fifty
years up in the rafters, and Ge Fordge's Comprenydyum of Sex Majick is
kept in a vat of ice in a room all by itself and there's a strict rule
that it can only be read by wizards who are over eighty and, if possible,
dead. -- Sourcery
He did of course sometimes
have people horribly tortured to death, but this was considered to be
perfectly acceptable behaviour for a civic ruler and generally approved
of by the overhelming majority of citizens.
[footnote: The overhelming majority of citizens being defined in this
case as everyone not currently hanging upside down over a scorpion pit]
-- Sourcery
Of course, Ankh-Morpork's
citizens had always claimed that the river water was incredibly pure.
Any water that had passed through so many kidneys, they reasoned, had
to be very pure indeed. -- Sourcery
The vermine is a small black
and white relative of the lemming, found in the cold Hublandish regions.
Its skin is rare and highly valued, especially by the vermine itself;
the selfish little bastard will do anything rather than let go of it.
-- Sourcery
"It's going to look pretty
good, then, isn't it," said War testily, "the One Horseman and Three Pedestrians
of the Apocralypse." -- Sourcery
"I'm not going to ride on
a magic carpet!" he hissed. "I'm afraid of grounds."
"You mean heights," said Conina. "And stop being silly."
"I know what I mean! It's the grounds that kill you!" -- Sourcery
It became apparent that one
reason why the Ice Giants were known as the Ice Giants was because they
were, well, giants. The other was that they were made of ice. -- Sourcery
"And then there was that
great hairy thing of his," said Nanny Ogg. There was a perceptible change
in the atmosphere. It became warmer, darker, filled at the corners with
the shadow of unspoken conspiracy.
"Ah," said Granny Weatherwax distantly. "His droit de seignour."
"Needed a lot of exercise," said Nanny Ogg, staring at the fire.
"But next day h e'd send his housekeeper round with a bag of silver and
a hamper of stuff for the wedding," said Granny. "Many a couple got a
proper start in life thanks to that."
"Ah," agreed Nanny. "One or two individuals, too."
"Every inch a king," said Granny. -- Wyrd Sisters
It was a winter of portents.
Comets sparkled against the chilled skies at night. Clouds shaped mightily
like whales and dragons drifted over the land by day. In the village of
Razorback a cat gave birth to a two-headed kitten, but since Greebo, by
dint of considerable effort, was every male ancestor for the last thirty
generations this probably wasn't all that portentous. -- Wyrd Sisters
The calender of the Theocracy
of Muntab counts down, not up. No-one knows why, but it might not be a
good idea to hang around and find out. -- Wyrd Sisters
The duke had a mind that
ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo. --
Wyrd Sisters
"There must be a hundred
silver dollars in here," moaned Boggis, waving a purse. "I mean, that's
not my league. That's not my class. I can't handle that sort of money.
You've got to be in the Guild of Lawyers or something to steal that much."
-- Wyrd Sisters
"I'd like to know if I could
compare you to a summer's day. Because -- well, June 12th was quite nice,
and..." -- Wyrd Sisters
"I daresay," said Granny,
pushing the Fool aside and stepping over a writhing taproot. "If anyone
locked me in a dungeon, there'd be screams." -- Wyrd Sisters
What our ancestors would
really be thinking, if they were alive today, is: "Why is it so dark in
here?" -- Pyramids
There was not a lot that
could be done to make Morpork a worse place. A direct hit by a meteorite,
for example, would count as gentrification. -- Pyramids
All self-respecting river
kingdoms have vast supernatural plagues, but the best the Old Kingdom
had been able to achieve in the last hundred years was the Plague of Frog.
[footnote: It was quite a big frog, however, and got into the air ducts
and kept everyone awake for weeks] -- Pyramids
The following night in the
dormitory one of the boys from further along the coast shyly tried to
put the boy in the next bed inside a wickerwork cage he made in Craft
and set fire to him, and the night after that Snoxall, who had the bed
by the door and came from a little country out in the forests somewhere,
painted himself green and asked for volunteers to have their intestines
wound around a tree. On Thursday a war broke out between those who worshipped
the Mother Goddess in her aspect of the Moon and those who worshipped
her in her aspect of a huge fat woman with enormous buttocks. After that
the masters intervened and explained that religion, while a fine thing,
could be taken too far. -- Pyramids
"Our mum said his heart was
in the right place," said Gern [apprentice embalmer].
The king, hovering dismally in the corner, gave a gloomy nod. Yes, he
thought. Jar three, top shelf. -- Pyramids
And Dios knew that Net was
the Supreme God, and that Fon was the Supreme God, and so were Hast, Set,
Bin, Sot, Io, Dhek, and Ptooie; that Herpetine Triskeles alone ruled the
world of the dead, and so did Syncope, and Silur the Catfish-headed God,
and Orexis-Nupt. Dios was maximum high priest to a national religion that
had fermented and accreted and bubbled for more than seven thousand years
and never threw a god away in case it turned out to be useful. -- Pyramids
"I don't know whether you've
ever seen a book, it's called The Shuttered..."
"...Palace," said Teppic automatically.
"I thought a gentleman like you'd know aobut it," said Ptraci [Royal Handmaiden],
nudging him. "It's a sort of textbook. Well, my great-great-grandmother
posed for a lot of the pictures. Not recently," she added, in case he
hadn't fully understood, "I man, that would be a bit off-putting, she's
been dead for twenty-five years." -- Pyramids
The original builders, who
were of course ancients and therefore wise, knew this very well and the
whole point of a correctly-built pyramid was to achieve absolute null
time in the central chamber so that a dying king, tucked up there, would
indeed live forever - or at least, never actually die. [...]
After a few aeons people forgot this and thought you could achieve the
same effect by
a) ritual
b) pickling people and
c) storing their soft inner bits in jars.
This seldom works. -- Pyramids
It's not generally realised
that camels have a natural aptitude for advanced mathematics, particularly
where they involve ballistics. This evolved s a survival trait, in the
same way as a human's hand and eye co-ordination, a chameleons's camouflage
and a dolphin's renowned ability to save drowning swimmers if there's
any chance that biting them in half might be observed and commented upon
adversely by other humans. -- Pyramids
"You stay here. I'll whistle
if it's safe to follow me."
"What will you do if it isn't safe?"
"Scream." -- Pyramids
The Ephebians made wine out
of anything they could put in a bucket, and ate anything that couldn't
climb out of one. He pushed the food around on his plate. Some of it pushed
back. -- Pyramids
One of the crew materialised
at the end of the corridor and bowed them into the state cabin, his air
of old retainership marred only by the criss-cross pattern of scars on
his head and some tattoos that made the pictures in The Shuttered Palace
look like illustrations in a DIY shelving manual. The things he could
make them do by flexing his biceps could keep entire dockside taverns
fascinated for hours, and he was not aware that the worst moment of his
entire life was only a few minuted away. [...]
Ptraci defused the situation by grabbing Alfonz's arm as he was serving
the Pheasant.
"The Congress of The Friendly Dog and the Two Small Biscuits!" she excaimed,
examining the intricate tattoo. "You hardly ever see that these days.
Isn't it well done? You can even make out the yoghurt." -- Pyramids
Nature abhors dimensional
abnormalities, and seals them neatly away so that they don't upset people.
Nature, in fact, abhors a lot of things, including vacuums, ships called
the "Marie Celeste", and the chuck keys for electric drills. -- Pyramids
All dwarfs are by nature
dutiful, serious, literate, obedient and thoughtful people whose only
minor failing is a tendency, after one drink, to rush at enemies screaming
"Arrrrrrgh!" and axing their legs off at the knee. -- Guards, Guards
People who are rather more
than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have
uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say
things like, "Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else." -- Guards,
Guards
He nodded to the troll which
was employed by the Drum as a splatterer
[footnote: Like a bouncer, but trolls use more force]. -- Guards, Guards
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. --
Guards, Guards
Thunder rolled.
...
It rolled a six. -- Guards, Guards
"Right, you bastards, you're...
you're geography" -- Guards, Guards
Intererstingly enough, the
gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the
dead, and so people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their
deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won't do if they don't
know about it. This explains why it is important to shoot missionaries
on sight. -- Eric
The librarian was, ex officio,
a member of the college council. No-one had been able to find any rule
about orang-utans being barred, although they had surreptiously looked
very hard for one. -- Eric
Below, harshly lit in the
arid vacuum of space, Great A'Tuin the world turtle toiled under the weight
of Creation. On his - or her, the matter had never really been resolved
- carapace the four giant elephants strained to support the Disc itself.
There might have been more efficient ways to build world. You might start
with a ball of molten iron and then coat it with successive layers of
rock, like an old-fashioned gobstopper. And you'd have a very efficient
plantet, but it wouldn't look so nice. Besides, things would drop off
the bottom. -- Eric
The few explorers [of the
jungles of centrl Klatch] who have returned have passed on a number of
handy hints to those who follow after, such as:
1) avoid if possible any hanging-down creepers with beady eyes and a forked
tongue at one end;
2) don't pick up any orange-and-black-striped creepers that are apparently
lying cross the path, twitching, because there is often a tiger on the
other end; and
3) don't go. -- Eric
While working his way along
a wall he came to a huge door, which artistically portrayed a group of
prisoners apparently being given a complete medical check-up
[footnote: From a distance it did, anyway. Close to, no]. -- Eric
"There's a door."
"Where does it go?"
"It stays where it is, I think." -- Eric
"You mean mysterious ancient
races of Amazonian princesses who subject all male prisoners to strange
and exhausting progenitative rites?" said Eric, his glasses beginning
to fog. -- Eric
"Don't you worry about the
captain, sir," he said. "He's got the finest military brain on the continent."
"How do you know? Has anyone ever seen it?" said Rincewind. -- Eric
"'S got to be better than
that bloody sausage, anyway," said a quiet voice by Victor's knee. [...]
Victor let his gaze slide downwards. There was nothing down there but
the little dog, industriously scrtching itself. It looked up slowly, and
said "Woof?" [...]
Victor poked an exploratory finger in his ear. It must have been trick
of an echo, or something. It wasn't that the dog had gone 'woof!', although
that was practically unique in itself; most dogs in the universe never
went 'woof!', they had complicated barks like 'whuuuugh!' and 'hwhoouf!'.
No, it was that it hadn't in fact barked at all. It had said 'woof'. [...]
One of the last things Victor remembered was a voice beside his knee saying,
"Could have bin worse, mister. I could have said 'miaow'." -- Moving
Pictures
"It's stew. Take it or leave
it. Three customers this morning have done both." -- Moving Pictures
"Yeah, and what's this runny
stuff?" said a man in the queue.
Fruntkin drew himself up to his full height. "That," he said, "is the
mayonnaisey. Made it myself. Out of a book," he added proudly.
"Yeah, I expect you did," said the man, prodding it. "Clearly oil, eggs
and vinegar were not involved, right?"
"Specialitay de lar mayson," said Fruntkin.
"Right, right," said the man. "Only it's attacking my lettuce."
Fruntkin grasped his ladle angrily. "Look..." he began.
"No, it's all right," said the prospective diner. "The slugs have formed
a defensive ring." -- Moving Pictures
"Tuppence," said the dog,
wearily. "World's only bloody harmonica-playing dog. Tuppence."
It is the sun, Victor thought. I haven't been wearing a hat. In a minute
I'll wake up and there'll be cool sheets. "Well, you didn't play very
well, I couldn't recognize the tune," he said, stretching his mouth into
a terrible grin.
"You're not supposed to recognize the bloody tune," said Gaspode, sitting
down heavily and industriously scratching one ear with his hind leg. "I'm
a dog. You're supposed to be bloody amazed I can bloody well get a squeak
out of the bloody thing." -- Moving Pictures
"GrooOOowwonnogghrhhooOOo..."
Subtitle: "Vunce again I am fallink in luf (lit., experiencing the pleasant
feeling of being hit over the head with a rock by Chondrodite, the troll
god of love)."
Note: Chondrodite must not be confused with Gigalith, the troll god who
gives trolls wisdom by hitting them on the head with a rock, or Silicarous,
the troll god who brings trolls good fortune by hitting them on the head
with a rock, or with the folk hero Monolith, who first wrested the secret
of rocks from the gods. -- Moving Pictures
"I'm a cat person, myself,"
she said, vaguely.
A low-level voice said: "Yeah? Yeah? Wash in your own spit, do you?" --
Moving Pictures
"This pot," he said, peering
closely, "is actually quite an old Ming vase." He waited expectantly.
"Why's it called Ming?" said the Archchancellor, on cue.
The Bursar tapped the pot. It went ming. -- Moving Pictures
"Why's it bent?" he asked.
"I think it's meant to be, dear," she said, doubtfully.
"I thought swords had to be straight," said Victor.
"Perhaps they start out straight and go bendy with use," said the old
lady, patting him on the hand. "A lot of things do." -- Moving Pictures
The universe contains any
amount of horrible ways to be woken up, such as the noise of the mob breaking
down the front door, the scream of fire engines, or the realization that
today is the Monday which on Friday night was a comfortably long way off.
A dog's wet nose is not strictly speaking the worst of the bunch, but
it has it's own peculiar dreadfulness which connoisseurs of the ghastly
and dog owners everywhere have com to know and dread. It's like having
a small piece of defrosting liver pressed lovingly against you. --
Moving Pictures
"Did I hear things, or can
that little dog speak?" said Dibbler.
"He says he can't," said Victor.
Dibbler hesitated. "Well," he said, "I suppose he should know." --
Moving Pictures
But the trouble was that
ignorance became more interesting, especialy big fascinating ignorance
about huge and important things like matter and creation, and people stoppen
patiently building their little houses of rational sticks in the chaos
of the universe and started getting interested in the chaos itself --
partly because it was a lot easier to be an expert on chaos, but mostly
because it made really good patterns that you could put on a t-shirt.
And instead of getting on with proper science [footnote: like finding
that bloody butterfly whose flapping wings cause all these storms we've
been having lately nd getting it to stop] scientist suddenly went around
saying how impossible it was to know anything, and that there wasn't really
anything you could call reality to know anything about, and how all this
was tremendously exiting, and incidentally did you know there were possibly
all these little universes all over the place but no-one can see them
because they are all curved in on themselves?
Incidentally, don't you think this is a rather good t-shirt? -- Witches
Abroad
"By gor', that's a bloody
enourmous cat."
"It's a lion," said Granny Wetherwax, looking at the stuffed head over
the fireplace.
"Must've hit the wall at a hell of a speed, whatever it was," said Nanny
Ogg.
"Someone killed it," said Granny Weatherwax, surveying the room.
"Should think so," said Nanny. "If I'd seen something like that eatin'
its way through the wall I'd of hit it myself with the poker." -- Witches
Abroad
The Yen Buddhists are the
richest religious sect in the universe. They hold that the accumulation
of money is a great evil and a burden to the soul. They therefore, regardless
of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much
as possible in order to reduce the risk to innocent people. -- Witches
Abroad
Nanny Ogg was more sympathetic
but had a tendency to come out with what Magrat thought of as double-intenders,
althought in Nanny Ogg's case they were generally single entendres and
proud of it. -- Witches Abroad
Jason Ogg pulled Magrat aside.
"Our Sean read to me in the almanac where there's all these fearsome wild
beasts in foreign parts," he whispered. "Huge hairy things that leap out
on travellers, it said. I'd hat to think what'd happen if they leapt out
on mum and Granny."
Margrat looked up into his big red face.
"You will see no harm comes to them, won't you," said Jason.
"Don't you worry," she said, hoping that he needn't. "I'll do my best."
Jason nodded. "Only it said in the almanac that some of them were nearly
extinct anyway," he said. -- Witches Abroad
The owner of the inn flapped
his arms up and down and ran around in circles. Then he pointed at the
castle that towered over the forest. Then he sucked vigorously at his
wrist. Then he fell over on his back. And then he looked expectantly at
Nanny Ogg, while behind him the bonfire of garlic and wooden stakes and
heavy window shutters burned merrily.
"No," said Nanny, after a while. "Still non cunprendy, mine hair." [...]
Under the table, Greebo sat and washed himself. Occasionally he burped.
Vampires have risen from the dead, the grave and the crypt, but have never
managed it from the cat. -- Witches Abroad
"At least they can't muck
up a decent pancake," she said. "What'd they call them here?"
"Crap suzette, I think," said Nanny.
Granny forbore to comment. But she watched with grim satisfaction as the
owner finished the dish and gave her a hopeful smile. "Oh, now he expects
us to eat them," she said. "He only goes and sets fire to them, and then
he still expects us to eat them!" -- Witches Abroad
"Baths is unhygienic," Granny
declared. "You know I've never agreed with baths. Sittin' around in your
own dirt like that." -- Witches Abroad
In Genua, stories came to
life. In Genua, someone set out to make dreams come true. Remember some
of your dreams? -- Witches Abroad
"This is Legba, a dark and
dangerous spirit," said Mrs Gogol. She leaned closer and spoke out of
the corner of her mouth. "Between you and me, he's just a big black cockerel.
But you know how it is."
"It pays to advertise," Nanny agreed. "This is Greebo. Between you and
me, he's a fiend from hell."
"Well, he's a cat," said Mrs Gogol, generously. "It's only to be expected."
-- Witches Abroad
Greebo's technique was unscientific
and wouldn't have stood a chance against any decent swordmanship, but
on his side ws the fact that it is almost impossible to develop decent
swordsmanship when you seem to have run into a food mixer that is biting
your ear off.
The witches watched with interest. "I think we can leave now," said Nanny.
"I think he's having fun." -- Witches Abroad
Bad spelling can be lethal.
For example, the greedy Seriph of Al-Yabi was cursed by a badly-educated
deity and for some days everything he touched turned to Glod, which happened
to be the name of a small dwarf from a mountain community hundreds of
miles away who found himself magically dragged to the kingdom and relentlessly
duplicated. Some two thousand Glods later the spell wore off. These days,
the people of Al-Yabi are renowned for being remarkably short and bad-tempered.
-- Witches Abroad
Most gods find it hard to
walk and think at the same time. -- Small Gods
"Pets are always a great
help in times of stress. And in times of starvation too, o'course." --
Small Gods
Cuius testiculos habes, habeas
cardia et cerebellum. -- Small Gods
The figures looked more or
less human. And they were engaged in religion. You could tell by the knives
(it's not murder if you do it for a god). -- Small Gods
His philosophy was a mixture
of three famous schools -- the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans --
and summed up all three of them in his famous phrase, "You can't trust
any bugger further than you can throw him, and there's nothing you can
do about it, so let's have a drink." -- Small Gods
"Not a man to mince words.
People, yes. But not words." -- Small Gods
"Slave is an Ephebian word.
In Om we have no word for slave," said Vorbis.
"So I understand," said the Tyrant. "I imagine that fish have no word
for water." -- Small Gods
"He says gods like to see
an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at." -- Small Gods
"Now we've got a truth to
die for!"
"No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for."
-- Small Gods
"I like the idea of democracy.
You have to have someone everyone distrusts," said Brutha. "That way,
everyone's happy." -- Small Gods
The current state of knowledge
can be summarised thus: In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded.
Other theories about the ultimate start involve gods creating the universe
out of the ribs, entrails and testicles of their father. There are qute
a lot of these. They are interesting, not for what they tell you about
cosmology, but for what they say about people. Hey, kids, which part do
you think they made your town out of? -- Lords and Ladies
Verence would rather cut
his own leg off than put a witch in prison, since it'd save trouble in
the long run and probably be less painful. -- Lords and Ladies
"And another thing."
It was hard to imagine what other thing there could be, but Nanny Ogg
said "Yes?" anyway.
"Someone got killed up here."
"Oh no," moaned Nanny Ogg. "Not inside the circle too."
"Nope. Don't be draft. It was outside. A tall man. He had one leg longer'n
the other. And a beard. He was probably a hunter."
"How'd you know all that?"
"I just trod on 'im." -- Lords and Ladies
"And there's deer. Thousands
of head of heer. And elk. Wolves all over the place. Mountain lions too,
I shouldn't wonder. I heard that Ice Eagles hae been seen up there again,
too." His eyes gleamed. "There's only half a dozen of 'em left," he said.
Munstrum Ridcully did a lot for rare species. For one thing, he kept them
rare. -- Lords and Ladies
A heap of discarded garments
by the bed suggested that Verence had mastered the art of hanging up clothes
as practised by half the population of the world, and that he had equally
had difficulty with the complex topological manoeuvres necessary to turn
the socks the right way out. -- Lords and Ladies
"I know she's in there,"
said Verence, holding his crown in his hands in the famous Ai-Senor-Mexican-Bandits-Have-Raided-Our-Village
position. -- Lords and Ladies
"I don't hold with paddlin'
with the occult," said Granny firmly. "Once you start paddlin' with the
occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in
spirits you start believing in gods. And then you're in trouble."
"But all them things exist," said Nanny Ogg.
"That's no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em."
-- Lords and Ladies
Granny Weatherwax personally
disliked young Pewsey [Ogg]. She disliked all small children, which is
why she got on with them so well. In Pewsey's case, she felt that no one
should be llowed to wnder around in just a vest even if they were four
yeras old. And the child had a permanently running nose and ought to be
provided with a handkerchief or, failing that, a cork. [...]
"Tell you what," said Nanny, patting Pewsey on the head and then absent-mindedly
wiping her hand on her dress, "you see them young ladies on the other
side of the square? They`ve got lots of sweeties." Pewsey waddled off.
"That's germ warfare, that is," said Granny Weatherwax. -- Lords and
Ladies
Nanny Ogg looked under her
bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck.
-- Lords and Ladies
Greebo always slept on Nanny's
bed; the was he'd affectionately try to claw your eyeballs out in the
morning was as good as an alarm clock. But she always left a window open
all night in case he wanted to go out and disembowel something, bless
him. -- Lords and Ladies
Technically, a cat locked
in a box may be alive or it may be dead. You never know until you look.
In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the
cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat
could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious. -- Lords
and Ladies
After a while, Casanunda
began to feel better about things. The motion of the broomstick was actually
quite soothing. "Carried a lot of passengers, have you?" he said.
"On and off, yes," said Nanny.
Casanunda appeared to be thinking about things. And then he said, in a
voice dripping with scientific inquiry, "Tell me, has anyone ever tried
to mak..."
"No," said Nanny Ogg firmly, "You'd fall off."
"You don't know what I was going to ask."
"Bet you half a dollar?" -- Lords and Ladies
"Do not meddle in the affairs
of wizards, especially simian ones. They are not all that subtle." --
Lords and Ladies
"There," she said, pushing
aside a bracken frond, "the Long Man."
Casanunda peered under her elbow. "Is that all? It's just an old burial
mound."
"Three old burial mounds," said Nanny.
Casanunda took in the overgrown landscape. "Yes, I see them," he said.
"Two round ones and a long one. Well?"
"The first time I saw 'em from the air," said Nanny, "I nearly fell off
the bloody broomstick for laughin'."
There was one of those pauses known as the delayed drop while the dwarf
worked out the topography of the situation. -- Lords and Ladies
Magrat followed him, and
found a second wizard propped against a tree like a ladder. He had a huge
smile creasing his face. "The Bursar," said Ponder. "I think we may have
overdone the dried frog pills a bit." He raised his voice. "How... are...
you... doing... sir?"
"Why, I'll have a little of the roast weasel, if you would be so good,"
said the Bursar, beaming happily at nothing.
"Why's he gone so stiff?" said Magrat.
"We think it's some kind of side effect," said Ponder.
"Can't you do anything about it?"
"What, and have nothing to cross streams on?" -- Lords and Ladies
Dwarfs are very attached
to gold. Any highwayman demanding "You money or your life" had better
bring a folding chair and a packed lunch and a book to read while the
debate goes on. -- Man at Arms
It ahs been speculated that
[a swamp dragon's] habit of exploding violently when angry, exxcited,
frightened or merely plain bored is a developed survival trait to discourage
predators.
[footnote: From the point of view of the species as whole. Not from the
point of view of the drgon now lnding in small pieces round the landsacpe].
-- Man at Arms
If you spent any time in
Lady Ramkin's company, you soon found out what dragons smelled like. If
something put its head in your lap while you were dining, you said nothing,
you just kept passing it titbits and hoped like hell it didn't hiccup.
-- Man at Arms
[Corporal Nobbs] was said
to have the body of a twenty-five year old, although no one knew where
he kept it. -- Man at Arms
If the Creator had said,
"Let there be light" in Ankh-Morpork, he'd have gotten no further because
of all the people saying "What colour?" -- Man at Arms
The corroded motto over the
portico said "NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLOM OF NIT CAN STAY THESE MEßENGERS
ABOT THIER DUTY" and in more spacious days that may have been the case,
but recently someone had found it necessary to nail up an addendum which
read:
DONT ARSK US ABOUT:
rocks
troll's with sticks
All sorts of dragons
Mrs Cake
Huje green things with teeth
Any kinds of black dogs with orange eyebrows
fog
Mrs Cake -- Man at Arms
The river Ankh is probably
the only river in the universe on which the investigators can chalk the
outline of the corpse. -- Man at Arms
The Alchemist's Guild is
opposite the Gambler's Guild. Usually. Sometimes it's above it, or below
it, or falling in bits around it. -- Man at Arms
Sham Harga had run a succesful
eatery for many years by always smiling, never extending credit, and realizing
that most of his customers wanted meals properly balanced between the
four food groups: sugar, starch, grease and burnt crunchy bits. --
Man at Arms
"It could be a torture chamber
or a dungeon or a hideous pit or anything!"
"It's just a student's bedroom, sergeant."
"You see?" -- Man at Arms
The Librarian of Unseen University
had unilaterally decided to aid comprehension by producing an Orang-Utan/Human
Dictionary. He'd been working on it for three months. It wasn't easy.
He'd got as far as "Oook". -- Man at Arms
"Oh, wow! A Klatchian fire
engine! This is more my meteor!" They heard him rummaging around in the
gloom. He emerged pushing a sort of bin on small wheels. It had various
handles and fat leathery bags, and a nozzle at the front. It looked like
a very large kettle. [...]
Nobby pumped a handle energetically. "Last I heard, this thing had been
banned in eight contries and three religions said they'd excommunicate
any soldiers found using it!"
[footnote: Five more embraced it as a holy weapon and instructed that
it be used on all infidels, heretics, gnostics and people who fidgeted
during the sermon] -- Man at Arms
As for Gaspode, he was resigning
himself to a life without love, or at least any more than the practical
affection experienced so far, which had consited of an unsuspecting chihuahua
and a brief liaison with a postman's leg. -- Man at Arms
It is said that whosoever
the gods with to destroy, they first make mad. In fact, whosoever 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. -- Soul Music
The class was learning about
some revolt in which some peasants had wanted to stop being peasants and,
since the nobles had won, had stopped being peasants really quickly.
-- Soul Music
The question seldom addressed
is *where* Medusa had snakes. Underarm hair is an even more embarassing
problem when it keeps biting the top of the deodorant bottle. -- Soul
Music
"Then we play somewhere where
the Guild won't find us," said Glod cheerfully. "We find a club somewhere..."
"Got a club," said Lias, prould. "Got a nail in it."
"I mean a night club", said Glod.
"Still got a nail in it at night." -- Soul Music
So as a result of the dotted
line Klatch ws now incipiently at war with Hersheba and the D'regs. Hersheba
was at war with the D'regs and Klatch, and the D'regs were at war with
everyone, including one another, and having considerable fun because the
D'reg word for 'stranger' was the same as for 'target'. -- Soul Music
Ridcully smacked his lips
happily. "Ah, we certainly know what goes into good beer in Ankh-Morpork,"
he said. The wizards nodded. They certainly did. That's why they were
drinking gin and tonic. -- Soul Music
"...I've been busy working
on my Make-It-Bigger device. You know, I showed you..."
[footnote: Not with very good results, however. Stibbons spent weeks grinding
lenses and blowing glassware and had finally produced a device which showed
the tremendous amount of tiny animals there were in one drop of water
from the river Ankh. The Archchancellor had taken a look and then remarked
that anything in which that much life could exist had to be healthy.]
-- Soul Music
Buddy felt his eyes watering.
It looked like a troll, except that it ws shorted than a dwarf. It wasn't
smaller that a dwarf - what Asphalt lacked in height he made up in breadth
and, while on the subject, also in smell. "How come," said Cliff, "he's
so short?"
"N'elephant sat on me," said Asphalt, sulkily.
Glod blew his nose. "Only sat?" -- Soul Music
The Dean looked down t his
shiny new leather robe. Everyone had said how good it was. They'd admired
BORN TO RUNE. His hair was right, too. He was thinking of shaving off
his beard but just leaving the side bits because that felt right. And
coffee... yes... coffee was in there somewhere. Coffee was all part of
it. And there was the music. That was in there. That was everywhere. But
there was something else, too. Something missing. He wasn't sure what
it was, only that he'd know it if he ever saw it. -- Soul Music
The barman leaned forward.
"Have I seen you before?"
I'M IN HERE QUITE OFTEN, YES.
A WEEK LAST WEDNESDAY,
FOR EXAMPLE.
"Ha! That was a bit of a do. That's when poor old Vince got stabbed."
YES.
"Asking for it, calling yourself Vincent the Invulnerable."
YES. INACCURATE, TOO.
"The Watch are saying it was suicide."
Death nodded. Going into the Mended Drum and calling yourself Vencent
the Invulnerable was clearly suicide by Ankh-Morpork standards .--
Soul Music
It was the most impressive
collapse the bar had ever seen. The tall dark stranger fell backwards
slowly, like a tree. There was no cissy sagging of the knees, no cop-out
bouncing off a table on the way down. He simply went from vertical to
horizontal in one marvellous geometric sweep. Several people applauded
as he hit the floor. Then they searched his pockets, or at least made
an effort to search his pockets but couldn't find any. And then they threw
him into the river.
[footnote: Or, at least, on to the river.] -- Soul Music
There was a roar like the
scream of a camel who has just seen two bricks. -- Soul Music
Lord Vetinari, as supreme
ruler of Ankh-Morpork, could in theory summon the Archchancellor of Unseen
University to his presence and, indeed, have him executed if he failed
to obey.
On the other hand Mustrum Ridcully, as head of the college of wizards,
had made it clear in polite but firm ways that he could turn him into
a small amphibian and, indeed, start jumping around the room on a pogo
stick. -- Interesting Times
[The Dean] lowered his voice.
"Am I alone in thinking, by the way, that it doesn't add to the status
of this University to have an ape on the faculty?"
"Yes," said Ridcully flatly. "You are. We've got the only librarian who
can rip off your arm with his leg. People respect that. Only the other
day the head of the Thieves' Guild was sking me if we could turn their
librarian into and ape and, besides, he's the only one of you buggers
who stays awake more'n an hour a day." -- Interesting Times
And [Lord Hong] had risen
to the leadership of one of the most influential families in the Empire
by relentless application, total focusing of his mental powers, and six
well-executed deaths. The last one had been that of his father, who'd
died happy in the knowledge that his son was maintaining an old family
tradition. The senior families venerated their ancestors, and saw no harm
in prematurely adding to their numbers. -- Interesting Times
Except during extreme flood
conditions it is extremely difficult to make much progress on the Ankh,
and the University rowing teams compete by running over the surface of
the river. This is generally quite safe provided they don't stand in one
place for very long and, of course, it eats the soles off their boots.
-- Interesting Times
The Red Army met in secret
session. They opened their meeting by singing revolutionary songs and,
since disobedience to authority did not come easily to the Agatean character,
these had titles like 'Steady Progress and Limited Disobedience While
Retaining Well-Formulated Good Manners'. -- Interesting Times
Rincewind could scream for
mercy in nineteen languages, and just scream in another forty-four. This
is important. Inexperienced travellers thing that 'Aargh!!!' is universal,
but in Betrobi it means 'highly enjoyable' and in Howondaland it means,
variously, 'I would like to eat you foot', 'Your wife is a big hippo'
and 'Hello, Thinks Mr Purple Cat.' One particular tribe has a fearsome
reputation for cruelty merely because prisoners appear, to them, to be
shouting 'Quick! Extra boiling oil!' -- Interesting Times
Perhaps it was Rincewind's
imagination, but as he passed them he could have sworn that he heard the
cry: "Necessarily Extended Duration To The Red Army! Regrettable Decease
Without Undue Suffering To The Forces Of Oppression!"
Cohen had been right. There seemed to be a revolution. But the Empire
had been in unchanged existence for thousands of years, courtesy and a
respect for protocol were part of its very fabric, and by the sound of
it the revolutionaries had yet to master the art of impolite slogans.
-- Interesting Times
There was a a terrible scream
from the far side of the room. Rincewind was half out of his seat before
he noticed the little stage, and the actors. A trio of musicians had squatted
down on the floor. The Inn's customers turned to watch. It was, in a way,
quite enjoyable. Rincewind didn't quite follow the plot, but it went something
like: man gets girl, man loses girl to other man, man cuts couple in hlf,
mn falls on own sword, all come up front for a bow to what might be the
Agatean equivalent of "Happy Days Are Here Again'. It was a little hard
to make out the fine details because the actors shouted "Hoorrrrrraa!"
a lot and spent much of their time talking to the audience and their masks
all looked the same to Rincewind. The musicians were in a world of their
own or, by the sound of it, three different worlds. -- Interesting
Times
"We are a travelling theatre,"
she said. "It's convenient. Noh actors are allowed to move around."
"Aren't they?" said Rincewind.
"You do not understand. We are Noh actors."
"Oh, you weren't too bad." -- Interesting Times
"Luck is my middle name,"
said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." --
Interesting Times
"Et a man once," mumbled
Mad Hamish. "In a siege, it were."
"You ate someone?" said Mr Saveloy, beckoning to the waiter.
"Just a leg."
"That's terrible!"
"Not with mustard." -- Interesting Times
"What's the pentalty for
entering the Forbidden City again, Teach?"
"I believe it's a punishment similar to hanging, drawing and quatering.
So, you see, it would be a good idea if..."
"How're you drawn, then?"
"I think your innards are cut out and shown to you."
"What for?"
"I don't really know. To see if you recognize them, I suppose."
"What... like, 'Yep, that's my kidneys, yep, that's my breakfast'?"
"How're you quatered? Is that, like, they give you somewhere to stay?"
"I think not, from context."
"Well, how're you hung?"
"Excuse me?"
"Hur, hur, hur... sorry, sorry." -- Interesting Times
Hunghung was old. The culture
was based on custom, the alimentary tract of the common water buffalo,
and base treachery. Lord Hong was in favour of all three, but they did
not add up to world domination, and Lord Hong was particularly in favour
of that, provided it was achieved by Lord Hong. -- Interesting Times
"But there are causes worth
dying for," said Butterfly.
"No, there aren't! Because you've only got one life but you can pick up
another five causes on any street corner!"
"Good grief, how can you live with a philosophy like that?"
Rincewind took a deep breath. "Continuously!" -- Interesting Times
And Magrat had been married
for three months. That ought to mean she was out of the first category
[maiden]. At least - Nanny twitched her train of thought on to a branch
line - she *probably* was. Oh, *surely*. Young Verence had sent off for
a helpful manual. It had pictures in it, and numbered parts. Nanny knew
this because she had sneaked into the royal bedroom while visiting one
day, and had spent an instructive ten minutes drawing moustaches and spectacles
on some of the figures. Surely even Magrat and Verence could hardly fail
to... No, they must have worked it out, even though Nanny had heard that
Verence had been seen inquiring of people where he might buy a couple
of false moustaches. -- Maskerade
Presently Greebo awoke, stretched,
and hopped silently to the floor. Then the most vicious and cunning a
pile of fur that ever had the intelligence to sit on a bird table with
its mouth open and a piece of toast balanched on its nose vanished through
the open window. -- Maskerade
Most cats are nervous and
ill at ease when taken out of their territory, which is why cat books
go on about putting butter on their paws and so on, presumably because
constantly skidding into the walls will take the animal's mind off where
the walls actually are. -- Maskerade
Greebo also had a cat's approach
to possessions, which was simply that nothing edible had a right to belong
to other people. -- Maskerade
Granny looked t her cards,
and threw them down.
FOUR QUEENS. HMM.
THAT IS VERY
HIGH.
Death looked down at his cards, and then up into Granny's steady, blue-eyed
gaze. Neither moved for some time. Then Death laid the hand on the table.
I LOSE, he said. ALL I HAVE
IS FOUR ONES.
-- Granny gambling for a child's life, Maskerade
"Er, excuse me," said the
man as Nanny Ogg turned away, "But what is that on your shoulders?"
"It's... a fur collar," said Nanny.
"Excuse me, but I just saw it flick its tail."
"Yes. I happen to believe in beauty without cruelty."
[...]
Someone tapped Nanny Ogg on the shoulder. "Madam, your fur stole is eating
my chocolates!"
[...]
"I assure you, madam, you fur is eating my chocolates. It's started on
the second layer!"
"Oh, dear. Show him the little map inside the lid, will you? He's only
after the truffles, and you can soon rub the dribble off the others."
-- Maskerade
There was something about
the woman that left Mr Bucket terribly perplexed. He was finding it a
little difficult to converse with her. As a conversational gambit, "Hello,
I understand you have a lot of money, can I have some please?" lacked,
he felt, a certain subtlety. -- Maskerade
Greebo's suspicious eyes
were two glows in the gloom.
"Poke him with a broom-handle," suggested Granny.
"No," said Nanny. "With someone like Greebo you have to use a little bit
of kindness."
Granny closed her eyes and waved a hand. There was a yowl from under the
kitchen's dresser and a sound of frantic scrabbling. Then, his claws scoring
tracks in the floors, Greebo came out backwards, fighting all the way.
"Mind you, a lot of cruelty does the trick as well," Nanny conceded.
-- Maskerade
Nanny picked up one of the
sheaves of paper. Her lips moved as she read the meticulous copperplate
wirting. "An opera about cats?" she said. "Never heard of an opera about
cats..." She thought for a moment, and then added to herself: But why
not. It's a damn good idea. The lives of cats are just like operas, when
you come to think about it. She leafed through the other piles. "Guys
and Trolls? Hubwards Side Story? Miserable Les? Who's he? Seven Dwarfs
for Seven Other Dwarfs? What're all these, Walter?" -- Maskerade
He ran a finger around the
inside of his collar. It hadn't been such a bad life in wholesale cheese.
The most you had to worry about was one of poor old Reg Plenty's trouser
buttons in the Farmhouse Nutty and the time young Weevins minced his thumb
in the stirring machine and it was only by luck they happened to be doing
strawberry yoghurt at the time... -- Maskerade
"But we are witches and could
prob'ly pay for our travel by, e.g., curing any embaressing little ailments
you may have."
The coachman frowned. "I ain't carying you for nothing,old crone. And
I haven't got any embarressing little ailments!"
Granny stepped forward. "How many would you like?" -- Maskerade
He fished for Curious Squid,
so called because, as well as being squid, they were curious. That is
to say, their curiosity was the curious thing about them. Shortly after
they got curious about the latern that Solid had hung over the stern of
his boat, they started to become curious about the way in which various
of their numbers suddenly vanished skywards with a splash. Some of them
became curious - very briefly curious - about the sharp barbed thing that
was coming very quickly towards them. The Curious Squid were extremely
curious. Unfortunately, they weren't very good at making connections.
-- Jingo
'Sir Samuel, the Klatchian
language does not even have a word for lawyer,' said Mr Slant.
'Doesn't it?' said Vimes. 'Good for them.' -- Jingo
'Every official gentleman
is entitled, in fact I believe used to be required, to raise men when
the city required it. And, of course, any citizen has the right to bear
arms. Bear that in mind, please.'
'Arms is one thing. Holding weapons in 'em and playing soldiers is another.'
-- Jingo
'And you've recruited...
how many?'
'Oh, just one or two. We're still very short-handed, sir.'
'We are with Reg [a zombie]. His arms keep falling off.' -- Jingo
In Ghat they believe in vampire
watermelons, although folklore is silent about what they believe about
vampire watermelons. Possilby they suck back. -- Carpe Jugulum
The monetary aspect is vital.
The Assassins profess a great regard for the sancity of human life, and
therefore charge enormous amounts for taking it away. As they say: "We
do not kill merely for a handful of silver. It's a lapful of gold or nothing."
-- The Discworld Companion
Such money as the beggars
do make, it must be stressed, is entirely obtained by
(1) begging and
(2) not begging.
(1) is self-explanatory. (2) owes a lot to what might be called the Ankh-Morpork
view of social economics. You clearly don't want a lot of beggars hanging
around at your wedding or other salubrious occasions, so the accepted
thing to do is send the Guild a small sum of money and a kind of anti-invitation,
which sees to it that men with interesting running sores and a body odour
you could split wood with do not turn up. -- The Discworld Companion
Students should in any case
be wary of references to the '[Ankh-Morpork] civil war'; there have been
at least seven in the city's recorded history, as well as a large number
of uncivil or even downright impolite ones. -- The Discworld Companion
The Druids of the Disc pride
themselves on their forward-looking approach to the discovery of the mysteries
of the universe. Of course, they believe in the essential unity of all
life, the healing power of plants, the natural rhythm of the seasons and
the brning alive of anyone who doesn't approach all this in the right
frame of mind. -- The Discworld Companion
The Duckman: A beggar in
Ankh-Morpork. He has a duck on his head. At least, everyone thinks he
has a duck on his head. The Duck Man knows he das no duck on his head.
The duck's views on this are unrecorded. -- The Discworld Companion
Douglas Adams
There is a theory which states
that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why
it is here, it will instanly disappear and be replaced by something even
more bizzare and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that
this has already happened.
Plenty of people did not
care for him much, but then there is a huge difference between disliking
somebody -- maybe even disliking them a lot -- and actually shooting them,
strangling them, dragging them through the fields and setting their house
on fire. It was a difference which kept the vast majority of the population
alive from day to day.
"What's so unpleasant about
being drunk?"
"You ask a glass of water."
"It is not the fall that
kills you. It's the sudden stop at the end."
The ships hung in the air,
the exact same way that bricks don't.
Human beings, who are almost
unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are
also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
Humans think they are smarter
than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc...and
all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins
believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons.
"You know, said Arthur, 'it's
at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from
Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space, that I really
wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young"
"Why, what did she tell you?"
"I don't know, I didn't listen."
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