01c. 1981 ADI don't see what's so triffic about creating people as people and then gettin' upset 'cos they act like people.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
02c. 1981 ADI would like you to teach [the orcs] civilised behaviour," said Ladyship coldly.He appeared to consider this. "Yes of course, I think that would be quite possible," he said. "And who would you send to teach the humans?Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
03c. 1981 ADFantasy is escapism, but wait... Why is this wrong? What are you escaping from, and where are you escaping to? Is the story opening windows or slamming doors? The British author G.K. Chesterton summarized the role of fantasy very well. He said its purpose was to take the everyday, commonplace world and lift it up and turn it around and show it to us from a different perspective, so that once again we see it for the first time and realize how marvelous it is. Fantasy - the ability to envisage the world in many different ways - is one of the skills that make us human.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
04c. 1981 ADHe shrugged. - They're just people - he said. - They're just doing what people do. Sir.Lord Vetinari gave him a friendly smile.- Of course, of course - he said. - You have to believe that, I appreciate. Otherwise you'd go quite mad. Otherwise you'd think you're standing on a feather-thin bridge over the vaults of Hell. Otherwise existence would be a dark agony and the only hope would be that there is no life after death. I quite understand.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
05c. 1981 ADThere is never a bad time for a pun. There’s also never really a good time for a pun. You might as well just stay braced for a pun at all times, and ride them when they come with as much grace as you can manage.The fact that you can replace ‘pun’ with ‘disaster’ in the last three rules says a lot about the human race.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
06c. 1981 ADIf you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
07c. 1981 ADWitches are naturally nosy,” said Miss Tick, standing up. “Well, I must go. I hope we shall meet again. I will give you some free advice, though.”“Will it cost me anything?”“What? I just said it was free!” said Miss Tick.“Yes, but my father said that free advice often turns out to be expensive,” said Tiffany.Miss Tick sniffed. “You could say this advice is priceless,” she said, “Are you listening?”“Yes,” said Tiffany.“Good. Now...if you trust in yourself...”“Yes?”“...and believe in your dreams...”“Yes?”“...and follow your star...” Miss Tick went on.“Yes?”“...you’ll still be beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy. Goodbye.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
08c. 1981 ADHe sighed. It had come to this. He was a responsible authority, and people could use terms like "core values" at him with impunity.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
09c. 1981 ADYou did what you were told or you didn't get paid, and if things went wrong it wasn't your problem. It was the fault of whatever idiot has accepted this message for sending in the first place. No one cared about you, and everyone at headquarters was an idiot. It wasn't your fault, no one listened to you. Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn't care.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
10c. 1981 ADHumans! They lived in a world where the grass continued to be green and the sun rose every day and flowers regularly turned into fruit, and what impressed them? Weeping statues. And wine made out of water! A mere quantum-mechanistic tunnel effect, that'd happen anyway if you were prepared to wait zillions of years. As if the turning of sunlight into wine, by means of vines and grapes and time and enzymes, wasn't a thousand times more impressive and happened all the time...Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
11c. 1981 ADAnd that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
12c. 1981 ADFire is easy to work with if you keep your mind clear, but pain . . . pain fights back. Pain is alive. Pain is the enemy.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
13c. 1981 ADIt's a terrible thing for a man when his woman gangs up on him wi' a toadTerry Pratchett / quote ↗
14c. 1981 ADThere are millions of chords. There are millions of numbers. And everyone forgets the one that is a zero. But without the zero, numbers are just arithmetic. Without the empty chord, music is just noise.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
16c. 1981 ADThey say that the eyes of some paintings can follow you around the room, a fact that I doubt, but I am wondering whether some music can follow you for ever.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
17c. 1981 ADYou won't enjoy it," sighed Crowley. "It's been in the car for more than a fortnight." A heavy bass beat began to thump through the Bentley as they sped past Heathrow. Aziraphale's brow furrowed. "I don't recognize this," he said. "What is it?" "It's Tchaikovsky's 'Another One Bites the Dust'," said Crowley, closing his eyes as they went through Slough. To while away the time as they crossed the sleeping Chilterns, they also listened to William Byrd's "We Are the Champions" and Beethoven's "I Want To Break Free." Neither were as good as Vaughan Williams's "Fat-Bottomed Girls.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
18c. 1981 ADAnd one day Amber takes her troll’s dinner down to the cave and finds him—” Rock waved his hands in vague yet thoroughly descriptive motions “—with another lady troll. So she go home and get her club and come back and beat him to death, thump, thump, thump. ’Cos he was her troll and he done her wrong. Is very romantic song.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
19c. 1981 ADA voice said: One. One. One, two. One, two. Then the footsteps went back into the distance. After a while, another voice said: One, two, three, four- And the universe came into being. It was wrong to call it a big bang. That would just be noise, and all that noise could create is more noise and a cosmos full of random particles. Matter exploded into being, apparently as chaos, but in fact as a chord. The ultimate power chord. Everything, all together, streaming out in one huge rush that contained within itself, like reverse fossils, everything that it was going to be. And, zigzagging through the expanding cloud, alive, that first wild live music. This had shape. It had spin. It had rhythm. It had a beat, and you could dance to it. Everything did.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
20c. 1981 ADIn the words of the philosopher Sceptum, the founder of my profession: am I going to get paid for this?Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
21c. 1981 ADNAUGHTY AND NICE? said Death. BUT IT'S EASY TO BE NICE IF YOU'RE RICH. IS THIS FAIR?Albert wanted to argue. He wanted to say, Really? In that case, how come so many of the rich buggers is bastards? And being poor don't mean being naughty, neither.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
22c. 1981 ADThe money… will talk?' said Mr Spools carefully.'Imps,' said Moist. 'They're only a sort of intelligent spell. They don't even have to have a shape. We'll print them on the higher denominations.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
23c. 1981 ADThat was an important rule of any game: always make it easy for people to give you money.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
24c. 1981 ADA flicker of defiance flared very briefly in Rincewind's battered heart.Terry Pratchett / quote ↗
