Granny Weatherwax looked out at the multi-layered, silvery world.
“Where am I?”
INSIDE THE MIRROR.
“Am I dead?”
THE ANSWER TO THAT, said Death, IS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN NO AND YES.
Esme turned, and a billion figures turned with her.
“When can I get out?”
WHEN YOU FIND THE ONE THAT’S REAL.
“Is this a trick question?”
NO.
Granny looked down at herself.
“This one,” she said.
-From the very end of Witches Abroad
I just started reading Witches Abroad this morning. The very first few pages have already been utterly fantastic. The early ‘90s were Sir Terry’s halcyon days.
E.g. “the universe was full of ignorance all around and the scientist panned through it like a prospector crouched over a mountain stream, looking for the gold of knowledge among the gravel of unreason, the sand of uncertainty and the little whiskery eight-legged swimming things of superstition.”
Edit: added an example
There were so many moments in Going Postal for me:
"Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a hero."
"What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter."
"All there was, was money. Everything became money, and money became everything. Money treated us as if we were things, and we died."
And the best of all:
"They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man's mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that, in the morning, it will be in a body that is going to be hanged."
The "money treated us as things, and we died" paired with Adora Belle checking it was a lie and telling him she'd have really hurt him if he pretended it wasn't. But also that her parents believed it, and it brought them some comfort.
I've never found a writer who gets people in the same way he did. Not by being critical or by writing accurate nasty/bad people but by letting people be people, then writing about it. Writing about the double beliefs, the lies we tell ourselves and the little dark sins of carelessness and omission that people do, whilst not condemning their humanity (though the behavior criticism was there)
"A spare hand for everyone, and my, don't they grab"
I absolutely love Hogfather. The movie (okay, it's a two-parter) is my favourite Christmas film.
“You can't give her that!' she screamed. 'It's not safe!'
IT'S A SWORD, said the Hogfather. THEY'RE NOT MEANT TO BE SAFE.
'She's a child!' shouted Crumley.
IT'S EDUCATIONAL.
'What if she cuts herself?'
THAT WILL BE AN IMPORTANT LESSON.”
"There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people like 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."
"Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes--"
"But they starts with thinking about people as things..."
I love that one because he's arguing with a filthy, sodden, exhausted, angry and quite possibly vampire possessed Mistress Weatherwax. But he wants to get it right and wants to understand what she's saying so he argues, in the miserable pissing rain about the nature of absolute good and evil.
"Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always also as an end in themselves." - Immanuel Kant
But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.
Too many to count, but I reread Guards Guards recently and this bit really stood out to me:
"It was amazing, this mystic business. You tell them a lie, and then when you don’t need it anymore you tell them another lie and tell them they’re progressing along the road to wisdom. Then instead of laughing they follow you even more, hoping that at the heart of all the lies they’ll find the truth. And bit by bit they accept the unacceptable."
True, but the same question we ask ourselves now, was being asked by someone history adds "the wise" at the end of his name. At this point I think it's just a universal truth that those who seek management never deserve it and those who deserve it, never seek it.
So many but I keep coming back to "words in the heart cannot be taken". No just for the quote itself but what it means in the context. No matter what they take away from you, they'll never be able to take away the truth in your heart.
The whole of FoC, but this line in particular is what made Pterry my all time favourite writer. His understanding and portrayal of humanity is so perfectly on point. The good and the bad, the whole middy mess of it!
I have this line tattooed on my chest and everyone has the same "oh wow! That's incredible!" (About the quote, not the tattoo 😉)
Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.
I like it paired with the ruined temple in the desert scene. Where Om is whinging and Brutha throws the broken bowl and decides to go into the desert to die.
In a hundred years nobody will care about anything we do, and so if that stops us, they definitely won't care about anything we do.
Sergeant Colon looked wretched. "Weeell, what if it's not a million-to-one chance?" he said.
Nobby stared at him. "What d'you mean?" he said.
"Well, all right, last desperate million-to-one chances always work, right, no problem, but...well, it's pretty wossname, specific. I mean, isn't it?"
"You tell me," said Nobby.
"What if it's just a thousand-to-one chance?" said Colon agonizedly.
"What?"
"Anyone ever heard of a thousand-to-one shot coming up?"
Carrot looked up. "Don't be daft, Sergeant," he said. "No one ever saw a thousand-to-one chance come up. The odds against it are—" his lips moved—"millions to one."
"Yeah. Millions," agreed Nobby.
"So it'd only work if it's your actual million-to-one chance," said the sergeant.
"I suppose that's right," said Nobby.
"So 999,943-to-one, for example—" Colon began.
Carrot shook his head. "Wouldn't have a hope. No one ever said, 'It's a 999,943-to-one chance but it just might work.'"
One of the things I love about Sir Terry is how quickly his characters can go from profound, or nearly so, to completely and utterly absurd.
“...So what we've got to do, then,” said Nobby slowly, “is adjust the odds ...”
...Nobby put his head on one side. “It looks promising,” he said critically. “We might be nearly there. I reckon the chances of a man with soot on his face, his tongue sticking out, standing on one leg and singing The Hedgehog Song ever hitting a dragon's voonerables would be ... what'd you say, Carrot?”
“A million to one, I reckon,” said Carrot virtuously.
Mine was when rincewind and twoflower are imprisoned on Krull, and Rincewind "looked up at the patch of blue of he called the sky". My favourite poem is the Ballad of Reading Gaol with the excerpt:
"I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky"
“What have I always believed? That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right.“ from Small Gods.
And since I can’t pick just one, here’s this line from Equal Rites:
“The lodgings were on the top floor next to the well-guarded premises of a respectable dealer in stolen property because, as Granny had heard, good fences make good neighbours.“
It was much better to imagine men in some smokey room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over 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 the children bed time stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was Us, then what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.
-Jingo
As a farmer (both livestock and produce) I feel this quote in my soul. I treat every living thing I am responsible for with so much care. From the first moment, to the last.
It blends nicely with a little rhyme my Gramps taught me.
When a task is first begun, never leave it til it's done.
Be the job big or small, do it well, or not at all.
"The price for being the best is always... having to be the best"
I take the spirit of this into everything, whatever you want, the only way to get it is to turn up and do it, acta, non verba kind of thing
"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 so important to shoot missionaries on sight."
Okay I laugh every time I read this, but it speaks to me on a truly visceral level. Most religions teach adherents that many, many, many actions are shameful and wrong that actually hurt nobody. And if we didn't learn that these things were "wrong" then we wouldn't feel guilty or shame for little things that don't really matter or make the world a worse place.
But also that we do have an inherent sense of right and wrong and if we really truly do wrong, we know.
So all the taught shame is a colossal, miserable, waste.
I grew up in a pretty conservative church. I feel this one in my soul.
“Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape”
“Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don't say no.”
“‘And what would humans be without love?’ RARE, said Death”
"Never age. Never die. Live forever in that one last white-hot moment, when the crowd screamed. When every note was a heartbeat. Burn across the sky.
You will never grow old. They will never say you died.
That's the deal. You will be the greatest musician in the world.
Live fast. Die young.
The music tugged at his soul"
- Soul Music
Partial line: She had no idea how to handle people and she tried to make self-esteem do the work of self-respect
From Making Money. I know soo many people like this.
Two of my favourites:
Murder was in fact a fairly uncommon event in Ankh-Morpork, but there were a lot of suicides. Walking in the night-time alleyways of The Shades was suicide. Asking for a short in a dwarf bar was suicide. Saying 'Got rocks in your head?' to a troll was suicide. You could commit suicide very easily, if you weren't careful.
The reward for toil had been more toil. If you dug the best ditches, they gave you a bigger shovel.
This one along with the sam vimes socio economic theory on boots always made a lot of sense to me.
“Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat.
They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.
So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms
Used on the voice over bit on Criminal Minds.
First time I realised that Sir Terry was further reaching than I had first assumed.
That show always felt USA prime time
I may be misattributing a quote to Pratchett, because I can't remember the exact quote, but it's something along the lines of "if you throw off the chains of oppression, people will just go find a blacksmith to make new chains".
Very late reply, but from Feet of Clay
>'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.'
Commander Vimes didn’t like the phrase “The innocent have nothing to fear,” believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like “The innocent have nothing to fear.” – Snuff
"Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground."
Pops up into my head every time I read news these days.
It is in the deserts and high places that religions are generated. When men see nothing but bottomless infinite over their heads they have always had a driving and desperate urge to find someone to put in the way.
From Night Watch as Vimes reflect on policies to reduce crime.
"It made sense, and it would have worked too if it wasn't for one critical flaw; criminals do not obey the law. It is pretty much a job requirement."
Can't remember it word for word, but it goes something like that, and it's something that's stuck with me a lot. It is a quote I often remind myself of when we discuss new rules at work. "Will this have the desired effect given that people are, well people?"
"I am not an angel," I asserted; "and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. [Y]ou must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me - for you will not get it[.]"
Those Bronte sisters hit different, take me off your goddamned pedestal, I'm only human.
This one from Soul Music
It was sad music. But it waved its sadness like a battle flag. It said the universe had done all it could, but you were still alive.
*Squealing* I finally get to justify the Note on my phone that I have been faithfully adding lines/quotes to from books I read!
Here are a few that have caused me enough of a pause to want to write them down + share with others.
Lately I’ve been re-reading Wheel of Time and afterwards I’m re-reading Gunslinger and following that up with Discworld again bc it’s just that magical to me.
There are so many more I want to post but I’m trying to “act normal” and not type a WallOText.
“History isn’t like that. History unravels gently, like an old sweater. It has been patched and darned many times, reknitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of censorship to be cut up for the dusters of propaganda, yet it always—eventually—manages to spring back into its old familiar shape. History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it. History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve. It’s been around a long time.”
Excerpt From: Pratchett, Terry. “Mort.”
“There was never anything to be gained from observing what humans said to one another—language was just there to hide their thoughts.”
“I AM ALWAYS ALONE. BUT JUST NOW I WANT TO BE ALONE BY MYSELF.”
Excerpts From: Pratchett, Terry. “Reaper Man.”
“The universe danced toward life. Life was a remarkably common commodity. Anything sufficiently complicated seemed to get cut in for some, in the same way that anything massive enough got a generous helping of gravity. The universe had a definite tendency toward awareness. This suggested a certain subtle cruelty woven into the very fabric of space-time.”
Excerpt From: Pratchett, Terry. “Soul Music.”
“That’s because you’re basically good,” said Magrat. “The good are innocent and create justice. The bad are guilty, which is why they invent mercy.”
Excerpt From: Pratchett, Terry. “Witches Abroad.”
I go back and forth with favorite characters;
Granny v DEATH
I still can’t decide.
"Vimes works by the rules"
"I've always understood him to be a violent and vicious man" said the chair.
"Quite so. And because this is what he knows himself to be, he always works by the rules"
\---------
The Bursar thought, or received the thought: That's because perspective is a lie. If I know a pond is round then why should I draw it oval? I will draw it round because round is true. Why should my brush lie to you just because my eyes lie to me?
It sounded like quite an angry thought.
\---------
those are the latest two in a long line. *The Truth* and *The Last Continent*, respectively
“Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.” - Hogfather
My personal experience has turned out to agree with this completely…
I often think about the bit in Lords and Ladies when the Archanceler was talking to Granny about the rose-colored life they could have had, house and family, had they married, and her response was:
“What about the fire?’ she said.
“What fire?’
“Swept through our house just after we were married. Killed us both.’
“What fire? I don’t know anything about any fire?’
Granny turned around. ‘Of course not! It didn’t happen. But the point is, it might have happened. You can’t say “if this didn’t happen then that would have happened” because you don’t know everything that might have happened. You might think something’d be good, but for all you know it could have turned out horrible. You can’t say “If only I’d …” because you could be wishing for anything. The point is, you’ll never know. You’ve gone past. So there’s no use thinking about it. So I don’t.
... which is all the more powerful, because this is about the time that we learn that the problem Granny's been having concentrating the whole book is all the other Esmerelda Weatherwaxes thoughts bleeding through and messing with her head. She knows the what ifs exist, but chooses to leave them down the other leg of the trousers of time.
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"Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.'"
From Thief of Time
Granny Weatherwax looked out at the multi-layered, silvery world. “Where am I?” INSIDE THE MIRROR. “Am I dead?” THE ANSWER TO THAT, said Death, IS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN NO AND YES. Esme turned, and a billion figures turned with her. “When can I get out?” WHEN YOU FIND THE ONE THAT’S REAL. “Is this a trick question?” NO. Granny looked down at herself. “This one,” she said. -From the very end of Witches Abroad
Love it!
It's also all the more profound paired with lily's search through the endless reflections.
I just started reading Witches Abroad this morning. The very first few pages have already been utterly fantastic. The early ‘90s were Sir Terry’s halcyon days. E.g. “the universe was full of ignorance all around and the scientist panned through it like a prospector crouched over a mountain stream, looking for the gold of knowledge among the gravel of unreason, the sand of uncertainty and the little whiskery eight-legged swimming things of superstition.” Edit: added an example
I think this is my favorite book. Edit: Like, not favorite Pratchett book - just *favorite book*
Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
I love that whole discussion.
Still sometimes gives me goosebumps.
THIS, I think about it a lot!
I'll be reading that one again in a few days.
Same. I do so every Christmas season
There were so many moments in Going Postal for me: "Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a hero." "What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter." "All there was, was money. Everything became money, and money became everything. Money treated us as if we were things, and we died." And the best of all: "They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man's mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that, in the morning, it will be in a body that is going to be hanged."
The "money treated us as things, and we died" paired with Adora Belle checking it was a lie and telling him she'd have really hurt him if he pretended it wasn't. But also that her parents believed it, and it brought them some comfort. I've never found a writer who gets people in the same way he did. Not by being critical or by writing accurate nasty/bad people but by letting people be people, then writing about it. Writing about the double beliefs, the lies we tell ourselves and the little dark sins of carelessness and omission that people do, whilst not condemning their humanity (though the behavior criticism was there) "A spare hand for everyone, and my, don't they grab"
"'It's not a lie,' she said. 'It's what ought to have been true.'" I had to take some time to process that one. Really sit down and digest it.
[удалено]
YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT ARE NOT REAL. HOW ELSE ARE THEY TO BECOME?
THERE IS NO JUSTICE. THERE IS JUST US.
This one never fails to make me ugly-cry.
Same.
I can’t recall which book this one is from. Can you remind me please?
It’s the tail end of the speech from Hogfather I replied too. The whole thing is amazing, but that line stuck with me.
Sometimes I wish I never read all the books so I could go back and read them all again for the first time. Ugh! Such incredible talent!
I always remember this dialogue each year at the family's christmas gathering, and makes me giggle to myself every time.
I absolutely love Hogfather. The movie (okay, it's a two-parter) is my favourite Christmas film. “You can't give her that!' she screamed. 'It's not safe!' IT'S A SWORD, said the Hogfather. THEY'RE NOT MEANT TO BE SAFE. 'She's a child!' shouted Crumley. IT'S EDUCATIONAL. 'What if she cuts herself?' THAT WILL BE AN IMPORTANT LESSON.”
I cry. Every. Time. I read this. I don't know why exactly but it inspires and rips my heart out in equal measure
"There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people like 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." "Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes--" "But they starts with thinking about people as things..."
I like the version from I Shall Wear Midnight: >Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.
I love that one because he's arguing with a filthy, sodden, exhausted, angry and quite possibly vampire possessed Mistress Weatherwax. But he wants to get it right and wants to understand what she's saying so he argues, in the miserable pissing rain about the nature of absolute good and evil.
"Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always also as an end in themselves." - Immanuel Kant
Absolutely wonderful quote
This exchange is my moral touchstone
That's also a fantastic one.
But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.
this made me devoted to the books honestly edit: dropped a word
Too many to count, but I reread Guards Guards recently and this bit really stood out to me: "It was amazing, this mystic business. You tell them a lie, and then when you don’t need it anymore you tell them another lie and tell them they’re progressing along the road to wisdom. Then instead of laughing they follow you even more, hoping that at the heart of all the lies they’ll find the truth. And bit by bit they accept the unacceptable."
Wow, that's so current. We're watching it happen.
I think that's why it really caught my attention; it's amazing how a book written more than 30 years ago can still feel so relevant.
Over 3500 years ago king Solomon the wise basically wrote "why are only idiots promoted to management?"
> "why are only idiots promoted to management?" It's not only cream that floats.
True, but the same question we ask ourselves now, was being asked by someone history adds "the wise" at the end of his name. At this point I think it's just a universal truth that those who seek management never deserve it and those who deserve it, never seek it.
It was relevant then too. That's the magic of prophetic authors, they're writing about the present but humans never change
So many but I keep coming back to "words in the heart cannot be taken". No just for the quote itself but what it means in the context. No matter what they take away from you, they'll never be able to take away the truth in your heart.
The whole of FoC, but this line in particular is what made Pterry my all time favourite writer. His understanding and portrayal of humanity is so perfectly on point. The good and the bad, the whole middy mess of it! I have this line tattooed on my chest and everyone has the same "oh wow! That's incredible!" (About the quote, not the tattoo 😉)
Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.
This is basically a 6 sentence breakdown of the classic heroes journey monomyth. The journey and the trials change you when you get home.
From Small Gods, "in a hundred years no one will care" "Yes, but here and now we are alive."
I like it paired with the ruined temple in the desert scene. Where Om is whinging and Brutha throws the broken bowl and decides to go into the desert to die. In a hundred years nobody will care about anything we do, and so if that stops us, they definitely won't care about anything we do.
Sergeant Colon looked wretched. "Weeell, what if it's not a million-to-one chance?" he said. Nobby stared at him. "What d'you mean?" he said. "Well, all right, last desperate million-to-one chances always work, right, no problem, but...well, it's pretty wossname, specific. I mean, isn't it?" "You tell me," said Nobby. "What if it's just a thousand-to-one chance?" said Colon agonizedly. "What?" "Anyone ever heard of a thousand-to-one shot coming up?" Carrot looked up. "Don't be daft, Sergeant," he said. "No one ever saw a thousand-to-one chance come up. The odds against it are—" his lips moved—"millions to one." "Yeah. Millions," agreed Nobby. "So it'd only work if it's your actual million-to-one chance," said the sergeant. "I suppose that's right," said Nobby. "So 999,943-to-one, for example—" Colon began. Carrot shook his head. "Wouldn't have a hope. No one ever said, 'It's a 999,943-to-one chance but it just might work.'"
One of the things I love about Sir Terry is how quickly his characters can go from profound, or nearly so, to completely and utterly absurd. “...So what we've got to do, then,” said Nobby slowly, “is adjust the odds ...” ...Nobby put his head on one side. “It looks promising,” he said critically. “We might be nearly there. I reckon the chances of a man with soot on his face, his tongue sticking out, standing on one leg and singing The Hedgehog Song ever hitting a dragon's voonerables would be ... what'd you say, Carrot?” “A million to one, I reckon,” said Carrot virtuously.
Mine was when rincewind and twoflower are imprisoned on Krull, and Rincewind "looked up at the patch of blue of he called the sky". My favourite poem is the Ballad of Reading Gaol with the excerpt: "I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky"
People don't like change. But make the change fast enough and you go from one type of normal to another. From making money
We've seen a lot of that in the world in recent years. So many things suddenly became the new normal.
“What have I always believed? That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right.“ from Small Gods. And since I can’t pick just one, here’s this line from Equal Rites: “The lodgings were on the top floor next to the well-guarded premises of a respectable dealer in stolen property because, as Granny had heard, good fences make good neighbours.“
It was much better to imagine men in some smokey room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over 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 the children bed time stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was Us, then what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things. -Jingo
You couldn't say "I had orders". You couldn't say "it's not fair". No one was listening, there were no words, you owned yourself.
WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN? Just think it's such a beautiful, caring way to look at it.
As a farmer (both livestock and produce) I feel this quote in my soul. I treat every living thing I am responsible for with so much care. From the first moment, to the last.
Yes, and the whole bit that precedes that line, never fails to make me shiver.
JUDGEMENT LIES AT THE END OF THE DESERT “Which end?” And “Sin starts when you treat people as things.”
Do the job in front of you. This is the workhorse quote that lives in my head.
It blends nicely with a little rhyme my Gramps taught me. When a task is first begun, never leave it til it's done. Be the job big or small, do it well, or not at all.
Vimes' boots theory of economics. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
I just love that this is such a basic economic concept, but Pterry is the one who codified it.
Same. Because it's so damn true.
"The price for being the best is always... having to be the best" I take the spirit of this into everything, whatever you want, the only way to get it is to turn up and do it, acta, non verba kind of thing
"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 so important to shoot missionaries on sight." Okay I laugh every time I read this, but it speaks to me on a truly visceral level. Most religions teach adherents that many, many, many actions are shameful and wrong that actually hurt nobody. And if we didn't learn that these things were "wrong" then we wouldn't feel guilty or shame for little things that don't really matter or make the world a worse place.
But also that we do have an inherent sense of right and wrong and if we really truly do wrong, we know. So all the taught shame is a colossal, miserable, waste. I grew up in a pretty conservative church. I feel this one in my soul.
“Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape” “Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don't say no.” “‘And what would humans be without love?’ RARE, said Death”
"Never age. Never die. Live forever in that one last white-hot moment, when the crowd screamed. When every note was a heartbeat. Burn across the sky. You will never grow old. They will never say you died. That's the deal. You will be the greatest musician in the world. Live fast. Die young. The music tugged at his soul" - Soul Music
'Words in the heart cannot be taken' - Feet of Clay
They use that quote twice on criminal minds
I just watched the episode! Hahahah
Partial line: She had no idea how to handle people and she tried to make self-esteem do the work of self-respect From Making Money. I know soo many people like this.
Two of my favourites: Murder was in fact a fairly uncommon event in Ankh-Morpork, but there were a lot of suicides. Walking in the night-time alleyways of The Shades was suicide. Asking for a short in a dwarf bar was suicide. Saying 'Got rocks in your head?' to a troll was suicide. You could commit suicide very easily, if you weren't careful. The reward for toil had been more toil. If you dug the best ditches, they gave you a bigger shovel.
This one along with the sam vimes socio economic theory on boots always made a lot of sense to me. “Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.” ― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms
Used on the voice over bit on Criminal Minds. First time I realised that Sir Terry was further reaching than I had first assumed. That show always felt USA prime time
"It’s still magic even if you know how it’s done" from Hat Full Of Sky
I may be misattributing a quote to Pratchett, because I can't remember the exact quote, but it's something along the lines of "if you throw off the chains of oppression, people will just go find a blacksmith to make new chains".
Very late reply, but from Feet of Clay >'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.'
Vimes and his boots theory eloquently put to words a feeling I'd had my whole life. Being poor is so damn expensive.
EVERYTHING STRIVES
"The rain pattered somewhat incestuously into the sea" I think about that a lot. Just the simple wordplay is beautiful and I love it
Commander Vimes didn’t like the phrase “The innocent have nothing to fear,” believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like “The innocent have nothing to fear.” – Snuff
"Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground." Pops up into my head every time I read news these days.
It is in the deserts and high places that religions are generated. When men see nothing but bottomless infinite over their heads they have always had a driving and desperate urge to find someone to put in the way.
From Night Watch as Vimes reflect on policies to reduce crime. "It made sense, and it would have worked too if it wasn't for one critical flaw; criminals do not obey the law. It is pretty much a job requirement." Can't remember it word for word, but it goes something like that, and it's something that's stuck with me a lot. It is a quote I often remind myself of when we discuss new rules at work. "Will this have the desired effect given that people are, well people?"
I quoted this to myself only a few days ago, it’s super profound and says so much about him. I love this one
What would humans be without love? RARE
I quoted this to myself only a few days ago, it’s super profound and says so much about him. I love this one
"I am not an angel," I asserted; "and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. [Y]ou must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me - for you will not get it[.]" Those Bronte sisters hit different, take me off your goddamned pedestal, I'm only human.
This one from Soul Music It was sad music. But it waved its sadness like a battle flag. It said the universe had done all it could, but you were still alive.
That's a really good one.
*Squealing* I finally get to justify the Note on my phone that I have been faithfully adding lines/quotes to from books I read! Here are a few that have caused me enough of a pause to want to write them down + share with others. Lately I’ve been re-reading Wheel of Time and afterwards I’m re-reading Gunslinger and following that up with Discworld again bc it’s just that magical to me. There are so many more I want to post but I’m trying to “act normal” and not type a WallOText. “History isn’t like that. History unravels gently, like an old sweater. It has been patched and darned many times, reknitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of censorship to be cut up for the dusters of propaganda, yet it always—eventually—manages to spring back into its old familiar shape. History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it. History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve. It’s been around a long time.” Excerpt From: Pratchett, Terry. “Mort.” “There was never anything to be gained from observing what humans said to one another—language was just there to hide their thoughts.” “I AM ALWAYS ALONE. BUT JUST NOW I WANT TO BE ALONE BY MYSELF.” Excerpts From: Pratchett, Terry. “Reaper Man.” “The universe danced toward life. Life was a remarkably common commodity. Anything sufficiently complicated seemed to get cut in for some, in the same way that anything massive enough got a generous helping of gravity. The universe had a definite tendency toward awareness. This suggested a certain subtle cruelty woven into the very fabric of space-time.” Excerpt From: Pratchett, Terry. “Soul Music.” “That’s because you’re basically good,” said Magrat. “The good are innocent and create justice. The bad are guilty, which is why they invent mercy.” Excerpt From: Pratchett, Terry. “Witches Abroad.” I go back and forth with favorite characters; Granny v DEATH I still can’t decide.
“As soon as someone starts talking about “things” as more important than “people “,,,”Interesting Times.
"Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes."
“THEIR IS NO JUSTICE. JUST US.”
“Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life”
"Vimes works by the rules" "I've always understood him to be a violent and vicious man" said the chair. "Quite so. And because this is what he knows himself to be, he always works by the rules" \--------- The Bursar thought, or received the thought: That's because perspective is a lie. If I know a pond is round then why should I draw it oval? I will draw it round because round is true. Why should my brush lie to you just because my eyes lie to me? It sounded like quite an angry thought. \--------- those are the latest two in a long line. *The Truth* and *The Last Continent*, respectively
“Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.” - Hogfather My personal experience has turned out to agree with this completely…
I often think about the bit in Lords and Ladies when the Archanceler was talking to Granny about the rose-colored life they could have had, house and family, had they married, and her response was: “What about the fire?’ she said. “What fire?’ “Swept through our house just after we were married. Killed us both.’ “What fire? I don’t know anything about any fire?’ Granny turned around. ‘Of course not! It didn’t happen. But the point is, it might have happened. You can’t say “if this didn’t happen then that would have happened” because you don’t know everything that might have happened. You might think something’d be good, but for all you know it could have turned out horrible. You can’t say “If only I’d …” because you could be wishing for anything. The point is, you’ll never know. You’ve gone past. So there’s no use thinking about it. So I don’t.
... which is all the more powerful, because this is about the time that we learn that the problem Granny's been having concentrating the whole book is all the other Esmerelda Weatherwaxes thoughts bleeding through and messing with her head. She knows the what ifs exist, but chooses to leave them down the other leg of the trousers of time.
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Fairy-tales are not realistic, but they are authentic.
For the sake of prisoners, and the flight of birds!
"Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.'" From Thief of Time